■ Hong Kong
Plastic pistol whiip useless
A tip for muggers and thugs: If you decide to pistol whip a victim who won't cough up cash, don't do it with a plastic toy gun. Two thieves tried to rob a 55-year-old woman working as a parking lot cleaner on Thursday, the Ming Pao newspaper reported yesterday. When the woman wouldn't hand over any money, the men began hitting her on the head with a toy gun, the paper reported. When the gun's barrel broke, the woman saw it was fake and began screaming for help, causing the muggers to drop the pistol and run away, the paper said. The Ming Pao showed a picture of the black toy gun with a large spring popping out of its broken barrel.
■ Australia
Non-festive weapons seized
Customs officers said yesterday they have seized a container full of potentially deadly weapons from China, including stun guns, knuckledusters, extendable batons, flick knives and catapults. The shipment of 320 banned weapons had been declared as "festivity commodity" items such as paper lanterns and other decorations. It was seized on Tuesday during a search of shipping containers at Port Botany in Sydney. A follow-up raid Thursday on three shops, a home and a car revealed a further 155 weapons. "This deadly cache had the potential to cause serious harm in the community," said senior customs official Gayle Brown in a statement.
■ India
Guards kill dozens of birds
Prison guards, furious at a prisoner's refusal to admit to murdering a fellow inmate, twisted the necks of about 100 of his pet pigeons and killed them, newspapers reported Thursday. Another 300 birds safely escaped the jail in the northern Indian town of Ghaziabad, the Times of India reported. Animal groups say they plan legal action against the prison, it added. After a fellow inmate allegedly died during police questioning this month, authorities blamed the death on tuberculosis until an autopsy showed he was murdered. Prison authorities pressured the inmate to confess to the killing, another paper, the Hindustan Times reported.
■ China
`Star Wars' movie draws few
The latest "Star Wars" epic opened with a lot of space but not much force. Theaters were all but empty for Thursday night's debut of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith -- in stark contrast to the excitement and hordes of costumed fans who greeted its opening in the US and elsewhere. "Business is pretty normal," said a ticket seller at the nearly empty Cathay Theater just off Shanghai's main Hauihai Road shopping artery, where a 1m high posters advertised Xishi de Fanji, as the film is called in Chinese. "Thursday nights are usually slow," said the woman, who declined to give her name.
■ United Kingdom
nUS protests Saddam photos
The US military yesterday condemned a British newspaper's decision to print photographs of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, including one showing him in his underwear. A front-page picture in the tabloid Sun showed the captive, clad only in white briefs, folding a pair of trousers. Another showed Saddam hand-washing a piece of clothing. The Sun said it obtained the photos from "US military sources." The military said the photos violated military guidelines "and possibly Geneva Convention guidelines for the humane treatment of detained individuals." The source of the photos was unknown, the military said, but believed they were taken more than a year ago.
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