■ New Zealand
Man shoots cash machine
An angry customer shot up a bank automatic teller machine (ATM) in the Christchurch suburb of Fendalton yesterday. "In essence somebody had an interaction with our ATM which they didn't much enjoy and came back with a gun," Westpac Bank manager Paul Gregory told Television New Zealand. "We understand that there is some frustration involved from time to time in dealings with ATMs for whatever reason but it does seem quite an extreme reaction," he added. Police said they were looking at security camera footage and guarding the machine until it was repaired.
■ China
AIDS activist detained
Chinese police have detained a noted AIDS activist, Chinese and overseas sources said yesterday, apparently over a planned trip to Tiananmen Square to commemorate democracy protesters who died in the 1989 crackdown. Hu Jia, a crusader for AIDS awareness and other causes, was detained on Saturday as he was trying to organize a small group of people to head to the square on Tomb Sweeping Day, which fell on Sunday, a Chinese source said. "We went to the police station to try to rescue him, but police told us they did not have him," said the source who spoke on condition of anonymity. The US-based AIDS Policy Project said Beijing police took Hu into custody outside his home on Saturday morning.
■ China
Conjoined twins separated
Chinese doctors in southwestern Sichuan province have successfully separated a pair of five-month-old conjoined twin girls after a six hour operation, state media reported yesterday. The two sisters, born last October, were in good condition after the Saturday operation at a hospital attached to the Luzhou Medical College, in Luzhou city, Xinhua news agency said. Sisters Lianzi and Lianxin were joined at the chest and abdomen. Their livers were fused together, but the twins did not share any single organ, the report said.
■ Vietnam
Old bomb kills two
Two men were killed as they were trying to recycle a 30kg warhead left over from the Vietnam war. Nguyen Dinh Dong, 30, and Le Van Phu, 37, had found the device on Saturday near the 17th parallel, the line which divided north and south during the war known in Vietnam as the American war, said Vo Ta Minh, the head of the commune where the men were killed. Dong and Phu decided to salvage the explosives and scrap metal from the warhead which would fetch around US$2 per kilogram, said Minh from Quang Tri province, 580km south of Hanoi. The 10kg device exploded, killing the two men instantly, Minh said.
■ Nepal
Rebels attack police
Hundreds of Maoist rebels attacked a police station overnight in southern Nepal, killing at least nine policemen and injuring six. Twenty police officers were still missing and possibly taken hostage after about 400 rebels raided the post around midnight in Yadukuna village, about 300km southeast of the capital, Katmandu, police said. A gunbattle raged for three hours, said police official Tokendra Hamal. Telephone lines in the village were knocked down, cutting communication links between police forces. District police chief Rewatiraj Kafle said that security forces recovered the bodies of nine policemen and discovered six wounded officers, who were airlifted to hospitals.
■ France
Terror cells raided
The French intelligence service DST yesterday morning launched large-scale raids against suspected Islamic terrorists in two Paris suburbs. According to reports, the raids were in connection with the terror attacks in Morocco which killed 45 people in Casablanca in May of last year, including three French citizens. Fifteen people were arrested in the raids. Of the nine men in custody, six to eight were suspected of having connections with the Moroccan terror group GICM, the French interior ministry said. The DST, which is responsible for counter-intelligence, suspects there are numerous terrorist sleeper cells in the Paris area which could carry out future attacks.
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