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World News Quick Take

■ Malaysia
Chemicals sprayed at crowd
Police sprayed water laced with chemical irritants yesterday to disperse more than 200 demonstrators who were demanding reforms of Malaysia's police force, including an inquiry into deaths of detainees. Seventeen activists were arrested after scuffles with police during the rally outside the federal police headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, said Ezam Mohamad Noor, youth leader of the opposition People's Justice Party. Police fired water cannons at the crowd after the protesters refused to comply with police instructions to disperse. Kuala Lumpur Police Chief Mustafa Abdullah said chemical irritants were used because it was the most effective way to scatter the protesters quickly.

■ Cambodia
Man arrested for pedophilia
Cambodian police have arrested another US man for pedophilia, child protection officials said yesterday. Charles Augustus Landis Jr., 37, was arrested in a police raid on his rented Phnom Penh apartment on Friday, said president of child protection organization Action Pour les Enfants Thierry Darnaudel. Darnaudel said his organization had passed on information about the man's activities which led to the arrest. He added there was a girl inside the apartment when the arrest was made, but he was uncertain of her age.

■ Australia
Youths gatecrash party
Some 200 youths gatecrashed a party overnight in a Perth suburb in Western Australia state, sparking a melee that seriously injured one police officer. The youths threw beer bottles and stones at two dozen officers in riot gear, said Constable Mick Emmanuel. Police said nine people were arrested. "People could have been killed or very seriously injured. Rocks and bottles were thrown with a tremendous amount of force," he told Channel Ten news, adding that one officer was beaten and seriously injured.

■ Singapore
Cut your hair or flunk out
Singapore schools have barred some students from collecting their exam results because their long or dyed hair breaks school rules, a head teacher and a newspaper said yesterday. About a dozen male students -- some of whom may have already finished their careers at school -- were blocked from entering Hong Kah Secondary School on Friday to pick up their O-level grades because they sported long or dyed hair -- and in some cases sideburns and earrings -- all of which were banned under state school rules, principal Mary Bay said. Similar scenes played out at secondary schools across the tightly controlled city-state as school authorities cracked down on 16 and 17-year-old students who had adopted a trendier look since taking their exams in October.

■ China
Transsexual denied limelight
Chinese promoters of the Miss World contest have denied entry into a local contest heat for a transsexual model, despite government officials' registering her as a woman, state media said yesterday. Fashion model Chen Lili underwent sex-change surgery last November and was given a new identity card stating she was a woman on Feb. 11, the official Xinhua news agency quoted local media as saying. Miss World organizers in the city of Chengdu said contestants must be female as their "natural gender," the agency said. Chen also underwent cosmetic surgery to her face and breasts, making her participation "unfair to other contestants," the organizers said.

■ Venezuela
Two killed in Caracas unrest
At least two people died in Friday's clashes over the continuing presidency of Hugo Chavez as troops used tear gas, rubber bullets and tanks to block several thousand opposition marchers. The marchers were trying to gain the attention of leaders attending the G-15, or Group of 15, summit, an organization of developing and partly developed countries meeting in Caracas. At least 27 people were injured in the fray, and another 350, including 20 children, were treated at clinics for various problems and minor injuries. The Chavez opponents were protesting a ruling earlier this week that stymied their efforts to force a Chavez-recall vote. Police used tear gas, rubber bullets and tanks against the protesters, who threw stones at security forces. Demonstrators built street barricades and set them on fire.

■ United States
Got proof Bush served?
A US$10,000 reward offered by the Doonesbury comic strip for proof that US President George W. Bush served in the Alabama National Guard during the Vietnam War has elicited over 1,300 responses but turned up no credible evidence yet, the cartoonist said on Friday. With so much controversy surrounding Bush's National Guard service, a credible witness would have turned up by now if there was one, said strip creator Garry Trudeau.

