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World News Quick Take

■ Hong Kong
Thieves relieve potties
Police are trying to flush out thieves who have been stealing fixtures and fittings from public toilets, officers said yesterday. Taps, toilet-paper holders, electric fans and even an entrance gate have been swiped from conveniences in the Kowloon district of the city in a spree that has cost authorities tens of thousands of dollars, they said. The petty potty thefts come after eight manhole covers and street-drain covers were carted away in January. Officers said the demand for cheap metal in booming China was believed to be the cause of the thefts.

■ Australia
Insects are OK
Unless we learn to love insects they will become extinct and the world will be the worse for it, an international conference in Australia was told yesterday. "Because insects are so interwoven into the vast majority of terrestrial food webs, about two-thirds of all flowering plants ... depend on insects as pollinators," May Berenbaum of the University of Illinois said. She told the International Congress of Entomology that "without the insects, we don't have the plants [and] without the plants, the whole food web collapses."

■ Philippines
Fake father fleeces fuzz
A fake priest has been arrested after duping the head and other officers of the National Bureau of Investigation into donating money for bogus projects, officials said yesterday. The suspect, identified as Enrico Reyes, 31, was arrested on Wednesday inside the bureau's headquarters in downtown Manila while attempting to solicit more donations from bureau officials and employees. Among those that Reyes duped were the bureau director, the deputy director for investigative services, the arrest and interdiction chief and a special action unit chief. The suspect admitted he was a fake priest, but claimed he only wanted to help the poor and did not use the money he solicited for personal gain.

■ China
`Dead' kidnapper returns
A man who was shot by police after kidnapping two children and shipped off to be cremated was found to be alive by funeral workers who heard him groan, state media and local officials said yesterday. Zhang Kailin, 36, was shot at point-blank range and fell to the ground from a five-storey window ledge after a tense two-hour standoff at a school in Hebei province on Tuesday, a paper said. He had taken two children hostage and demanded a 2,500 yuan (US$300) ransom before police moved in. The paper said his body was put in a coffin and taken to a funeral home, but workers heard a groan on opening the coffin and were shocked to find the man still alive.

■ China
Take the money and run
About 4,000 corrupt Chinese officials have fled abroad in the past two decades, taking with them ill-gotten funds totaling more than US$600 million. That figure was part of findings in a report issued by the Ministry of Commerce, details of which the official Xinhua news agency published yesterday. Mei Xinyu, the leading writer of the report, said China had the world's fourth-most serious problem with capital flight, Xinhua reported. Chinese leaders have sounded warnings in recent years that the Communist Party could lose power if it fails to crack down on corruption, the scourge that toppled several imperial dynasties. Graft among government officials is consistently one of the main popular grievances.

■ Tanzania
Sanctions on rebels urged
African leaders appealed to the UN Security Council on Wednesday to impose sanctions on the Burundian rebel group that claimed responsibility for the weekend massacre of at least 160 refugees at a UN camp in Burundi. Urging the UN to officially brand the rebel National Liberation Forces as a terrorist group, African leaders asked the Security Council to use its anti-terrorist powers to impose a travel ban and arms embargo and freeze assets belonging to the group and individuals connected to it, Tanzanian Foreign Minister Jakaya Kikwete said. "In light of the recent incidents and refusal of the [National Liberation Forces] to desist from violence and to actively join the peace process, the summit resolved to declare the (National Liberation Forces) a terrorist group," Kikwete said.

■ South Africa
Prophet remains dead
A mortuary in a small South African town on Wednesday handed back the body of a man to his family after he failed to rise from the dead as predicted by a self-proclaimed prophet. The body of Paul Meintjes was given back to his family weeks after the "prophet" declared that he would rise from the dead, prompting his family to keep his remains frozen in the local morgue. The bizarre saga has made headlines in the South African press and kept the small town of Hertzogville, about 130 km northwest of the central city of Bloemfontein, buzzing.

