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World News Quick Take

■ Australia
Cranky alligator dumped
Would you upset Mr. Cranky Pants? Some thieves tried, but apparently soon regret-ted it. A four-year-old alliga-tor named Mr. Cranky Pants was stolen from a reptile park at Somersby, north of Sydney, over the weekend, but officials at the zoo said yesterday the thieves may have underestimated his moodiness and let him go. The animal was later found in a nearby creek. "Mr. Cranky Pants is a cranky pants, he gets moody and so they probably messed with the wrong alligator and dumped him," said Al Mucci, an Australian Reptile Park official. "He looks relieved to be back. You can tell with alligators by their eyes whether they're stressed or not stressed, and he looks glad to be back," he said.

■ Indonesia
Golkar leading vote count
The Golkar party held a razor-thin lead in parliamen-tary elections ahead of President Megawati Sukar-noputri's party, partial results showed yesterday. With over 60 percent of the estimated 124 million votes cast in the April 5 elections, Golkar was at 20.59 percent. Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle had 20.12 percent. Officials have been taking several days to count ballots and final results were not yet tallied. However, Megawati's party was projected to lose more than a third of the 34 percent of votes it won in the 1999 elections.

■ Indonesia
Governor's sentence upheld
The Supreme Court has upheld a three-year prison term against East Timor's last Jakarta-appointed governor for failing to stop the bloodshed when the territory voted for indepen-dence in 1999, a court official said yesterday. The verdict against Jose Abilio Osorio Soares -- who is ethnically East Timorese -- means he will be the first Indonesian official to be punished over the blood-shed. Three military officers have had their sentences overturned by the high court in recent weeks. Rulings against two remaining defendants are expected soon. Twelve others have already been acquitted. Jakarta's attempts to punish those guilty of human rights abuses in East Timor have been criticized as a sham.

■ Hong Kong
Twin girls, mother killed
A 31-year-old mother and her six-year-old twin daughters were found chopped to death at their apartment over the Easter holiday weekend, police said yesterday. The
45-year-old husband was also seriously wounded and was in a critical condition in hospital yesterday following surgery. Police discovered the bodies on Sunday evening after a man called them saying his daughters were lying in a pool of blood. The mother, who is believed to have recently arrived from China, and her daughters were unconscious when the police broke into the apartment. All had multiple chop and knife wounds and a bloodstained knife was found close by.

■ New Zealand
New Zealanders unhealthy
Poor diet and lack of exercise were responsible for the deaths of two out of every five people who died in 1997, according to a ground-breaking study by the Ministry of Health. About another one in five of all deaths was due to smoking and drinking alcohol, the ministry said. It said the study showed that hundreds of deaths could be prevented each year if more people ate a healthy diet with more fruit and vegetables and under-took "moderate intensity" exercise for at least 30 minutes five days a week.

■ United Kingdom
Torso found in suitcase
Police appealed for help yesterday after the torso of a young black woman was found inside a suitcase that was thrown into the Regents Canal in north London. Youngsters playing by the canal in Islington spotted the suitcase on Saturday, opened it, and discovered the woman's torso inside, the Metropolitan Police said. "It was established [at a post-mortem on Sunday] that the torso is that of a black Afro-Caribbean woman, aged between 18 and 30," it said.

■ Russia
Gas blast toll up to 44
The death toll from a gas blast at a Siberian colliery rose to 44 yesterday and officials gave up hope of finding alive three miners who were still missing. Rescuers, often digging with their bare hands, fought to reach possible survivors in operations throughout Sunday after a powerful explosion tore through the Taizhina mine in the Kemerovo region early on Saturday. Rescue teams had tried to make their way towards possibly trapped miners by both a direct route and a 5km detour through a nearby mineshaft. But they were unable to use machinery in operations because of the risk of a fresh explosion and had to rely on the light from their headlamps as they tunnelled through earth and rock.

■ United States
Bridge-dangler rescued
A man dangled from a bridge in New Brunswick, New Jersey, for two hours on Sunday before he was spotted by a taxi passenger, then spent nearly another hour suspended as rescuers tried to retrieve him, officials said. Police Lieutenant Peter Mangarella said officers were summoned to the bridge by a cabdriver, whose fare spied the man dangling from a rope as they drove by. Officers arrived to find the 29-year-old man, whose name was withheld, dangling 4.6m above the lake from about 2m of rope attached to the bridge's undercarriage. The rope was tied to the man's calf. It was not immediately clear why or how the man got beneath the bridge. "He's not telling us what was doing," Mangarella said.

