■ ChinaPart of satellite falls to earth
A section of a Chinese scientific satellite that was returning from orbit crashed into an apartment building, wrecking the top floor but causing no injuries, a newspaper said yesterday. The capsule crashed into the four-story building Friday in Penglai, a village in Sichuan Province, the Tianfu Morning News said. It said a woman who lived there had left five minutes earlier. A photo in the Tianfu Morning News showed the kettle-shaped capsule, which appeared to be about 2m long, lying amid broken bricks, beams and roof tiles. ``The satellite landed in our home. Maybe this means we'll have good luck this year,'' the tenant of the wrecked apartment, Huo Jiyu, was quoted as saying.
■ Malaysia
Kids used as guinea pigs
A doctor involved in traditional medicine practices has been arrested for allegedly kidnapping children and using them as guinea pigs in his experiments to find medical cures, news reports said yesterday. Police detained the doctor in southern Seremban town after a 14-year-old boy filed a police report claiming he had been held captive by the doctor for three months, the Star newspaper reported. The boy, who escaped earlier this week from the doctor's home, accused the 52-year-old doctor of performing numerous experiments on him.
■ Indonesia
Megawati spurns successor
President Megawati Sukarnoputri has decided not to attend this week's inauguration of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as president, a senior aide said yesterday. ``There are no regulations requiring her presence at the ceremony,'' said Pramono Anung, a senior official in her party. ``She also has no plans to meet him soon.'' Voters overwhelmingly dumped Megawati in favor of Yudhoyono in the country's first direct presidential vote. Media and critics have blasted Megawati for being a bad loser. She tearfully conceded defeat in a vaguely worded speech days after the final results were announced. Yudhoyono had attended the speech, but she never mentioned him by name and also refused to acknowledge his presence.
■ Thailand
`Fat, old' caddies fight back
Two hundred employees at the Pinehurst golf course have lodged a discrimination complaint with the Labor Ministry against the management's order for "short, fat, old" caddies to shape up or leave the greens, media reports said on Sunday. Pinehurst has given its female caddies three months to get their weight down to 70kg or lose their status as full-time employees, according to the Bangkok Post. At least 200 of the club's 400 to 700 caddies have lodged a discrimination complaint against the management on the grounds that beauty has nothing to do with toting golf bags and handling temperamental "masters," as they term the club's clientele.
■ China
Riot cops go to Haiti
Ninety-five Chinese riot police, including 13 women, left Beijing for Haiti yesterday, the first Chinese troops to be deployed to the Western Hemisphere. A small advance team left China last month. "This is a very hard task but we are full of confidence to succeed in this mission," one woman officer told state television. The force has spent three months training and passed exams administered by the UN.
■ FrancePierre Salinger dies
Pierre Salinger, who served as President John F. Kennedy's press secretary and later had a long career with ABC News, has died at a hospital in southern France. He was 79. Salinger died Saturday from heart failure following surgery last week at a hospital in Cavaillon to implant a pacemaker, his wife, Nicole "Poppy" Salinger, said in a telephone interview yesterday. Mrs. Salinger, spoke from Le Thon in the Provence region, where the couple moved four years ago to run a bed-and-breakfast inn. She said her husband moved to France because he was deeply opposed to the presidency of George W. Bush.
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