■ New Zealand
UN sends assessment team
The UN announced yesterday it was sending emergency teams to the Cook Islands and neighboring atolls devastated in a recent cyclone to assess their damage and needs. Cook Islanders were cleaning up from accumulated effects of four cyclones, hoping they had seen the worst with one month left in the South Pacific's annual five-month storm season. The latest storm decimated the houses of villagers in two northern atolls on Monday but passed 290km to the west of the main island of Rarotonga overnight, but brought no injury or serious damage.
■ Pakistan
Rape verdict overturned
Mukhtaran Bibi thought her nightmare was over when the men who gang-raped her -- on orders from village elders -- were sentenced to death more than two years ago. But the victim of the country's most notorious rape case wept bitterly after a court in Multan overturned the verdict against three of the four alleged rapists and two tribal elders, and quashed the death sentence against the sixth. "I am in pain. I will ask my lawyer to challenge this decision," said the 30-year-old woman. As five of the men prepared to walk free, dismayed human-rights activists said the decision was a blow to the struggle for women's rights in a notoriously male-dominated society.
■ Japan
Sex offenders to be tracked
Japanese police will soon begin keeping track of sex offenders after they are released from prison in a bid to prevent sex crimes against children, a National Police Agency (NPA) spokesman said yesterday. Under the new system, which begins on June 1, police would hold information on the addresses of those who have served prison terms for sex crimes involving children. Police do not plan to release the information to the public; specifics, including how long police might track the whereabouts of sex offenders, are as yet undecided. Among 466 perpetrators of violent sex crimes against children last year, 15.9 percent were repeat offenders.
■ Cambodia
PM wants graft crackdown
Prime Minister Hun Sen lashed out at a "mafia" of corrupt judges and prosecutors who take bribes to let suspects go free. He declared a crackdown on criminals and those who set them free before sufficient investigation of their cases has been done, and demanded some 274 people be re-arrested. "We have to re-arrest them because they were wrongly charged and released," Hun Sen said. "I can even say you are mafia," he said of the judges and prosecutors accused of taking bribes. "These activities not only damage the image of Cambodia, but the activities of some judges and prosecutors are destroying the reputation of the courts," he added.
■ Switzerland
Speed trap flouter busted
A young Swiss driver who was caught breaking the speed limit 19 times in a night was stripped of his driving licence, fined and given a suspended prison sentence on Thursday. The 19 year-old had removed his number plates to avoid being identified as he repeatedly drove through two fixed speed traps near the Swiss capital Bern at speeds up to 40kph above the limit. However, a policeman who had dealt with him a day earlier recognized the car on the speed trap photographs, which included snaps of passengers making obscene gestures. The youngster admitted he had drunk seven or eight beers before the speeding spree.
■ Argentina
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