■ United States
Is it Jason? No, it's Jacko
Pop star Michael Jackson, in a new incarnation, donned a ski mask to go shopping at a discount store in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, media reports said on Friday. An alarmed shopper, thinking he was a thief, alerted police, who followed the suspect's trail to his car. According to his spokesperson, Jackson took off his mask and identified himself, and police dropped the matter. The singer, who is charged with child abuse in California, often wears a mask in public to disguise his famous face. The 45-year-old king of pop and his children have been living at a Colorado ranch for the last two weeks.

■ Canada
Oops, wrong Indians
A contender for the leadership of Canada's opposition Conservative Party was unflatteringly compared with Christopher Columbus this week and reminded that aboriginal Indians and people from India are different. The politician, Stephen Harper, was forced to apologize after his office sent a letter to a native group, the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centers, congratulating it on a holiday celebrating India's independence from Britain. Wrong Indians.

■ Germany
Sex marathon irks neighbor
A German woman took her male neighbor to court over noise pollution after he repeatedly kept her awake half the night, a court spokeswoman said Friday. "Four hours of sex noises. What was I supposed to think? It was nothing but groaning and banging," the woman told the judge, a Bild newspaper report said. The woman told Berlin magistrates that her 25-year-old neighbor, Andreas G., was disturbing the peace by keeping her awake early in the morning. Andreas said his 26-year-old neighbor had complained in the past, calling at five in the afternoon, but that he had not felt obliged to respond. "I can have as much sex as loud as I want then," he said.

■ United States
Doctor phobia proves fatal
An 83-year-old man in Orlando, Florida, who lay injured in his yard for three days ordering his wife not to call doctors, died after being exposed to rain and temperatures that dropped to 13oC, authorities said. Glen Schibley was found dead on Thursday with his wife by his side. He had been working in his yard on Monday when he fell and could not get up, an Orange County spokesman said. Schibley told his 79-year-old wife, Harriet, not to call authorities because of previous bad experiences with doctors, Solomons said. Harriet Schibley was also injured as she brought her husband food, water and medicine and covered him with a tarp when it rained, Solomons said.

■ United States
Jail beckons Bobby Brown
Singer Bobby Brown, 35, who was arrested recently for slugging his pop singer wife Whitney Houston, 40, was sentenced to 60 days' jail for violating the conditions of his probation, media reports said Friday. The judge found Brown guilty of several violations of a two-year disciplinary probation for a 1996 drunken driving charge, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The two-year sentence began in January last year. The violations included his attack on his wife and his refusal to participate in a drug test.

■ United Kingdom
Grisly house claim denied
A couple on Friday lost their effort to win compensation from homeowners who sold them a house without mentioning it had been the scene of a gruesome murder. A panel of three Court of Appeal judges ruled that sellers James and Alison Taylor-Rose were not obliged to tell buyers Alan and Susan Sykes of the home's grisly past. The Sykes' lawyer, Clive Freedman, said in court that they learned the truth when they saw a TV documentary about a man who had butchered his 13-year-old adopted daughter and hid her body parts around the family house and garden in 1984. Many have never been recovered. "Knowing there were still undiscovered body parts in the house was particularly horrific," Freedman said. He said the couple could no longer bear living at the house near Wakefield, northern England, which they later sold at a loss.

■ Venezuela
Two die during protests
At least two people died in clashes on Friday over the continuing presidency of Hugo Chavez as troops used tear gas, rubber bullets and tanks to block several thousand opposition marchers. The marchers were trying to gain the attention of leaders attending the G-15 summit for developing and partly developed countries meeting in Caracas. At least 27 people were injured, and another 350, including 20 children, were treated at clinics, media reports said. The Chavez opponents were protesting a ruling earlier this week that stymied their efforts to force a recall vote.

■ Israel
Two dead in car shooting
An Israeli man and woman were killed on Friday night when shots were fired at their vehicle as it was traveling on the road from Hebron in the West Bank to Beersheeba in southern Israel, Israel Radio reported. The car, with the couple inside, was found on the border between Israel and the West Bank. There was initial speculation that the fatal shots had been fired from a passing car. There was no initial claim of responsibility.

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