■ United States
First Asian senator dies
Hiram Fong, a son of Chinese immigrants who overcame poverty to become a millionaire businessman and the first Asian-American elected to the US Senate, died at age 97. Fong, a Republican, died Wednesday at his home with his wife, Ellyn, and daughter Merie-Ellen Fong Gushi at his side, said Maureen Lichter, spokeswoman for Finance Factors, a financial company Fong founded. Fong had been hospitalized recently at St Francis Medical Center in Honolulu but had gone home Saturday, Lichter said. She said she did not know the cause of death.

■ United Kingdom
Beatles material still lost
A long-sought trove of rare Beatles material that reportedly was found last month by a lucky British tourist remains lost, a leading Beatles expert says. Last month, The Times newspaper reported that a suitcase bought by Fraser Claughton, 41, at an Australian flea market for about US$35 was packed with Beatles memorabilia, including photos, concert programs and unreleased recordings. But Pete Nash, a memorabilia expert from the British Beatles Fan Club who examined the contents of the suitcase on behalf of a British television channel, said he saw photocopied ticket stubs, laser-scanned pictures from the 1990s and no rare reel-to-reel recordings.

■ Romania
Old phone request denied
A Romanian man who submitted a written request for a fixed phone line in 1976 finally received a reply, 28 years later, from Romania's state-run Romtelecom, published Wednesday. More astounding than the delay, however, was the message. "We inform you that we still do not have any lines available," said the letter, addressed to Gheorghe Titianu. "But if you maintain your request," it continued, offering a glimmer of hope, "please fill out the attached form." Titianu had the courtesy to answer. "I am honored that you have not forgotten me after 28 years," he wrote, tongue firmly in cheek.

■ United States
Bullets, not boobs, army told
A group supporting natural breasts staged a small street protest in Hollywood on Wednesday against a US military policy offering free breast implants to female soldiers. The group, led by porn star and former California gubernatorial candidate Mary Carey, said the military should spend its money on "bullets, not boobs." "I think girls should have natural boobs and natural beauty," Carey said after unveiling her own breasts in the protest at an Army recruiting office on Sunset Boulevard.

■ United States
Trump launches board game
Donald Trump on Wednesday unveiled his newest business venture: a new board game with high stakes dealmaking and dollar sums in the billions. Trump: The Game, made by Parker Brothers, is played by up to four players bidding on real estate, buying big ticket items, such as islands and office buildings, and making billion-dollar business deals -- just like Trump does in real life. There is, however, no gaming equivalent of bankruptcy, which has recently been a part of the Trump experience. Of course, players can terminate their opponents using the two words _ "You're fired" -- made famous on Trump's reality TV show The Apprentice. The game retails for US$24.99.

■ France
Pope leaves Lourdes in debt
The Roman Catholic shrine of Lourdes on Wednesday opened a special bank account and appealed for donations after it emerged that last weekend's visit by Pope John Paul II had left it with a 1.2 million euro (US$1.5 million) deficit. Monsignor Jacques Perrier, the bishop of Lourdes, said the organizers had been planning to recoup the vast majority of their expenses of 1.5 million euros from donations at the Mass celebrated by the pontiff during his visit. But the 200,000-plus visitors, including thousands of sick people in hospital beds and wheelchairs, left only 185,000 euros between them, apparently because many were so keen to get good seats that they rushed past the collection boxes.

■ Canada
Report slams sloppy military
The Canadian military is sloppy about guarding its weapons, ammunition and technology from thieves and terrorists, parts of a government report released on Wednesday said. An audit of five major military facilities found that local security officers were poorly prepared and badly trained, and that key elements of Canada's security policy were neglected. A sanitized version of the highly critical report was posted last month on the National Defense Web site.

■ United Kingdom
Migrants' English scrutinized
Under rules introduced last month, Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders, South Africans and Americans must prove they have a good grasp of English to become UK citizens. The easiest way of doing this is gaining an English for Speakers of Other Languages certificate. Those who speak English as their first language cannot sign up, however -- they need written confirmation from a designated person that they have an equivalent qualification, but the Home Office has not yet decided who the designated judges will be. Applicants who have to wait an average seven months for naturalization, and who must have lived in the UK for five years, are fuming at being rejected. A public figure who has been knighted and has lived in the UK for 44 years has been rejected, as has a 30-year-old Australian writer.

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