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World News Quick Take

■ Japan
Troops set to go to Iraq
Japan, committed to sending military personnel to Iraq but cautious about their safety, is planning to send its first substantial contingent of 135 ground troops there on Feb. 21, a national daily said yesterday. Quoting a Defense Ministry proposal, the Mainichi Shimbun said Japan would first send an advance party of 28 troops on January 14 to begin preparations, followed by a 78-strong logistics team on Jan. 31. The 135 troops will then leave, and a total of around 550 troops will be in place by the end of March, according to a ministry proposal which the paper said had been presented to the ruling coalition.

■ South Korea
Iraq troop plans finalized
South Korea finalized plans yesterday to send 3,000 troops to Iraq, but the much anticipated and controversial dispatch could take at least another four months despite Washington's appeals for urgent support from its allies. A team of South Korean military officials, meanwhile, left yesterday for a six-day visit to Washington to discuss where and when the Korean troops should be sent. South Korean

■ Australia
Fasting refugees shunned
The Australian government washed its hands of responsibility for fasting asylum seekers yesterday as a hunger strike by 23 Afghans and one Pakistani entered the seventh day. Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone brushed aside calls from the main opposition Labor party and refugee groups to intervene to end the protest in the camp on the Pacific island of Nauru. Four of the protesters have stitched their lips together. An Immigration Department spokesman said 11 of the men protesting against the government's refusal to allow them entry to Australia had been taken to hospital.

■ Hong Kong
Man detained in spy probe
A former senior official from the Chinese central government's liaison office in Hong Kong has been detained in Beijing amid a spying and corruption probe, several newspapers reported yesterday. Cai Xiaohong (蔡小洪), former secretary-general of the Central Liaison Office, was detained as officials investigate allegations that state secrets were provided to foreign intelligence agencies in exchange for cash, the Oriental Daily News reported. The report did not specify which countries allegedly bought intelligence or what kind of intelligence it might have been.

■ South Korea
More bird farms infected
South Korea's outbreak of a highly contagious bird flu, strains of which are deadly to humans, spread yesterday with a new farm infected and more than a hundred thousand new chickens and ducks marked for slaughter as a precaution. Authorities have been racing to contain the disease since 21,000 chickens died at a farm in central South Korea earlier this month. Yesterday, a farm near the town of Umsung, some 70km south of Seoul, was hit by the disease and 70 chickens were found dead, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry said in a statement. Agriculture authorities ordered the culling of 137,000 more ducks and chickens in the region, as well as all duck and chicken eggs within a 3km radius of the farm where the sickness was first discovered.

■ France
Head-scarf ban considered
As an impassioned debate neared a climax, French officials prepared the way for a possible law banning Islamic head scarves in public schools despite warnings that such a move could alienate France's large Muslim community. All signs point to French President Jacques Chirac giving the green light to a law that would forbid conspicuous religious symbols such as Muslim head scarves in public schools in a speech scheduled for yesterday afternoon. Earlier this week, France's main Muslim group said such a law would "stigmatize" the country's estimated 5 million Muslims -- 8 percent of the population, erode religious freedom and amount to an "injustice."

■ Cyprus
Prime minister resigns
The prime minister of the breakaway Turkish Cypriot republic resigned Tuesday, two days after parliamentary elections, to allow Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash to designate a new prime minister to form a government. Prime Minister Dervis Eroglu submitted his resignation to Denktash, the president of the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state, recognized only by Turkey. Denktash was expected to open talks on naming a new premier yesterday with the leaders of four parties that won seats. None of the parties won a majority in the 50-seat parliament, and the allocation of seats would force at least a three-party coalition or new elections.

■ Greece
Terror leader jailed for life
A Greek court yesterday sentenced to life imprisonment the leader and chief hitman of the November 17 guerrilla group, which killed Greeks and British, US and Turkish diplomats in a 27-year reign of terror. Last week the court found them and 13 other members of the radical Marxist group guilty of around 2,500 crimes, including multiple murders, bombings and bank robberies. Their convictions removed a major security threat ahead of the Athens Olympic Games next August.

■ France
Rooster wins legal battle
A rooster whose pre-dawn cock-a-doodle-doo upset a neighboring couple will be able to continue his cacophony after a French judge Tuesday threw out a court case hanging over him. The judge, in the eastern town of Gap, upheld a lower court's verdict that the fowl -- a living representative of France's national symbol -- was just doing what he was meant to do and the couple had no right to demand he be removed. They were ordered to pay legal costs. The two plaintiffs, who in 1999 moved into a rural house next to a chicken farm, had complained that the rooster had given them insomnia with its crowing at 4am.

■ Israel
1992 Saddam plot failed
Israel developed a risky plan in 1992 to assassinate then Iraqi president Saddam Hussein at a funeral but dropped it after five Israeli soldiers were killed while training for the mission, according to Israeli news reports on Tuesday. Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles at Israel during the 1991 Gulf war. After the war, Israel began investigating the possibility of killing Saddam, and then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin approved a detailed study in 1992, according to newspaper reports. The papers said the military believed Saddam could be killed when he attended the funeral of his uncle -- and father-in-law -- Khairallah Tilfah, because the Iraqi leader would not consider sending one of his doubles to such an important personal event.

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