■ United Kingdom
Dentists slam fizzy drinks
Fizzy drinks are being blamed for increasing tooth decay among British teenagers, a study has shown. Consuming carbonated drinks increased the chances of a 12-year-old suffering tooth erosion by 59 percent and for 14-year-olds the risk was 220 percent, according to research in the British Dental Journal. But for those who drank four or more glasses a day, the risk of erosion increased by 252 percent for those aged 12 and a massive 513 percent for 14-year-olds. Out of more than 1,000 teenagers surveyed, 76 percent of 12-year-olds said they drank fizzy drinks, rising to 92 percent of 14-year-olds.

■ Qatar
Russians' murder trial starts
Two Russians charged with murdering a former Chechen rebel leader in Qatar pleaded not guilty after going on trial on Sunday, news agencies reported. Qatar's official agency QNA said the first defendant pleaded not guilty to all charges but the second Russian said he was guilty of a secondary charge of "deception and forgery." Qatar in February charged the two Russians over a car blast that killed former Chechen rebel chief Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev. A third Russian diplomat was freed and expelled. Russian officials admitted the two detained men were spies, but denied they were involved in Yandarbiyev's killing and demanded their release.

■ Rwanda
Hutu militants attack
The Rwandan military said Sunday that ethnic Hutu militants launched a cross-border attack from the Democratic Republic of Congo, just as the country marked 10 years since the start of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Some 250 Hutu militants attacked a western Rwandan village populated mainly by ethnic Tutsis, an army spokesman told the British Broadcasting Corporation. He said the attack was repelled and 16 rebels were killed. No casualties among the army or villagers were reported in the attack, which was said to have taken place on Thursday. Over the past week, solemn ceremonies across Rwanda marked the 10th anniversary of the genocide.

■ France
Threat underestimated
Terrorist plans for chemical attacks against targets in Europe have been underestimated by the security services, the British newspaper Financial Times quoted a senior French counter-terrorism official as saying yesterday. "We have underestimated the terrorists' willingness and capacity to develop chemical weapons," the unnamed official told the economic daily. The newspaper said the official warned that terrorists planned on using chemical weapons in Europe and were far more advanced in their plans than the security services suspected.

■ Russia
Kidnapped worker freed
A Dutch aid worker kidnapped almost two years ago near the lawless region of Chechnya was freed in a police operation on Sunday and returned to Moscow after months of failed attempts to negotiate his release. The aid worker, Arjan Erkel, 35, who headed the North Caucasus mission of Doctors Without Borders, had been seized by masked gunmen in an area terrorized by kidnappings by both the military and rebel fighters. "I want to thank MSF for having freed me of this nightmare," Erkel said, referring to the French initials of his group. He had grown a beard and lost weight during his 20 months as a hostage.

■ United States
Bush likes his vacations
US President George W. Bush has spent more than 40 percent of his presidency at one of his three retreats, sparking criticism from Democrats that he is not taking his job seriously at a crucial time in US history. Bush was on his 33rd visit to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, over the Easter weekend, where he has spent 233 days, or almost eight months, since his inauguration, according to a CBS tally. Adding in his 78 visits to Camp David and five to Kennebunkport, Maine, he has spent all or part of 500 days out of the office while in office. Bush was at his ranch on Aug. 6, 2001 as part of a month-long holiday when he received the briefing warning of Osama bin Laden's determination to attack the US.

■ United Kingdom
Birds are full of plastic
The seabirds of the North Sea are being turned into "living dustbins," campaigners warn, after a study found that the average fulmar has 30 pieces of plastic in its stomach. The findings are the latest from a long-running international study of the impact of litter on marine life. In the most recent survey, scientists found that 96 percent of dead fulmars studied had 0.6g of plastic fragments in their stomachs, double the amount found in the early 1980s. Fulmars were used in the study because they eat almost anything and do not regurgitate what they ingest. Items found in their stomachs have included rope, polystyrene, mattress foam, plastic bottles and tools.

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