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World News Quick Take

■ China
Man pulls car with eyelids
A Chinese man used his eyelids to pull a 1,200kg car for 5m along a Singapore road, it was reported yesterday. Li Chuanyong, 42, let out a howl as he pulled the Hyundai Trajet multi-purpose vehicle on Saturday with four people seated inside, The Straits Times said. The Guilin native is in Singapore for five days of Lunar New Year festivities. He plans to us his eyelids to lift pails of water as part of concert performances.

■ South Korea
Nuclear talks on agenda
Washington's point man for North Korea said yesterday that a fresh round of talks on the communist state's nuclear standoff could open as early as this month. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, who arrived in Seoul yesterday, said he was "mildly optimistic" about the prospects of six-nation talks. We "may be able to have another round of six-party talks before very long. Perhaps even this month of February," Kelly told reporters upon arrival. For months, the US, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea have been trying to restart talks on persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programs. A first round ended in August in Beijing without much progress.

■ Japan
More troops leave for Iraq
Hundreds of Japanese troops got a ceremonial send-off yesterday before leaving for Iraq on a humanitarian mission that will be the largest and most dangerous deployment by Japan's military since World War II. In a ceremony at a snow-draped base on the northern tip of Japan, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and his top defense official addressed about 500 camouflage-clad soldiers who will make up the core of a Japanese force on a non-combat operation to help with reconstruction in Iraq. The troops' date of departure has not been announced. But Japanese media reported they will start moving out Tuesday, when about 80 men will fly to Kuwait from Japan's northernmost main island for several days of training.

■ Hong Kong
Blackmailing tourist charged
A German tourist has been formally charged after he was arrested for allegedly blackmailing several upscale Hong Kong hotels by claiming he was served food mixed with shattered glass, police said yesterday. The 28-year-old man, identified only by his surname Beier, was due to appear in court today on two counts of blackmail charges, said police spokesman Edwin Hung. The German was arrested on Friday as he picked up a US$3,942 check from a five-star hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui tourist district. Beier had allegedly also threatened two other top hotels with his glass-in-food claim over the past six months, and one of them had already paid him US$2,500, according to police.

■ Australia
Chinese restaurants attacked
Nazi swastikas were daubed across three Chinese restaurants which were set ablaze in what were believed to have been racist attacks here in the early hours yesterday, police said. In all three cases, which happened within 90 minutes in the southern suburbs of Perth, a window or door was smashed and imflammable liquid poured in then set on fire, causing extensive damage in two restaurants before fire brigade units arrived on the scene. The first attack happened just after 3am, when the Lakeland Chinese restaurant in the suburb of Yangebup was firebombed.

■ Germany
Leftists clash with police
Leftist demonstrators threw stones and bottles at police and trashed police cars in Hamburg during protests Saturday against a far-right rally denouncing an exhibit on World War II atrocities by regular German soldiers. Police said they arrested at least 15 protesters for disturbing the peace and briefly detained 221 others during clashes that erupted when counterdemonstrators tried to break through barriers separating them from the far-right rally. Police sprayed the protesters with water cannon to drive them back and cleared street barricades set up by some of the 3,500 demonstrators.

■ Peru
Toledo tackles corruption
President Alejandro Toledo pledged late Saturday to investigate a scandal involving a former presidential adviser who secretly met two years ago with a fugitive army general wanted on corruption charges. "As president, I announce a far-reaching and meticulous investigation and demand that the weight of the law fall upon those responsible," Toledo said. On Friday, RPP radio released parts of an audiotape of a December 2001 conversation between Toledo's then-adviser Cesar Almeyda and General Oscar Villanueva, who later committed suicide. Toledo said that Almeyda went ``behind his back'' to meet the general, who had been accused of handling illegal funds for Vladimiro Montesinos, the former intelligence chief under Peru's previous president, Alberto Fujimori.

■ Congo
Barge fire leaves 200 missing
Nearly 200 people were missing after a barge caught fire and sank in a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the UN said Saturday. At least 301 of the nearly 500 people aboard the barge survived last Monday's accident on the Congo River near the town of Lukelela, said Alexandre Essome, spokesman for the UN Mission in Congo in the northwestern city of Mbandaka. One person was confirmed dead and at least one other suffered severe burns, he said.

■ United States
Court ponders cameras
Major news organizations asked a judge to allow cameras into a court appearance by Michael Jackson on molestation charges, saying that a wild spectacle surrounding a prior hearing should be countered by images of orderly proceedings. But it was not immediately clear how Santa Barbara Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville would handle the request -- which was not opposed by prosecutors -- because he refused to schedule a hearing into the matter. Hundreds of fans gathered outside a courthouse in Santa Maria, California, for Jackson's arraignment on Jan. 16 and were driven into a frenzy when the 45-year-old entertainer climbed on top of his sports utility vehicle to dance and wave.

■ United States
Fish fights fire
A smoke alarm summoned firefighters to a school in the middle of the night, but when they arrived the flames had already been put out. A fish named Dory took care of it. Dory is a Betta kept in a vase on a desk in a classroom at Trinity Lone Oak Lutheran School in Eagan, Minnesota. A forgotten candle started a small fire on the desk on Jan. 24, setting off the smoke alarm and shattering the fish bowl, spilling enough water to put out the flames. Firefighters found a few embers still glowing on the desk -- and Dory still alive in a puddle.

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