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World News Quick Take

■ China
Jail for insulting corpse
The manager of a hostel in southern China was sentenced to six months in jail on charges of insulting a corpse after he threw the body of a dead customer in a river to avoid bad publicity, the government said yesterday. The victim, an alleged drug addict surnamed Lin, was found dead in Deng Jincai's hostel in the southern city of Haikou by a woman who had spent the night injecting drugs with him, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Hoping to avoid "ominous implications from the death if made public," Deng wrapped the body in bedding, put it in a cardboard box, carried it on the back of a motorcycle and threw it in a river.

■ Hong Kong
Wily hostage fakes seizure
An Australian man scared off robbers demanding the security number for his ATM card by faking an epileptic seizure, the Sunday Morning Post reported yesterday. Tom Beckett was lured into a dead-end alley by two women who said they would take to him to a DVD shop in Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong. Five robbers showed up and took him hostage in a nearby building, but Beckett, with his mouth taped, feigned an epileptic seizure. The robbers tried to treat him by pouring water over him and massaging his chest -- but only after taking his watch and cash. They then escorted Beckett out of the building and set him free.

■ China
Houses buried
A massive wave of soil and coal mine waste collapsed on a village in western China, burying 24 people and killing at least three, the official Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday. Rescuers pulled three people alive from the wreckage of Saturday afternoon's landslide on the outskirts of the town of Wandong in the Chongqing region, but don't expect to find any more survivors, Xinhua said. The bodies of three dead were also recovered, it said. The collapse sparked by heavy rain sent debris racing 500m and buried 14 homes, the report said.

■ Australia
US charges Australian
US officials have presented charges against an Australian detained at the US military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, beginning the process for him to face a military commission, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Sunday. Authorities were to decide whether David Hicks would stand trial on the charges, details of which weren't available. "The latest information I have is that charges against Mr. Hicks by the prosecution have been presented to the appointed authority and that is the first step to the convening of a military commission," Howard said. Hicks' lawyers said the charges were presented months ago, but that Hicks has not yet been formally charged with anything.

■ China
Food hygiene lax
About half of China's food export companies failed to meet hygiene and quality standards, state media said in a report that highlights the country's widespread food safety problems.After an investigation into 11,000 food firms, China's certification administration had revoked export rights for nearly 2,600 of them and ordered changes at 3,000 others, China Central Television said on its Web site. The probe aimed to boost the competitiveness of China's food exporters, cctv.com quoted Liu Xiande, the administration's chief of registration, as saying.

■ Congo
Rebel factions fight
UN officials said on Saturday ex-rebel fighters now part of Congo's army had forced a rival faction out of the eastern town of Walikale, but it was not clear whether the fighters were allies of insurgents who seized another city this week. UN spokesman in Kinshasa Hamadoun Toure said a UN reconnaissance mission had found no sign of renegade troops movements from Bukavu -- which was overrun by dissident soldiers on Wednesday -- to Walikale, some 150km to the northwest. However, he said former rebel fighters in the town had told the UN team that they were in control of Walikale after clashing with traditional Mai Mai warriors on Friday.

■ Nigeria
Troops kill 17 bandits
Nigerian troops killed 17 armed bandits in oil-rich Delta state, as military operations intensified to disarm criminals engaged in oil theft and piracy in the Niger delta, an army general said on Saturday. The killings took place on Friday in the riverine areas around the oil town of Warri, after armed robbers in boats, busy looting two passenger ferries, opened fire on troops, said operation commander Brigadier General Elias Zamani. "In the ensuing gun battle, seventeen sea pirates were killed," he said, before authorizing journalists to see seventeen bullet-ridden bodies in Warri's central hospital.

■ Canada
Conservatives lead in polls
The Conservative Party reacted with glee on Saturday after a poll showed it was leading the ruling Liberals in the crucial province of Ontario. Neither party would win a majority with their current numbers but this is the first time the Conservatives have been riding so high. Prime Minister Paul Martin put a brave face on the latest figures which showed his Liberals leading the Conservatives by just one point nationally and trailing in Ontario for the first time in two decades. Martin said he was sure voters would back the Liberals' agenda of balanced budgets and increased health care spending rather than backing the Conservatives, who want to boost the armed forces while slashing taxes.

■ United States
`Republican Survivor' on Web
Want to vote a Republican off the island? How about all of them? If so, Democratic congress members are here to help with a new Web-based cartoon program, Republican Survivor. President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Representative Katherine Harris and conservative commentator Ann Coulter are the cartoon contestants in a program patterned after the hit reality television show Survivor. The cartoon moderator, no friend of any of them, says the overall instructions are to "lie, cheat, steal, coddle, cuddle and pander. In other words, do what comes naturally to you."

■ France
Gay couple marry
A shopkeeper and a male nurse exchanged rings and kisses in France's first gay wedding Saturday, but the conservative government immediately moved to annul what it considered an illegal ceremony and punish the mayor who carried it out. Noel Mamere, mayor of the Bordeaux suburb of Begles and a leading figure in the opposition Greens party, celebrated the wedding of 31-year-old Bertrand Charpentier and 34-year-old Stephane Chapin in a blaze of publicity at the municipal building where he works.

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