■ The Philippines
Art dealer among 4 slain
Philippine police have launched a major murder investigation after four people, including one of Asia's best-known art dealers, were found hacked to death at a luxury villa on the resort island of Boracay. Police yesterday identified Swiss-born Manfred Schoeni, who owns two art galleries in Hong Kong, and German property developer Anton Faustenhauser among the dead. The other victims were a British national and a Filipina maid. The victims had been stabbed repeatedly and were found on Sunday morning at the German's house, a three-story villa.
■ Nepal
Ban on rallies lifted
Nepal lifted its ban on public rallies yesterday following clashes between police and pro-democracy activists that left dozens injured and hundreds arrested. The violence was sparked when the government briefly detained leaders of Nepal's two largest opposition parties, which demand that King Gyanendra restore democracy. Thousands marched to demand the immediate release of Girija Prasad Koirala, president of the Nepali Congress, and Madhav Kumar Nepal, general secretary of the United Marxist Leninist Communist Party of Nepal. The two have led almost daily protests.
■ China
Satellite to aid Olympics
China is to take its Olympic preparations into space next year by launching a satellite to monitor the construction of venues and Beijing's traffic, which is seen as the greatest threat to the success of the 2008 Games. The satellite is part of China's huge infrastructure investment for the games, and will be launched next May. The craft orbit the earth at a distance of about 600km providing information officials say will be used for urban planning, environ-mental impact assessments, traffic control and disaster planning. It is part of the government's attempt to to use the Olympics to demonstrate the country's advanced technology.
■ New Zealand
Frog found in airline meal
A passenger on a recent Qantas flight from Melbourne to Wellington was not sampling the delights of first-class cuisine when she was served frog legs. The passenger had ordered salad, and the legs were still attached to the body of the live frog, the New Zealand Herald reported yesterday. The woman slappped the lid back on her meal, preventing the 4cm whistling tree frog from escaping. Cyril Evans of New Zealand's Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, said the Qantas crew notified his ministry while the plane was still in the air, and Quarantine Service staff were waiting when it landed.
■ China
9 SARS cases confirmed
Three suspected SARS patients have the disease, the government said Tuesday, raising to nine the number of people known to be infected in China's latest outbreak. The cases are limited to people who worked at Beijing's Institute of Virology and others who had contact with them and those who cared for these patients. One person has died. The latest confirmed cases are the father of a nurse who treated an infected lab worker, the nurse's hospital roommate and a person who helped care for the roommate. The World Health Organization (WHO) is probing what went wrong with lab safety, and a WHO team in Beijing has interviewed people at the SARS lab and the hospital where patients were treated.
■ Brazil
Bee attack kills two
Firefighters recovered the bodies of two men on Monday who had been killed in a rare bee attack. They were among a group of nine people who were hiking on Sunday in the Serra Do Caraca state park about 600km west of Rio de Janeiro when they were attacked by a swarm of bees, said Sergeant Wellington Horta of the Minas Gerais fire department. The bodies of the two, 26 and 31 years old, were found at the bottom of a waterfall. "Their bodies were full of bee stings which suggests they died from the bee attack and didn't drown, but we'll only know after an autopsy can be conducted,'' Horta said.
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