World News Quick Take

■ Australia
Tourist dies in the desert
A British tourist has died after walking 40km in sweltering heat to find help when his car got stuck in the Australian desert, police said yesterday. Thomas Henry Sykes, 35, from London, died on Friday at the Punmu Aboriginal Community nursing post in remote Western Australia state. He had been found alive, slipping in and out of consciousness, about 20km away from the township. Sykes' car had been discovered by two motorists a day earlier where it became bogged, about 60km east of the Punmu settlement in the Pilbara region of northern Western Australia.

■ Japan
Fortune found in garbage
A garbage disposal plant in central Japan has hit the jackpot. Operations at the plant suddenly came to a halt on Friday morning when a machine used to crush refuse began spewing out 10,000 yen-bills (US$93) onto a conveyor belt. In total, some 31 million yen (US$287,000) had found its way into the garbage, Gyoda city police said yesterday.
Police through the some 3,200 soiled bills strewn across the floor, patching together the torn pieces with tape. No one has come forward to claim the money, and police are trying to track down the owner. If the money is not claimed within six months, it will go to Gyoda city.

■ Hong Kong
Concert flops investigated
An has been launched by the government into a troubled series of pop concerts that were meant to lure tourists to Hong Kong after the SARS epidemic, but ended up costing taxpayers US$12.9 million. The shows -- which included performances by the Rolling Stones, Santana and Prince -- were organized by the American Chamber of Commerce and the government's promotion arm, InvestHK, and took place between Oct. 17 and Nov. 9. But the program, dubbed HarbourFest, was plagued by problems, including disappointing ticket sales, the cancellation of several stars and a row over whether the government should be financially supporting a commercial operation.

■ India
Acid attacker blinded
A judge has ruled that a Pakistani man found guilty of attacking his 17-year-old fiancee with acid be blinded with acid himself as part of his punishment, police said on Friday. Mohammed Sajid, 19, poured acid on the face of his fiancee, Rabia Bibi, with the help of his two brothers and two friends. The woman lost both eyes and her face was burned in the attack that police said followed a minor dispute between the couple. Judge Afzal Sharif ruled on Thursday that Sajid and his brothers were guilty of the attack and be jailed for seven years, and that Sajid be blinded by putting acid in his eyes. The judge ordered that a doctor perform the punishment publicly at a local sports stadium.

■ Australia
Asylum seekers refuse food
Ten asylum seekers detained by Australia on a remote Pacific island have joined a hunger strike, taking to 22 the number of detainees there and in Australia refusing food, a government spokesman said yesterday. Four of the Nauru hunger strikers have sewn their lips together to try to press Canberra to reverse a decision to reject their refugee applications. The hunger strike, which began on Wednesday, is the latest in a string of protests, riots, escapes and suicide bids by people held at Australian immigration detention centers.

■ United States
11-year old murderer
An boy who admitted luring a 3-year-old boy from a library and beating him to death with a baseball bat was sentenced in New Jersey on Friday to 18 years in the custody of New Jersey's juvenile-justice system. Under a plea bargain, the boy pleaded guilty on Thursday to kidnapping and murdering the child, Amir Beeks of Woodbridge, New Jersey, on March 26. On Friday, he was sentenced in a closed hearing after the slain child's adoptive mother read a letter that she said described the crime as a "senseless, horrible beating" of a normal, happy 3-year-old. Afterward, the mother, Rosalyn Singleton, 38, also denounced the 11-year-old and his father for what she said was their failure to show remorse during the sentencing hearing.

■ Belgium
Deportations suspended
Belgium its policy of forcibly deporting failed asylum seekers until further notice Friday after four police officers were found guilty of "involuntarily" suffocating a Nigerian woman to death. The case of Semira Adamu, a 20-year-old asylum seeker who died at the hands of five Belgian policemen in 1998, has become synonymous with police brutality. She died during a botched deportation attempt aboard a Togo-bound plane after police employed the "cushion technique" to restrain her. The manner of her death forced the country's then interior minister, Louis Tobback, to resign. But it was only yesterday that the officers involved had to take responsibility for their actions.

