■ South Korea
Men eat boss' pedigree dog
Three South Korean dog meat lovers were facing a US$70,000 lawsuit after cooking and eating their employer's pedigree dog, a news report said yesterday. The men, all in their 50s and employed at a car-hire firm, killed and served up the dog in a traditional Korean soup dish during the employer's absence from the company parking lot where the animal was tethered, Yonhap news agency reported. The owner said he would sue the three, claiming the dog was a Jindo, an expensive Korean pedigree breed, the news agency said. Police were also investigating the case.
■ Japan
Radiation found in water
Radioactive water from a leak in a nuclear reactor has been found at the same power station where five workers died in an accident last month, a Japanese power firm said yesterday. The 54cm3 of water was discovered late Thursday at Kansai Electric Power's Mihama plant some 350km west of Tokyo, the company said. The water, which had leaked from a cooler at a reactor at the plant contained radiation levels that were not dangerous, the firm said. "The water only contained about one one-hundred-millionth of the radiation level someone is naturally exposed to over a year," said Kansai spokesman Hiroshi Ogawa.
■ Afghanistan
Militants fire rocket at Karzai
Two men have been arrested for trying to kill Afghan President Hamid Karzai by firing a rocket at his helicopter during his first election campaign trip outside the capital, officials said yesterday. The men, aged between 20 and 23, were captured just after the unsuccessful rocket attack in the southeastern town of Gardez on Thursday, after they tried to flee by motorcycle, said Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal. Taliban guerrillas, who have vowed to disrupt Afghanistan's first ever direct presidential polls on Oct. 9 next month, have claimed responsibility.
■ Hong Kong
Murder called mercy killing
A Hong Kong man was jailed for two years for pushing his blind, paralyzed father into the sea and drowning him in what has been called a mercy killing, reports said Friday. Madam Justice Clare-Marie Beeson said mercy killing could not be accepted as an excuse for homicide, according to the South China Morning Post. The court heard that Yam Yuen-ming, 47, took his 84 year-old father from his nursing home in September, telling the nurse he wanted to take him to a medical appointment. Instead he strapped the elderly man into a wheelchair and pushed him into Victoria Harbour.
■ United Kingdom
Protestors released on bail
Eight men arrested Wednesday after penetrating the House of Commons to protest legislation against fox hunting were released yesterday on police bail, a spokesman said. The eight men, including five who burst into the Commons chamber in the worst breach of parliamentary security in living memory, walked out of a police station in central London, he said. The eight men, apparently posing as construction workers, slipped into the British parliament as 10,000 supporters of fox hunting demonstrated on the streets outside against legislation to ban the bloodsport.
■ France
Test scam discovered
France has been forced to reform the written part of its driving exam because driving schools have been using an electronic system to send correct answers to candidates. Suspicious of the soaring pass rate at some schools, police began investigating test centers in May. In one exam raid last week, they found the answer. At the start of the test candidates would discreetly ring a corrupt school staff member and leave the phone on. The contact would assess which of 20 ready-prepared multiple-choice highway code exams was being read out, and transmit a radio signal at the correct answer, vibrating a small device hidden in the candidates' socks.
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