World News Quick Take

■ Laos
Soldiers killed 5 kids: AI
Amnesty International yesterday accused the Laotian armed forces of torturing and killing five ethnic Hmong children in what the human rights group described as a "war crime." The group called for UN agencies and aid groups to be given immediate access to Hmong rebels inside Laos following the attack. Amnesty said it had gathered evidence "including video and witness testimony of an attack by Lao soldiers against a group of five children in the Xaisomboune military zone" on May 19, 2004. A foreign ministry spokesman in Vientiane dismissed the report as "false allegations aiming at creating disorder." The assault was carried out by approximately 35 soldiers. Several other people escaped the attack.

■ Japan
Two killers hanged
The government executed a man yesterday for killing eight children in a 2001 knifing rampage that forced tightened security at schools. Mamoru Takuma, who had a history of mental illness, barged through classrooms in Osaka wildly slashing at children and teachers. Kyodo News service and national broadcaster NHK reported Takuma's execution along with the hanging of a second inmate, convicted murderer Sueo Shimazaki. In the June 8, 2001 attack, Takuma killed seven girls and one boy, ages six to eight, at Ikeda elementary school in an Osaka suburb. Takuma showed little remorse for his act, telling the court he could have killed more children if he had chosen a kindergarten.

■ Thailand
Foreign teachers raped
Police have arrested four teenagers in the alleged gang raping two foreign women in southwestern Thailand, an official said yesterday. The youths were arrested late Monday after a 19-year-old Canadian woman and a 22-year-old British woman alleged they had been raped on a beach in Petchaburi province, said Panya Mamen, chief of the tourist police. The teens were believed to have been acquaintances of the women, who were working as volunteer teachers at a college. The rape took place early Monday after the women went to a nightclub with the teens. Police are seeking six other suspects.

■ Vietnam
Man seeks prison refuge
A young man confessed to 17 murders he did not commit in a effort to get sent to jail to escape from moneylenders, police said yesterday. Vu Van Thang, 18, was questioned on Friday and confessed to a recent murder and 16 others, in an attempt to get sent to jail and avoid a moneylender to whom he owed cash. Thang will be charged with making false statements to the police.

■ Japan
Silent drifter identified
A mystery man who refused to talk for more than a week after he was found floating near Japan's main space center on a remote southern island has been identified as a 27-year-old Chinese fisherman believed to have jumped ship after an argument, an official said yesterday. The man was found floating at sea with a duffel bag on Sept. 2. He was rescued by a fisherman. Police later identified him as a a crewman aboard a Chinese-registered fishing ship. "We believe he jumped from a boat of his own will," said Yoshio Nakagawa of the Immigration Bureau. "Apparently he had some kind of argument with his fellow crewmembers." The man says he wants to return to his country as soon as possible, and will be deported from Japan soon. "I guess he didn't really feel like talking about anything," Nakagawa said.

■ Israel
Arafat to be `expelled'
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon insisted yesterday that Palestinian President Yasser Arafat would be expelled from the West Bank, adding that Arafat would be dealt with in the same way as two assassinated heads of Hamas. In an interview with the top-selling Yediot Aharonot published a year after his security Cabinet approved Arafat's "removal" in principle, Sharon insisted that his arch-enemy would be banished "at a time that suits us."

■ Israel
Sharon rejects referendum
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was quoted yesterday as rejecting a call by Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his main rival in the rightist Likud party, to hold a referendum on Sharon's Gaza withdrawal plan. Sharon told three Israeli dailies that the idea floated on Monday by Netanyahu "is not on the agenda." Netanyahu said he had proposed a nationwide vote to defuse mounting tensions with ultra-rightists determined to resist a withdrawal, whom Sharon denounced at a Cabinet meeting on Sunday as threatening to lead Israel into civil war.

