An AIDS activist in South Africa was gang raped and then beaten to death after telling her attackers she was infected with the HIV virus, it has emerged. Police said on Sunday that two men had been arrested on charges of participating in the rape and murder of Lorna Mlosana, 21, in the township of Khayelitsha outside Cape Town. "After they finished, the lady told them she was HIV positive, and then they took her outside and killed her," said Inspector Lunga Ntsinde. Police are seeking at least one other suspect but a witness said up to five men took turns attacking Mlosana after they had followed her into a toilet near a tavern.
■ Israel
Elite commandos say no
About a dozen reservists from the Israeli army's top commando unit declared on Sunday that they would no longer serve in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israeli media reported, reflecting growing unease with Israel's hard-fisted policy in the Palestinian areas. Thirteen reservists, including three officers, from Sayeret Matkal signed a letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, declaring, "We cannot continue to stand silent," charging that Israeli military activities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are depriving "millions of Palestinians of human rights" and endangering "the fate of Israel as a democratic, Zionist and Jewish country." Sayeret Matkal is the top commando unit in the Israeli military and its most prestigious.
■ Belgium
Antibubbles created in beer
Belgian scientists have put a different kind of fizz into physics. They have studied that fleeting mystery of the foaming tankard -- the antibubble. Antibubbles move down the glass instead of up. Stephane Dorbolo and colleagues at the University of Liege and the College de France reported online yesterday in the New Journal of Physics that they found out how to create antibubbles in a variety of liquids, including water dosed with washing-up liquid. They repeated the phenomenon in a glass of Belgian beer, thus confirming, according to the Institute of Physics in London, "what British real ale drinkers have claimed for a long time: that Belgian beer is a lot like dishwater."
■ United States
Stewart curses legal woes
Style icon Martha Stewart has bemoaned her legal troubles and upcoming trial for an insider trading scandal in a rare television interview. "It's the saddest holiday ever. It's an unwelcome time for me, very unwelcome," Stewart told CNN television. Stewart could face as much as 30 years in prison if convicted of charges against her of securities fraud, obstruction of justice, making false statements and lying to the FBI. The criminal trial gets underway on Jan. 12.
■ United States
Obese bears like junk food
Bears need lots of fat to survive winter hibernation. But enough is enough, say US scientists who blame a ballooning black bear pudginess on their love of and access to human junk food. A study by the Wildlife Conservation Society found that 59 black bears followed in the Lake Tahoe region of the western state of Nevada weighed nearly a third more than bears living in wild areas -- and were a third less active. The scientists blamed the obesity trend on the availability of discarded hamburgers, chicken, French fries and other junk food in dumpsters behind fast food restaurants, shopping centers and suburban homes.
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