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World News Quick Take

■Hong Kong
SARS lab to be set up
The Chinese University in Hong Kong said yesterday it will finance a top-grade laboratory to conduct research on the deadly SARS virus. Associate Dean of the Chinese University's medical school, Dennis Lo, told reporters after a meeting in Guangzhou the "level-three mobile laboratory to conduct research on diseases including SARS, will be finished within a few months." Laboratories are graded according to a three-tier international standard with level-three being the highest grade. The announcement came after the South China Morning Post newspaper reported that two laboratories at the Prince of Wales Hospital had stopped cultivating the SARS virus after it was revealed they fell short of international standards.

■ China
222 get food poisoning
Food poisoning among students during a training program at a Chinese military facility sent 222 people to the hospital, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. No deaths were reported in the incident in Tianjin, a port city east of Beijing, and most patients were discharged Thursday after one night in the hospital, the report said. The outbreak was blamed on spoiled chicken and sausage served Wednesday to students from four polytechnic schools who were on a 10-day training program at the facility, Xinhua said.

■ Myanmar
UN expert pessimistic
The attack this spring by pro-government protesters on Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her followers could end all hopes for political reconciliation in the military-ruled Asian nation, a UN human rights expert says. More than 100 people are alleged to be still missing or in detention as a result of the May 30 events, many reportedly injured and unable to contact relatives or lawyers, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro said in a report to the UN General Assembly circulated Thursday. According to witness testimonies, he said supporters of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy were attacked by people believed to be members of the pro-government Union Solidarity and Development Association with clubs and iron bars. "Unofficial reports suggest that at least eight persons are believed to be dead. Reportedly, a monk and two students were also killed on May 31 during clashes while protesting the previous day's incident," he said.

■ Australia
Aussies getting even fatter
Australia, runner-up to the US in the obesity stakes, is gaining on the world's fattest nation, a study released yesterday showed. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare estimates 9 million adults are overweight or obese. Sixteen per cent of men and 17 per cent of women are obese, or having a body weight one-fifth above the ideal. Forty-two per cent of men and 25 per cent of women are overweight.

■ India
No troops for Iraq
India said it could not send soldiers to Iraq even under a new UN Security Council resolution because they were too busy tackling domestic concerns. Since June, the US has been pressing India to send at least 17,000 soldiers to Iraq as part of an international stabilization force. India turned down the request in July saying it would consider troop deployment only under an explicit UN mandate.

■ Ghana
Enslaved children freed
Some 100 children in Ghana sold into slavery by their parents were freed on Thursday at Yeji, 500km from Accra, after joint efforts by relief agencies, Ghana's Minister for Children's Affairs Gladya Ashmah said. The children, between the ages of three and 16 years were freed, after the International Organisation of Migration and Ghana's Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs intervened. They will be reunited with their parents. Ashmah blamed poverty as the cause of the slavery.

■ Canada
Serial killer trial postponed
The man accused of being Canada's worst serial killer will not stand trial for murder before next year, after a court date was postponed on Thursday. Lawyers for Robert Pickton appeared briefly in British Columbia Supreme Court to ask for more time to review mounting evidence before a trial date is set. Pickton's alleged victims are on a police list of 61 missing Vancouver women. They vanished over a 25-year period from Vancouver's seedy Downtown Eastside neighborhood, long a street market for drugs and prostitution.

■ United States
Chong's pipe dream busted
Actor Tommy Chong of the spaced-out, dope-smoking comedy duo "Cheech & Chong" was sentenced to nine months in prison and fined US$20,000 on Thursday for distributing marijuana pipes over the Internet. The 65-year-old Canadian-born entertainer asked US District Judge Arthur Schwab for a sentence of community service, saying in a statement that he was not the perpetually stoned loser he portrays in Hollywood films. "I have a drug problem with marijuana," Chong told the court, saying he had overcome dependency through constructive hobbies including learning to dance the salsa.

■ Italy
Porn church reconsecrated
A church in central Italy may need reconsecrating after police discovered it had been the location for a pornographic film. The church of San Vicenzo's seedy past came to light when a local -- watching Il Confessionale (The Confessional Box) -- recognized the spot. The local priest said the film crew told him they were shooting a wedding scene in the church. But actually, a man dressed as a priest was filmed having sex with a woman playing the bride. Under canon law the Bishop of Marsi, Lucio Renna, would have to rebless all services held in San Vicenzo, east of Rome, since the film was shot in 1998.

■ Germany
Sex games lead to manhunt
The sadomasochistic sex games of two Germans prompted a massive police hunt involving over 40 officers and fire services after witnesses mistook their frolics for a violent crime. Police in the western city of Duesseldorf began a search for a black Porsche after alarmed callers reported seeing a man in the car battering a blindfolded person on her hands and knees with a stick. Fire services and a police helicopter assisted in the hunt until police tracked down the car's owner, a 31-year-old man. "The interview with the `suspect' revealed he had met with a woman and that the two indulged their sexual appetites together in the Porsche," police said in a statement. The woman confirmed his story.

■Russia
One left in Chechnya vote
Two major contenders were declared out of Chechnya's presidential election on Thursday, turning the contest into little more than a one-horse race for the Kremlin's favored candidate, Akhmad Kadyrov. The Oct. 5 election, denounced by armed separatists, is a key part of President Vladimir Putin's plan to end a decade of conflict and legitimize Russian rule. One eliminated contender said the contest had become a recipe for continued violence. Aslambek Aslakhanov, Chechen member of the national parliament, said he had pulled out to become a presidential aide. He denied this was a Kremlin plan to leave the field clearer for Kadyrov, a former Muslim clergyman who has run the local administration since 2000.

■ United Kingdom
Straw attacks French
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has accused French leaders of suffering from an anti-American "neurosis," a tabloid newspaper reported yesterday, adding that Straw had triggered an "astonishing diplomatic row." The Daily Mail, quoting Straw's comments to a documentary to be screened on BBC television tomorrow, reported Straw had argued tensions between Paris and London had blown up after French President Jacques Chirac was let "off the leash" by winning last year's elections and no longer having to "co-habit" with a socialist prime minister. "Suddenly you had a right-wing government which was literally off the leash," Straw was quoted as saying.

■ Canada
Hells Angels plead guilty
Nine men linked to the Hells Angels biker gang pleaded guilty on Thursday to reduced charges in their trial involving organized crime and gang warfare in Quebec. They had been charged with first-degree murder, but entered guilty pleas to charges of gangsterism, drug trafficking and conspiracy to commit murder. Three other defendants will face a new trial on first-degree murder charges. The plea bargain followed an adjournment this week in the trial for the 12 defendants rounded up in police raids on biker gangs in March 2001. A battle for control of the Quebec drug trade between the Hells Angels and a rival gang killed more than 150 people in the decade before the raids.

■ United Kingdom
Music keeps brain young
Scientists revealed on Thursday that members of a British symphony orchestra had more little grey cells than ordinary people in a part of the brain known as Broca's area. Vanessa Sluming of the University of Liverpool told the British Association of Science's meeting in Salford, England, that although this area declines with age, orchestral players kept more of their brain cells than non-players as they aged.

■ United Kingdom
Middle class turns to crime
Europe's middle classes are turning to crime, committing offences like cheating on taxes in the belief they themselves had been victimized, researchers said on Thursday. A survey in England, Wales and Germany showed that many people are cynical and self-interested and have no qualms about padding insurance claims, taking items from work, paying in cash to avoid tax or claiming refunds to which they are not entitled. According to the researchers the people most likely to commit crimes were of a higher social class, employed, good earners, had Internet access and were males.

Agencies
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