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World News Quick Take

■ Afghanistan
US bombs kills 4 civilians
At least four civilians were killed and nine injured when American fighter jets late Monday bombed to retaliate for a Taliban attack lasting more than two hours in Afghanistan's western Kunar province near Asadabad. US jets later bombed a residential area for three hours. The Taliban and Afghan warlords have attacked US and Afghan troops, aid workers and supporters of US-backed Hamid Karzai's government since December 2001, and have stepped up their activities in the runup to this fall's presidential election, the first in Afghan history.

■ China
Impotence rampant in China
More than 50 percent of Chinese men over 40 suffer from varying degrees of impotence, and most delay seeking treatment because they are embarrassed, according to a nationwide survey released yesterday. The six-month study of 1,000 people in major Chinese cities suggested 52.5 percent of men over 40 suffer from erectile dysfunction and 90 percent of those said their sex lives were badly affected. The survey is the country's first survey of men's sexual health, Xinhua news agency said. Jiang Hui of Beijing People's Hospital said patients on average saw a doctor 22 months after symptoms arose, compared to six months in the West.

■ China
Thwarted ape apes visitors
Sexual frustration has turned a chimpanzee from a mild-mannered simian into a problem primate who smokes cigarettes and spits at visitors, the Xinhua news agency says. Feili, a female chimp in Zhengzhou, Henan, picked up her nasty habits by imitating visitors who behaved "improperly" around her, Xinhua quoted zoo director Liu Bing as saying on Sunday. But Liu said the root cause of Feili's transformation from a "gentle girl" into a "shrew" lay with the inability to find her a satisfactory mate. A male chimpanzee failed to live up to Feili's sexual demands, and she has nixed other suitors.

■ Philippines
Cops get wake-up call
The Philippines' gung-ho new police chief caught two officers sleeping in their air-conditioned car yesterday in front of the US Embassy and vowed to banish them to an island for retraining. Edgar Aglipay was driving by the heavily fortified embassy at dawn when he tapped the officers' car window to wake them up. Aglipay was designated last week to head the police force, vowing to crack down on crime and terrorism and starting a campaign to change the force's shabby, corrupt image. Inspecting more than 3,000 police on Sunday, Aglipay drew a pair of scissors and trimmed at least two officers' hair.

■ Australia
Newspaper smears Greens
The election campaign began with a bang yesterday with claims the Greens Party wanted to allow the sale of "party" drugs, state funding for sex changes and laws to make people ride bicycles and eat less meat. The small but influential Greens Party rejected a media report which claimed it would campaign for all that and more during the run-up to the Oct. 9 election. "Greens back illegal drugs," Melbourne's Herald Sun tabloid declared. Opinion polls show small parties like the Greens and the Democrats could play a crucial role in a cliff-hanger election between Prime Minister John Howard's Liberal/National coalition and Labor. Greens leader Bob Brown rejected most of the claims, saying the report was concocted after the paper contacted a right-wing thinktank supporting Howard.

■ Saudi Arabia
Diplomatic car attacked
A US Marine embassy guard and his driver escaped uninjured Monday when the vehicle in which they were travelling came under attack in the Saudi city of Jeddah. US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher also said Saudi officials were investigating the attack, adding that it apparently was the work of a single gunman. Boucher said several shots were fired at the car, which belonged to the US consulate in Jeddah. He said the US didn't know who carried out the attack, which occurred approximately two blocks from the consulate. Boucher said the consulate was closed to the public for the rest of the day.

■ Russia
Three-way meeting begins
A three-way meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Jacques Chirac got underway yesterday, their third summit since the trio united in strong opposition to the US invasion of Iraq. International affairs such as the situation in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East were expected to top the agenda, but the leaders also planned to devote time to relations between Russia and the EU as well as issues involving energy cooperation.

■ United States
Drunk decapitates friend
A Georgia man who drove home with a friend's headless body after a truck accident then went to bed while the remains dangled out the window faces charges including vehicular homicide and drunk driving, police said Monday. John Hutcherson, covered in blood and visibly inebriated, was arrested in bed on Sunday morning after a local resident out on a stroll observed a headless, bloody body hanging out of the 21-year-old man's truck. Police said that Hutcherson and his friend, identified as Francis Brohm, 23, were returning from a bar outside Atlanta early Sunday morning when their pickup hit a curb near a telephone pole. Brohm, partially outside the window at the time, was decapitated by a guide wire on the telephone pole, according to police, who recovered his head at the crash site.

■ United States
Detainees to see lawyers
Two British nationals held by the US as terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay are to be visited by a lawyer this week for the first time since their detention, their British lawyer said Monday. Strict orders have been put in place by the US government about what the lawyer, Gita Gutierrez, can say on the men's condition and state of mind following the visit, said the men's British attorney Louise Christian. Feroz Abbasi, 23, of London, who was arrested in Afghanistan in 2001, and Moazzam Begg, 36, from Birmingham, in the English Midlands, who was arrested in Pakistan more than two years ago, were to be visited yesterday and today.

■ France
Hostages appear on TV
Two French journalists held hostage in Iraq urged the French government to give in to their captors' demand by revoking a law banning Muslim head scarves in public schools, the Arabic-language television station Al-Jazeera reported Monday night. Otherwise, they said, they might be killed. Quoting a written statement, the station reported that the Islamic Army of Iraq, the little-known group that kidnapped the two men, had decided to extend by 24 hours the deadline for Paris to lift the ban. On Saturday night the group gave France 48 hours to cancel the ban.

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