■Cambodia
US gives AIDS funds
Health officials yesterday hailed an announcement by the US that it will provide US$22.6 million to help combat the spread of AIDS in Cambodia. The US Embassy said in a statement Thursday that the funds will support "ongoing programs that have been instrumental in reducing the HIV/AIDS infection rate in Cambodia, particularly among the military and commercial sex workers." While the US government intends to sign an aid agreement with the Cambodian government, the money will be available "only to non-governmental organizations," the statement said.
■ Malaysia
Man not to be hanged
A man sentenced to hang in Malaysia for heroin trafficking has escaped the death penalty after an appeals court found he lied to police about the drugs to protect his girlfriend, a newspaper reported yesterday. Tan Ewe Huat has spent the past 13 years in prison following his 1990 arrest after 86 grams of heroin was found in a room he and his girlfriend shared, The Star reported. Both were charged with trafficking, but the case against the girlfriend was thrown out of court Thursday after Tan told police the heroin was his. On hearing the verdict, Tan asked a Chinese language interpreter, "I'm free? No hanging?"
■ Laos
US warns of danger
A series of shooting and bomb attacks on buses in Laos has prompted the US State Department to issue its second warning in a month about traveling in the communist country. "There have been renewed attacks on all forms of transportation in Laos," says an announcement posted on the department's Web site and seen in Bangkok on Friday. It said "death and injury to civilians" resulted from recent attacks in and around Sam Neua in northern Laos and at least three other assaults on buses and bus stations in the past month in Vientiane and southern Laos.
■ Indonesia
Mob steals telescope parts
Light-fingered members of a Mars-gazers mob left Jakarta's largest planetarium with more than just glimpses of the red planet which was at its closest to Earth earlier this week, news reports said yesterday. Management of the astronomical observatory center in Central Jakarta has complained that essential parts of two high-power telescopes went missing after thousands of people mobbed the planetarium Wednesday night to take a close-up peek at Mars, only 55,757,930km away -- its closest proximity in 60,000 years.
■ China
China bans `Tomb Raider'
China has banned Angelina Jolie's new Tomb Raider movie because censors say it shows the nation in a negative light. An unidentified censorship official quoted by the South China Morning Post said yesterday the film, the second in the Tomb Raider series, damaged China's reputation by giving the impression of a country in chaos with no government and overrun by secret societies. "I feel that the westerners have made their presentation of China with malicious intent," the official said. "The movie does not understand Chinese culture. It does not understand China's security situation. In China, there cannot be secret societies." The newspaper said Will Smith's movie Bad Boys II had also been banned in China for portraying Cuba in a negative light.
■United Kingdom
Naked rambler arrested
The naked rambler, Steve Gough, 44, was back in prison on Thursday, only two days after spending a week in the same jail in Inverness. With a pink blanket sparing the blushes of Dingwall sheriff court, Gough was accused of being obsessive and self-indulgent in his pursuit of the right to walk starkers from Land's End to John O' Groats. It was his 12th arrest, and fourth appearance in the Scottish courts. Police said Gough, from Hampshire in southern England, had just crossed the Inverness city limits on Wednesday when he was seen by a succession of motorists, naked save for a flag, a rucksack and an all-over tan.
■ United Kingdom
Nanny becomes millionaire
A British nanny has been left US$1m, free life-time use of a US$9m mansion in the Hamptons and the guardianship of two adopted children by a New York heiress who left her husband nothing. Generosa Ammon Pelosi, who died of breast cancer last Friday, did not mention her estranged husband, Daniel Pelosi, in the 37-page will. She also left US$250,000 and a Porsche to a contractor in Manhattan and another US$250,000 to her mother-in-law. Ammon Pelosi, who was 46, left written instructions that her nanny, Kathryn Mayne, 59, should be the guardian of her 13-year-old adopted Russian-born twins, Alexa and Gregory. She also decreed that Mayne could stay at the Hamptons home "for the duration of her life."
■ France
Heat death toll released
More than 11,400 people died during a record-breaking heat wave during the first half of August, the French government said yesterday in its first official death toll from the disaster widely seen as mishandled by top ministers. Health Minister Jean-Francois Mattei, who has been the target of most of the criticism, said in a statement that 11,435 more deaths than normal were registered between August 1 and 15, when daily temperatures of 40℃ and above roasted the country. The release of the official death toll came after the government had played down doctors' warnings of rapidly growing piles of bodies in the country's morgues.
■ Cuba
Cigar record broken
A veteran Cuban cigar maker broke his second world record for rolling the longest stogie in the world. Jose Castelar Cairo's recognition by the Guinness Book of World Records was announced on Thursday. It took Castelar five days to manufacture his record-shattering 14m cigar -- a feat that far surpassed his first milestone: a 3m cigar he and his buddies rolled in 1999 as a way to attract passing tourists. "We never thought the cigars we were making would be for Guinness," Castelar said.
■ United Kingdom
Reward for stolen Da Vinci
Insurers have offered a reward of up to six figures (in pounds sterling) for the return of Leonardo da Vinci's Madonna with the Yarnwinder, which was stolen on Wednesday from one of Britain's wealthiest landowners. Some experts said the loss was comparable only to the theft of the Mona Lisa. The Madonna, worth between US$47.4 million and US$94.8 million, was plucked from the wall of Drumlanrig Castle's gallery by two men posing as tourists who overpowered a young guide.
Agencies
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