■ Australia
Writer going blind
Australian writer Colleen McCullough, author of The Thorn Birds and a dozen other acclaimed novels, has revealed she is going blind and may soon no longer be able to write her own books. McCullough, 67, told a television interviewer she had already lost sight in one eye due to hemorrhagic macular degeneration, an irreversible and progressive illness that causes blindness. She said learning she would lose her sight was more frightening than an earlier brush she had with cancer. An inveterate smoker, McCullough said she would not kick the habit even though it is known to accelerate her condition. "The words are in the cigarettes," she said.
■ Indonesia
Cookie jar explodes
A bomb hidden in a cookie jar exploded yesterday at a busy market in the strife-torn Indonesian city of Ambon, killing one person and injuring 17 others. The explosion in a Christian area came two days after a similar blast wounded five people, raising fears that religious clashes would increase in the run-up to July presidential polls. Police chief Leonidas Braksan said three other bombs were found in Christian neighborhoods, but they were destroyed without incident. President Megawati Sukarnoputri visited the region on Saturday, insisting her government was doing enough to stop a recent outbreak of sectarian fighting in which 39 people died.
■ Malaysia
Thieves raid playgrounds
Thieves have raided playgrounds in a central Malaysian city, stealing equipment to sell for scrap iron and leaving children with nothing to play on but concrete blocks and otherwise empty lots, a newspaper reported yesterday. The New Straits Times cited an unnamed council official in Ipoh, 170km north of Kuala Lumpur, as saying that several playgrounds had recently been stripped of metal equipment. The official said the high prices being paid for scrap iron were believed to behind the crimes.
■ Hong Kong
Hostess robotized by attack
A nightclub hostess is seeking US$230,000 in damages after an attack by a customer left her unable to have sex, a news report said yesterday. Hau Siu-mui, 32, was left with heavily swollen legs after being kicked and punched by a customer when she refused to have sex with him three years ago. She is now suing her former employers at the Bauhina Night Club in Hong Kong's Mongkok district over her injuries, according to the South China Morning Post. "I have swelling in my legs because the blood cannot circulate properly and I walk like a robot," she told the court on Monday.
■ Australia
Spies linked to Cabinet leak
Australia's main spy agency has been linked to a damaging federal Cabinet leak -- a water leak, that is. A parliamentary committee was told yesterday that the Australian Security Intelligence Organization had recommended a special pipe fitting for the high-security room where Cabinet ministers meet, but that it failed, flooding the room with enough water to fill a backyard swimming pool. ASIO Director-General Dennis Richardson said the agency recommended that a transparent sheet of plastic be fitted to a steel water pipe above the Cabinet room during construction of Parliament House in the 1980s.
■ United States
Doctors' ties a health threat
Beware well-dressed doctors. A study in New York suggests that doctors' sartorial habits make them carriers of potentially dangerous infections. Researchers found that 47 percent of ties worn by medical staff at one hospital harbored bacteria and that clinicians were eight times more likely to have bugs in their ties than security staff. "Senior physicians and hospital administrators often encourage staff to wear neckties in order to help promote this valuable relationship, but in so doing, they may also be facilitating the spread of infectious organisms," said Steven Nurkin, of the New York Hospital Medical Center in Queen's, who presented the findings to the American Society for Microbiology in New Orleans.
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