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World News Quick Take

■Japan
Defensive missiles sought
Japan's Defense Agency is seeking to purchase US missiles worth Japanese Yen 2 billion (US$17 million) each to help defend the country against a possible attack from North Korea, a major daily reported yesterday. The Mainichi newspaper did not specify how many Standard Missile-3's Japan hopes to buy. But it did quote unnamed agency sources as saying the agency is seeking several hundred billion yen for the missiles as part of its overall Japanese Yen 140 billion (US$1.19 billion) budget for the next fiscal year.

■ Australia
Howard defends superheroes
Mild-mannered Prime Minister John Howard went into battle yesterday on behalf of superheroes after some Australian childcare centers banned kids from dressing as caped crusaders like Superman and Batman. "That is political correctness gone mad," Howard told Melbourne radio station 3AW. The bespectacled former solicitor and fan of the genteel game of cricket said he had thrown superhero-themed parties for his children when they were young. But some childcare centers in the southern city of Melbourne have banned crime-fighting superheroes including Superman, Batman, Spiderman and the Hulk, saying the costumes encourage aggressive play.

■ Thailand
Stewardess harassed twice
A Thai Airways International flight attendant who complained of being sexually molested by a Korean passenger was then blackmailed to have sex with a member of an airline committee set up to investigate the incident, a news report said yesterday. Member of Parliament Prachuap Ungphakorn was quoted by The Nation newspaper as saying the Korean passenger touched the flight attendant's breast while pretending to reach for her name tag. The enraged Thai Airways stewardess then removed her name tag and threw it at the groping passenger, prompting the airline's management to set up a committee to investigate the incident. Prachuap said the stewardess, who was not named, was then subjected to a second dose of sexual harassment when an airline executive threatened to find her at fault if she refused to have sex with him.

■ Cambodia
Sam Rainsy fined
Cambodia's opposition party leader Sam Rainsy was found guilty of vote-buying before the July 27 national election and fined US$2,500 dollars, officials said yesterday. The Provincial Election Committee in Kompong Cham found the opposition party leader guilty of giving some 660,000 riel (US$165) to families in the province two days before the election in violation of election law, election officials said. "A representative of the Sam Rainsy Party admitted that he did this," said Leng Sochea, spokesman for the National Election Committee.

■ Sri Lanka
Residents urged to eat rice
Rice for breakfast, rice for lunch. That's the new dictate from the Sri Lankan government as it battles a mounting surplus amid a truce in its long-running civil war. Rice is already a staple for most of Sri Lanka's 18.6 million people, but they usually only eat it once a day. But with farmers fearing that a record rice harvest will drive down prices, the government has decided to tackle the surplus by eating it. "We appeal to the people to eat rice for at least two meals in a day," agricultural minister S.B. Dissanayake said Thursday.

■United States
City pulls plug on cameras
The city of Tampa has decided to dismantle a system of surveillance cameras put up in the city after admitting that the cameras failed to help solve a single crime. The city put up 36 facial recognition cameras two years ago to take pictures of passers-by so their images could be compared with a database containing the pictures of 30,000 wanted people. A spokesman for the Tampa police department was quoted in Thursday's Washington Times as saying the cameras had not helped in identifying or arresting any criminals.

■ Serbia-Montenegro
44 `assassins' charged
Serbian prosecutors charged 44 people, including the ex-commander of a notoriously brutal police unit, in the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic Thursday. Djindjic, known for his pro-Western stance, was gunned down March 12 as he stepped from his car in front of government headquarters in Belgrade. Milorad Lukovic and 15 others were charged with murdering Djindjic, prosecutors said in a statement. Lukovic, a prime suspect in the assassination, is a former commander of the Red Berets, a unit known for its brutality during the wars in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo in the 1990s.

■ Saudi Arabia
Killing non-Muslims a `sin'
Saudi Arabia's chief cleric deemed it a sin for Muslims to kill non-Muslims in a religious ruling meant to counter terrorism. Muslims who kill or rape non-Muslims or steal their money are committing not jihad, but "great sin [and] causing harm to themselves," Grand Mufti Abdul-Aziz al-Sheik said in the fatwa issued Thursday and carried by the official Saudi Press Agency. The mufti called for "true understanding of religion, especially the meaning of jihad [holy war] for the sake of God."

■ United Kingdom
Suspected terrorist arrested
A former Iranian ambassador to Argentina, wanted there in connection with the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish community center in which 85 people were killed, was arrested Thursday in northern England. Police in Durham, northeast England, arrested Hade Soleimanpour, 47, at his home there on an extradition warrant, police sources said. Soleimanpour was to appear at Bow Street Magistrates' Court in London yesterday, Metropolitan Police headquarters said.

■ United Kingdom
Sexual problems common
Lack of interest in sex, premature orgasm among men, inability to orgasm among women and anxiety about sexual performance are chronic problems in Britain, according to studies published in last Saturday's issue of the British Medical Journal. A survey of 1,065 London women and 447 London men who consulted a doctor found that 40 percent of the women were diagnosed with a sexual problem, and the rate was 22 percent among men. Meanwhile, an analysis of data from a nationwide survey of sexual attitudes and lifestyles found 35 percent of British men and 54 percent of women had at some point had at least one sexual problem lasting at least a month. The findings show that sexual dysfunction in Britain is far more widespread than previously thought.

Agencies
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