■ Israel
Militant injures soldiers
A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in the northern West Bank yesterday, injuring at least three Israeli soldiers, Israel Radio reported. The suicide bomber blew himself up next to a patrol near the Palestinian city of Qalqilya. One soldier was seriously injured, the other two sustained light injuries. On Monday afternoon, an Israeli helicopter fired on and killed three leading members of the Palestinian militant group al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades as they traveled in a car in the West Bank refugee camp of Jenin.

■ Spain
First nude disco opens
As dress codes go, the new rules for the Allen Roc discotheque could not be simpler -- leave your clothes behind. All of them. The club has organized what it claims is Europe's first nudist disco night, telling bouncers not to admit the bashful and only those prepared to boogie in the buff. With the first Sunday night naked dance session already advertised for this weekend, the discotheque in the eastern Spanish town of Corneall has received the enthusiastic backing of local nudist groups. "It will be a place to have a drink, dance, listen to music, chat to friends or meet new people," a plug on the Web site of the Catalan Naturist Society said on Monday.

■ Kenya
Pot found on mountainside
Police have found marijuana being grown commercially on high altitude slopes of Mount Kenya, national police spokesman Jaspher Ombati said yesterday. "We have discovered several pockets of marijuana farms in forests along the higher slopes of the mountain," Ombati told reporters, saying the fields were at an altitude of around 2,500m. "They are not easily accessible because of a thick forest cover and cruel mountain weather," he said, explaining that attempts to raid the farms by helicopter on Monday failed because of thick clouds and heavy rains. Ombati said officers from the Kenya Wildlife Services and Anti-Narcotic Police Unit have sealed off the forest area where the farms are located.

■ Canada
Married lesbians divorce
A Canadian court has granted what is believed to be the world's first same sex divorce to a lesbian couple, barely a year after the country gave the green light for gays and lesbians to wed. A landmark ruling on Monday by Judge Ruth Mesbur of the Ontario Supreme Court found that the definition of a spouse in the country's marital laws was unconstitutional. The law specifies that only a couple, defined as a man and a woman may seek divorce. The two women tied the knot on June 18 last year, a week after Ontario's court of Appeal cleared the way for gay marriage in the province.

■ United States
Five widows back Kerry
Five outspoken Sept. 11 widows were scheduled to publicly endorse Senator John Kerry for president, throwing their weight behind the Democratic challenger in a heated campaign debate over who is best suited to defend the nation from another terrorist attack. Some, including Kristen Breitweiser, of Middletown, New Jersey, and Monica Gabrielle, of West Haven, Connecticut, also have agreed to make campaign appearances for Kerry, cam-paign sources said. "We will be speaking from the heart, and speaking from our conscience," Breitweiser said on Monday. She is by far the most visible and outspoken of the Sept. 11 family advocates, and has been highly critical of the government's reform efforts to date.

■ United States
Moussaoui may face death
The US government may pursue the death penalty for accused Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui if he is convicted, a federal appeals court reaffirmed on Monday, clearing the way for his trial to proceed. The ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Virginia, gave Moussaoui freedom to use in his defense statements by al-Qaeda captives gathered by means other than the face-to-face interviews he had sought. The court also rejected Moussaoui's appeal of its order barring him from interviewing people held by the US as enemy comba-tants. Moussaoui, 35, is the only person charged in the US in connection with the attacks.

■ United States
NRC downplays threat
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it is unlikely significant amounts of radiation would be released in a deliberate crash of a jetliner into a nuclear power plant, but that engineering tests have not entirely ruled out the possibility of radioactive releases. The commission said studies on a limited number of nuclear power plants by federal research labs and agency staff showed that even if there were initial releases of radioactivity, plant operators would have time to take actions to reduce the impact on public health.

■ United States
Manure pit death trial opens
The deaths of two dairy workers who were asphyxi-ated by gases rising from a fetid stew of cow manure could have been prevented if their employer had given them the proper training and equipment, prosecutors said on Monday during opening statements in a case against farmer Patrick Faria. He has been charged with two counts of involuntary man-slaughter in connection with the 2001 deaths of Enrique Araisa and Jose Alatorre. Prosecutors said Faria failed to warn the employees of the pit's danger and to train them on how to enter.