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World News Quick Take

■ Australia
Elderly drivers on the run
An elderly couple evaded police on a 2,253km journey by car and bus after setting off in protest when the wife was denied an extension of her driving license because of old age. Tom and Marian Foulkes, both in their 80s, drove from their Melbourne home in the southern state of Victoria to the north of New South Wales state and halfway back again, avoiding police searching for them. At one stage, the couple had their car keys confiscated by a police officer who thought they were disoriented, but they hit the road again, this time in a bus. Their two weeks on the run ended Wednesday when they were found holed up in a hotel in the capital Canberra.

■ Malaysia
`Charming' maid sacked
A family was horrified to discover their maid had spiked their drinking water with soiled diapers and sanitary pads as a magic charm to ensure they were nice to her, reports said yesterday. The 26-year-old Indonesian maid was caught soaking the items which she retrieved from the rubbish bin and pouring the dirty water into a flask, on a spy camera that the suspicious family set up at their home in Kuala Lumpur. The maid, who was instantly dismissed after the incident was discovered late last month, claimed she resorted to making the charm because she was fed up with being scolded by her employers, the Chinese press reported.

■ Bangladesh
Brothers hanged for murders
Two brothers were hanged early yesterday in a prison in western Bangladesh for murdering three neighbors over a land dispute 12 years ago, a prison official said. The simultaneous executions of Monwar Hossain, 46, and Sanwar Hossain, 42, were carried out one minute past midnight at a jail in the town of Jessore, 136km west of Dhaka, prison superintendent Azizul Haq said. Their father, Abdul Aziz died in Dhaka Central Jail early this year while serving life term in the same case, Haq said. The brothers chanted from the Koran as they walked together to the gallows. Their bodies were handed over to their relatives, Haq said. A trial court ordered death penalties to the two brothers along with their father in 1997, four years after stabbing three neighbors to death.

■ Australia
Juvenile car thief nabbed
Perth police who chased a suspected stolen car through the streets of the city were stunned to find a 12-year-old boy at the wheel and a 10-year-old friend by his side. The two youngsters allegedly stole the car from a shopping center parking lot around 9pm and then led police on a five-minute pursuit that ended when the car blew a tire, police said. The 12-year-old was arrested and charged with theft and a number of driving offenses and was due to appear in Perth Children's court later yesterday.

■ Congo
Gold may drive atrocities
The lure of gold has fuelled atrocities in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, with international companies and warlords benefiting while local people suffer slaughter, torture and rape, Human Rights Watch says. Their new report says local armed groups have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, using the profits from gold to fund their activities and buy weapons. The group cites AngloGold Ashanti, who developed links with the Nationalist and Integrationist Front (FNI). Gold from the Democratic Republic of Congo is being sent to Uganda, then shipped to global gold markets. The report also says that AngloGold Ashanti provided "meaningful financial and logistical support," which led to political benefits for the FNI, a group responsible for some of the worst atrocities.

■ The Netherlands
Town bans blasphemy
The name of the Lord may no longer be taken in vain in the Dutch village of Staphorst. Staphorst, in the so-called Dutch "bible belt" of eastern towns where religion holds sway, approved a ban on swearing by 13-4 council votes. But the caveat that swearing is not banned when it is an expression of the constitutional freedom of speech may make it difficult to punish offenders. The council's proposal said adding a change in moral values was needed to address the underlying problem. Past swearing bans in bible-belt villages were declared in violation of the right to free expression in 1986.

■ Austria
Tsunami victims identified
Forensics experts using DNA analysis and other sleuthing technology have identified the remains of 24 victims of December's tsunami that hit Sri Lanka. The identified victims were among 128 bodies that Austrian experts have been working to identify by matching DNA taken from hair follicles on brushes or clothing and matching it to genetic material from the corpses. The victims identified so far came from Germany, Britain, Italy, Sweden, Japan, Egypt and France, he said. The Vienna police's criminal investigations office said the official Austrian death toll included 74 dead and 16 missing. All but one were dead or missing in Sri Lanka; one Austrian death has been confirmed in Thailand.

■ Sweden
Moose trading goes public
Got a gun but no game? Try Sweden's new moose stock exchange, launched by the state-owned forestry firm Sveaskog. Sveaskog rents its grounds to 3,200 hunting teams with allotted kill quotas and teams will now be able to offer moose they do not expect to shoot to would-be hunters. Interested hunters can also post requests to use part of a team's quota on Sveaskog's Web site. Moose hunting is something of a national pastime in vast and sparsely populated Sweden, with 250,000 hunters felling some 100,000 moose each year.

■ Austria
Cops seek infant-killer
Police said yesterday they discovered the bodies of several newborn children in a freezer and issued a warrant for the arrest of a suspect they believe may have become a serial killer who preyed on infants. The bodies were found in the freezer in a home in Graz, about 200km south of Vienna. Authorities approved an arrest warrant, and a manhunt was under way for the suspect.

■ United States
Gay marriage bill killed
California's Assembly on Thursday killed off a bill that would have allowed gay marriage in the US' most populous state. The measure, defeated in a third and final vote, mirrored a bill that also failed last year and proposed making marriage in California "gender-neutral" and a "personal relation arising out of a civil contract between two persons." In its first two votes starting late on Wednesday night, the Democratic-controlled Assembly fell six votes short of the needed 41 votes for the bill by Democratic Assemblyman Mark Leno of San Francisco, who is openly gay.

■ United States
`Johns' to get publicized
People who solicit prostitutes in Oakland, California, could find their faces plastered on billboards under a new shaming program that one civil rights group calls bad public policy. The city of 400,000 across the bay from San Francisco started putting up billboards on Wednesday showing men arrested for soliciting sex. Other signs invite prostitutes to quit by calling a help line. "This idea came out of just thinking about new ideas, doing something to deal with this increasing problem, especially with the exploitation of underage women," said Oakland City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente, who champions the approach.

■ United States
Volcano spews smog
Volcanic smog from Anatahan Volcano on the tiny US territory of the Northern Mariana Islands the Pacific has reached as far as the Philippines and Palau, the US Geological Survey said. The latest activity from the Anatahan, which sits on a tiny island north of Saipan, began May 18 and peaked two days later, scientists said. Satellite imagery from a military weather agency showed a moderately thick plume of ash and steam from the volcano, 121km north of Saipan, rising to 4,267m and blowing west at about 32kph. The plume extends about 644km to the west, with thin ash and volcanic smog, or vog, extending for another 1,046km north and west of the volcano on Anatahan Island, the USGS report said.

■ Mexico
Drug plane crashes
A small plane crammed with cocaine crashed in the jungle along Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, killing both people onboard, authorities said Thursday. The Defense Department said the crash occurred Wednesday night near an isolated community on the border of Quintana Roo and Campeche states. Police and soldiers eventually recovered 1,066 packets of cocaine and said the total amount of narcotics aboard the Turbo Commander may have exceeded a tonne. The pilot and co-pilot were killed and a Colombian passport was found onboard.

■ United States
Hostage-taker shot, killed
Police stormed a convenience store and freed a customer held hostage for 20 hours by a man who had tied a vacuum cleaner cord around her waist, authorities said. The suspect was killed in an exchange of gunfire. Negotiators on Thursday had arranged for 29-year-old hostage Tammi Smith to come to the door to get a new telephone, with officers hoping to pull her out after a 20-hour standoff, state police First Sergeant Dave Bursten said. Officers tugged on Smith, but the gunman yanked back on the cord and began shooting from inside the store. "He pulled that cord back on me and they started firing shots into the store," Smith said afterward. "I knew he wasn't going to make it."

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