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World News Quick Take

■ Hong Kong
Pop star has cancer
Hong Kong pop star Anita Mui, well known in Chinese communities the world over, announced she has cervical cancer. "In a recent check-up, I was confirmed with cervical cancer," Mui told a news conference, flanked by a group of friends including international stars Jackie Chan and Michelle Yeoh. "I'm now undergoing treatment," said the 39-year-old actress-singer. "I'm facing this positively." Mui, who shot to stardom after winning a singing contest in 1982, said she would continue to work.

■ Pakistan
Lightning kills 27
Lightning during heavy monsoon rains struck homes in two remote Pakistani villages early yesterday, killing at least 27 people and leaving many others injured, police said. The deadliest strike occurred overnight in the tiny hamlet of Shalgah, 120km north of Peshawar, said Zahir Khan, a local police official. The lightning struck the home of a local villager named Sher Mohammed, killing 16 people and destroying it and several surrounding homes. Another early-morning lightning strike in the nearby village of Gandigar killed 11 people and injured many others, police said.

■ Singapore
Cop wanted free sex
An anti-vice police officer was accused of asking a Thai prostitute for free sex in exchange for alerting her to impending raids, it was reported yesterday. Siva Rajakumar, 27, a detective staff sergeant with the Criminal Investigation Department, faces corruption charges after his Singapore district court appearance, The Straits Times said. He was alleged to have obtained free sexual services from Damrikarnvisan Somying, who operated out of a bar. The woman allegedly had sex with him on two separate days. In exchange, Siva allegedly agreed not to report her and keep the woman informed about impending raids.

■ Malaysia
Thief returns diety's statue
A century-old statue of a Chinese deity which was stolen from a Malaysian temple during a power blackout earlier this week has been returned, local media reported yesterday. Temple secretary Lim Eng Soon said he found the wooden statue placed near the temple's main entrance after receiving a call on his mobile phone from a man who informed him the deity was back at the temple. The wooden statue of the Tua Peh Kong or the God of Prosperity was missing from the main altar in a temple in northern Penang state when power resumed after three hours after the blackout on Monday. The 10-inch idol is a major draw for merchants seeking blessings and is almost as old as the temple itself, which was built in 1890.

■ Indonesia
Marriott Hotel reopens
Jakarta's J.W. Marriott Hotel will reopen tomorrow, just over a month after a car bomb exploded near its lobby, killing 12 people and injuring 147, the management said yesterday. The building remained structurally intact, allowing for repairs to be carried out relatively quickly, officials said. "We are going to be back in business. We are ready to open our doors," said Mellani Solagratia, the Marriott's public relations manager. She said the number of guests who reserved rooms starting Sept. 8 "is quite significant" and the restaurants, cafes and facilities damaged by the blast would be fully operational.

■ United States
Attempt to bomb druglord
A British citizen charged with trying to buy a fighter jet to kill Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar in 1991 on behalf of a rival drug cartel was granted $100,000 bail on Friday. David Brian Tomkins, 63, was arrested by US immigration agents at Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport earlier this week. US Magistrate Judge Frances Stacy set the bond after a brief detention hearing on Friday. Tomkins must post $5,000 cash and would have to remain with his sister-in-law in Ohio while his case is pending, the court said.

■ United kingdom
Illusionist confined to box
Illusionist David Blaine has embarked on his most daring stunt -- 44 days of starvation and solitary confinement in a glass box hung from a crane. Suspended for more than six weeks in a plexiglass prison beside London's River Thames, the "modern-day Houdini" will eat no food and have one tube for water and another for urinating. The American escapologist, who has buried himself alive in a glass coffin, been encased in a giant block of ice and thrown himself off a 10-storey pillar onto cardboard boxes, believes this is the most dangerous feat he has ever attempted.

■ United states
Alert on terror suspects
The FBI issued a worldwide alert Friday for four men linked to al-Qaida, including a suspected terror cell leader and an avowed suicide attacker, after new intelligence indicated they might be plotting attacks against the US. The bulletin came amid an increase in intelligence chatter that suggested heightened terrorist activity as the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks nears. Still, the government has not uncovered a specific threat or plot that would warrant raising the national terror threat level from its current elevated status.

■ India
No Indian troops in Iraq
Domestic political considerations are likely to dissuade India's Hindu nationalist-led coalition government from sending troops to Iraq even if a new UN Security Council resolution is passed, a Hindu daily said yesterday. Quoting unnamed sources in the government, the newspaper said the ruling BJP party's top leaders believed it would be politically disastrous if any Indian soldier died in Iraq. National elections are due in India by October 2004. Although India had rejected on July 14 a US request for troops to Iraq, the cabinet said their deployment could take place if there were an explicit mandate from the UN.

■ United states
Menstruation suppressed
A new birth-control pill named Seasonale promises to reduce the frequency of women's periods, from every month to four times a year. The contraceptive pills, approved by the Food and Drug Administration on Friday, aren't a new chemical. Nor is the idea of menstrual suppression new. For decades, many doctors have told women how to skip a period by continually taking the active birth-control pills in each month's supply and ignoring the week of dummy pills in each packet. Seasonale promises to make the option a little more convenient, with packaging that gives women 12 straight weeks of active pills and then a week of dummy pills for their period.

■ United Kingdom
Saudis accused of torture
Five Britons who spent two and a half years in jail in Saudi Arabia after being convicted of a series of bomb attacks were systematically tortured, they told the Daily Mail newspaper yesterday. The five Britons, who were granted clemency in August along with a Canadian and a Belgian, said they were beaten, tortured and deprived of sleep in order to extract confessions. One man said he had only confessed to the bombings after his jailers threatened to arrest his wife and rape her. The Saudi embassy in London rejected any suggestion that the men were tortured, telling reporters recently that they stayed in air conditioned rooms with regular access to visitors, lawyers, exercise facilities and whatever food they asked for.

■ United States
Scientists mix up drugs
Researchers, horrified to find they had used a mislabeled bottle in an experiment, retracted their findings on Friday, saying they had failed to show the drug Ecstasy can cause a certain pattern of brain damage. Their original report, published in September 2002, said they had found Parkinson's disease-like damage in the brains of monkeys injected with Ecstasy, or MDMA. "The authors recently discovered that the drug used to treat all but one animal in that report came from a bottle that contained methamphetamine instead of the intended drug, MDMA," the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which published the study in its journal Science, said in a statement.

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