■ Italy
Nun faces eviction
A nun who refuses to leave her cell in a Rome friary has been ordered by a court to move out by next Thursday because she is proving too much of a distraction to the other members of the community. "I'm sorry, but she's a woman," Brother Salvatore, a spokesman for the Capuchin friars, told the newspaper Il Messaggero. "She can't live with us. We are all men." Brother Salvatore said the nun, who has not been named, began her novel assault on gender barriers several months ago. Like many religious organizations with premises in Rome, the Capuchins offer lodgings to members of their order who are visiting the Vatican or who have come to the city to study at one of its several Catholic universities. Both friars and nuns are put up at their friary near the Forum, though usually only for brief periods. Brother Salvatore said that when it became obvious that this particular sister was considering a lengthy -- if not permanent -- stay, attempts were made to get her to leave of her own free will.

■ United Kingdom
Queen has surgery
Britain's Queen Elizabeth underwent minor surgery on Friday, but the royal family denied media reports that skin lesions removed from her face were suspected of being cancerous. A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said the facial surgery had been carried out to remove some minor, "benign" skin lesions. ITV News reported that tissue removed from the Queen's face during the 75-minute operation at London's King Edward VII hospital was being tested for early signs of cancer. The Queen also had torn cartilage removed from her left knee during the operation, which was described by the Palace as "entirely successful.

■ United States
Prisoners' release requested
After visiting the military's detention center for some 660 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, three senators, including the onetime prisoner-of-war Republican Senator John McCain, sent a pointed letter on Friday telling Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that it was time to release the detainees or bring them to trial. McCain, who as a naval aviator spent more than five years held prisoner by North Vietnam, said in an interview that he believed the continued detention of the prisoners violated basic human rights precepts. On the tour, and in the letter to Rumsfeld, McCain was joined by Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican, and Senator Maria Cantwell, a Democrat.

■ peru
President wants new Cabinet
Peruvian Alejandro Toledo on Friday asked for the resignation of his entire Cabinet, including Prime Minister Beatrix Merino, as well as all of his advisers, his government said. A short statement from the president's office said a new Cabinet is to be sworn in tomorrow. Toledo's government has been hit by accusations of corruption and resignations, and the president himself is plagued by unpopularity on his failure to live up to populist campaign promises. He lost his foreign trade minister in November in an influence-peddling scandal. The same month his defense minister left, citing job frustration, and his foreign minister took another job.

■ Haiti
Four shot in street unrest
At least four people were shot and wounded as supporters of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide reacted to a huge anti-Aristide march with their own demonstrations on Friday in the capital. Gunshots were heard overnight in various Port-au-Prince neighborhoods as Aristide supporters fired into the air, burned tires and set up barricades at intersections, seeking to take back the streets after Thursday's march by thousands of students. Witnesses said at least four people were shot and wounded, one of them with a bullet to the head, in two neighborhoods of the city during Friday's unrest.

■ United states
Man denies killing teenagers
A 49-year-old convicted murderer on Friday pleaded not guilty to murder charges after police dug up the bodies of three teenagers in his basement. David Maust served 18 years for the murder of a 15-year-old boy in Chicago in 1981, but was released on parole in June last year. He had been living in the city of Hammond, Indiana, just south of Chicago, media reports said. Hammond police sergeant Ron Johnson alleged that a witness told him that two of the teenagers had been "hanging around an older man named David over the summer of 2003 and that David had given them money ... beer and marijuana."

■ Azerbaijan
Former president dies at 80
Former Azerbaijani President Geidar Aliev, an ex-KGB general and Communist Party chief who brought stability to a nation plagued by insurgencies, has died in the US. He was 80. Aliev died in Cleveland, Ohio, on Friday, Cleveland Clinic spokesman Cole Hatcher said. Aliev had been admitted to the hospital on Aug. 6 for treatment of congestive heart failure and kidney problems, the clinic said. He had been treated at the hospital in various stays over the last four years for heart, prostate and hernia problems.