■ Pakistan
Six killed in ambush
Gunmen ambushed nine men from a rival tribe in southern Pakistan yesterday, killing six of them and injuring the other three, police said. The shooting occurred in Jaffarabad, a small town about 360km northeast of Karachi, local police official Zahid Hussain said. The Lakhan tribesmen came under attack while they were going to a court for a hearing in a trial of two of their tribesmen over the murder two years ago of a rival Mehar tribesman. The gunmen fled and no one was arrested. Hussain said that police suspected Mehar tribesmen were behind the attack. Deadly family and clan rivalries are common in Pakistan's deeply conservative rural areas. Disputes that can go on for decades, claiming scores of lives, often center on property or family honor.
■ China
School evacuated after blast
More than 1,000 primary children were evacuated after a bomb exploded at a school in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, state media reported yesterday. No-one was injured. The headmaster of the school in Foshan City received an anonymous phone call on Tuesday morning claiming that a bomb had been planted by a staircase, the Southern Metropolitan Daily reported. A minor explosion occurred soon after but no-one was injured and none of the school buildings was badly damaged. The children were quickly evacuated, it said.
■ China
Teen kills over homework
A Chinese teenager battered his mother to death with a hammer because he was fed up with her nagging him to do his homework, state media said yesterday. The 16-year-old high school student from Jintan City in Jiangsu Province admitted to police that he killed his mother on Sunday while she was asleep, the Jiangnan Times reported. The teenager said he took the drastic action because he had not done his homework and was afraid of being shouted at by his mother, who often beat and scolded him because of his poor academic record.
■ Nepal
Rebels storm TV station
Three heavily armed Maoist rebels stormed a television station in western Nepal, overpowered the guards and bombed transmitters, a police officer said yesterday. No one was injured in the overnight attack at the state-owned Nepal Television tower in Palpa, 300km west of Kathmandu. But TV transmission to several districts was cut off. "Two Maoists overpowered us and the third one went into the building. There was a big explosion soon after he came out," the police officer quoted one of the guards as saying.
■ Australia
Missing bushwalker found
A Colombian businessman who went missing for 10 days after going for a bushwalk in Australia has been found alive, rescuers said yesterday. Police said 47-year-old Ricardo Sirutis was located on Moreton Island off the eastern state of Queensland, conscious but suffering from dehydration. The head for South America of the Pfizer drug company failed to return from a day trip to the island on May 8. More than 100 troops and State Emergency Service volunteers had been mounting a major search. Service spokesman John Butler told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that Sirutis is in a stable condition. He would be treated and then airlifted out to hospital. Sirutis was located about 3km from where he went missing.
■ Germany
`Dead' woman denied funds
A woman in her 80s said on Tuesday she had been ordered by her pension fund to produce a certificate to prove she was still alive. Martha Kruse called the Bundesknappschaft fund after her payments were suddenly stopped, only to be told by an employee: "Don't get upset, but you died on Jan. 28." The fund also asked payments made to the 82-year-old to be repaid. The employee would not accept the sound of the woman's voice as proof that she was still alive and asked her instead to produce a "life certificate." The perplexed Kruse was forced to go to the municipal authorities in her home town of Barsinghausen which agreed to make out the necessary document, charging her 4.80 euros (US$6) for the privilege.
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