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World News Quick Take

■ India
Freed hostages return home
Three Indian truck drivers held hostage in Iraq for more than 40 days returned to New Delhi yesterday morning by a Kuwait Airlines flight. The men -- Antaryami, Sukhdev Singh and Tilak Raj -- thanked the Indian government, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and officials in Kuwait for securing their release. "It is a happy day. I can't describe my joy," said Ahamed, India's junior minister for external affairs, who welcomed the released hostages. A ransom of about US$1 million was apparently paid by the transport company, media reports said Thursday.

■ Indonesia
Embassy warns US citizens
Americans in Indonesia need to take precautions against possible new terrorist attacks, the US Embassy in Jakarta said on Friday. A bomb attack by Muslim militants on Indonesia's resort island of Bali in October 2002 killed 202, mostly foreign tourists, and last year a car bomb at a J.W. Marriott luxury hotel in Jakarta killed 12. In both cases police and intelligence officials blamed Jemaah Islamiah, a regional group linked to al-Qaeda, for the blasts.

■ Hong Kong
Officer faces deportation
A former Chinese customs official linked to China's biggest smuggling racket is facing extradition to Hong Kong after the Australian Federal Court ended his two-year bid for freedom, a report said on Friday. Wong Tai-shing, 46, alleged to be a close associate of China's most-wanted man, Lai Changxing, had been appealing against a deportation order made after his arrest in 2002, the South China Morning Post said without citing sources. Chinese authorities have alleged Lai was the master-mind behind a massive smuggling case concentrated in southern Xiamen city, Fujian province, which involved goods worth at least US$6.6 billion. Eight people have been executed for their roles in the racket.

■ Australia
Longest held seat contested
The conservative government could lose its longest-held parliamentary seat in next month's election after a party rebel announced yesterday he will challenge Prime Minister John Howard's hand-picked candidate. Government backbencher Peter King said he was not willing to relin-quish his Sydney seat of Wentworth and will stand as an independent against high-profile businessman Malcolm Turnbull, who has been pre-selected by Howard's Liberal Party. King's decision threatens to split the conser-vative vote in the blue-ribbon Liberal seat, which includes Bondi Beach and has been held by the conservatives ever since Australian federation in 1900.

■ United Nations
Lebanon told to resist Syria
The Security Council on Thursday night passed an American- and French-sponsored resolution pressing Lebanon to reject Syrian intervention in its politics and calling on all foreign forces to leave the country. Syria has 20,000 troops in Lebanon and has controlled the country's politics for decades, but Thursday night's action was prompted by a sudden move by Damascus to let the president it backs, Emile Lahoud, stay in office beyond the end of his term on Nov. 24. Syria's ambassador, Fayssal Mekdad, denounced the resolution as "interference in the internal affairs of Lebanon."

■ United States
Reservist guilty of abuse
A Marine reservist was found guilty Thursday of dereliction of duty and the abuse of prisoners last year at a makeshift detention camp in Iraq, but cleared of assaulting a 52-year-old Iraqi man who later died there. Marine Sergeant Gary Pittman's wife cried as the military jury's verdict was read following four hours of deliberation. Pittman, 40, a federal prison guard in New York in his civilian life, was acquitted of the most serious charge, of karate-kicking 52-year-old Nagem Hatab in the chest shortly before the Iraqi was found dead in a dusty yard at the facility known as Camp Whitehorse.

■ Northern Ireland
Digger drives into pub
Northern Irish Protestant paramilitaries were blamed Friday for driving a mechanical digger through the front of a Belfast pub frequented by Catholics. None of the pub's staff or customers were hurt. The digger smashed through the front of the Thirty Two Degrees North pub on the city's Crumlin Road shortly after midnight, smashing windows and causing structural damage. Its bucket was reported to be packed with slates and burning wood. Margaret McClenaghan, a councillor for the Irish republican party Sinn Fein, said Protestant loyalists were behind the incident.

■ South Africa
Huge drug bust in Durban
A massive haul of drugs worth nearly US$100 million has been found aboard a boat from Hong Kong by South African police, a radio report said yesterday. Six tons of methaqualone, used for making the highly addictive synthetic drug Mandrax, was reportedly discovered by officials in the port of Durban after a tip-off from Hong Kong police. The station said police in South Africa were linking the haul to a series of drug seizures over the past month. It is not known if anyone was arrested in connection with Thursday's operation.

■ Germany
Cannibal story sold for TV
Already the subject of a hit rock song and a film script, Germany's convicted cannibal is now destined for the small screen as the star of a television documentary, its producer said Friday. Armin Meiwes, who was jailed in January for more than eight years for killing and eating the flesh of a willing victim, has signed over the media rights to his case to the Hamburg-based production firm Stampfwerk. Managing director Guenter Stampf said the documentary would "come to terms with an unusual criminal case." Stampf said he had negotiated for nine months with Meiwes and his attorney Harald Ermel before winning their agreement to give Stampfwerk "the exclusive rights to the journalistic treatment of the case." He declined to say how much Meiwes would be paid.

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