World News Quick Take

■ Myanmar
AIDS patients lack drugs
Thousands HIV-AIDS patients in military-ruled Myanmar lack access to anti-retroviral drugs because of a funding shortage, a UN representative was quoted as saying yesterday. Myanmar's health department can provide the drugs to only about 500 of the 25,000 victims infected with the AIDS virus who need them, the Flower News journal reported. The monthly cost of the drugs was 30,000 kyats (US$30) per patient.

■ India
Tigers to be `collared'
Authorities India's biggest tiger reserve plan to put satellite-linked radio collars on big cats as part of new conservation methods to save the endangered animal, a forest official said yesterday. The new monitoring moves in the mangrove marshlands of the Sunderbans in the eastern state of West Bengal come amid growing alarm over the country's rapidly dwindling tiger population because of rampant poaching. The radio collars bought from the US will be fixed on four Bengal tigers in the nearly 10,000km2 forest.

■ Philippines
Bus crashes kill seven
Seven were killed and 39 others injured when two buses fell into ravines in separate accidents in the Philippines, police said yesterday. Five died when a passenger bus plunged into a cliff in Cabadbaran town, Agusan del Norte province, 810km south of Manila, late on Monday. Police said the ill-fated bus was negotiating a bend on the highway when the driver lost control of the vehicle, ramming it into the railings and then falling. Twenty-one other passengers were injured. In Batangas province, two students were killed when their school bus plunged into a ravine in Bauan town on Monday.

■ Nepal
Rain dance in the buff
More 100 women danced naked in a remote mountainous village in Nepal hoping that the gods would be pleased and give them rain, a news report said yesterday. The women gathered at a local school, smeared their faces with black powder and danced naked last week at Darbang village, about 280km west of the capital, Kathmandu. "People in this area believe the [Hindu god] Mahadev will be happy and provide rain once women perform such a nude dance," the Kathmandu Post quoted a local teacher as saying.

■ Australia
`Rape Club' closed down
A Web site which unwittingly hosted a chat group calling itself the "Rape Club" and in which members boasted of their crimes was yesterday working with police to find the culprits, it said. The "ninemsn" Web site shut down the group within an hour after being informed of its existence by a Sydney newspaper, it said. The Daily Telegraph said that the discussion group had 67 members and had been operating since February last year. The paper said one post, which was sent last month, read: "Anyone want to see some real pics of a girl that I've raped, just let me know cause I got some good ones."

■ Australia
Given away by flipping fish
A woman was found to be carrying 51 live tropical fish after customs officials were alerted by "flipping" noises coming from beneath her skirt as she arrived at Melbourne airport. On closer inspection, officers discovered the woman had strapped on an apron of plastic water-filled bags containing the fish, the Australian Customs Service said in a statement yesterday. The 43-year-old woman arrived in Melbourne on a flight from Singapore last Friday. Customs are still trying to determine what type of fish she brought into the country and have not yet charged her with an offense. She faces charges for breaking quarantine and customs laws for not making a declaration.

■ South Korea
US deployment complete
The US military yesterday said it had completed the deployment of about 15 stealth fighters in South Korea for routine training, a mission that has drawn strong criticism from the communist North. The F-117A Nighthawk jets arrived last week from Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico and will stay at Kunsan Air Base for about four months, where they will train alongside F-16 fighters and in a variety of weather conditions, the military said. North Korea has criticized the move and called for the warplanes' withdrawal, saying their presence dampens the atmosphere for this month's celebration in Pyongyang of a 2000 summit there between leaders of the two Koreas.

■ Pakistan
Spending to be increased
The government on Monday said it would increase its social and development spending in the coming fiscal year, while 20 percent of its total expenditure will go on defense, despite easing tensions with India. Finance Minister Omar Ayub Khan said the economy's growth provided an "unprecedented opportunity in the country's history" to boost public investment on infrastructure and the social sector. "Pakistan has achieved an economic miracle," Khan said, adding that the country is one of Asia's fastest-growing economies. Public sector development spending will grow by 35 percent to 272 billion rupees (US$4.6 billion) in the year beginning July 1, he said.

■ Spain
Eight tonnes of hash seized
Police 8 tonnes of hashish from a British-flagged fishing boat with a market value of 33 million euros (US$40 million) and arrested seven people, the Spanish Interior Ministry said yesterday. Police arrested four crew members -- two Britons, a Spaniard and an Estonian -- and three people in Glasgow, Scotland, suspected of being in charge of the drug trafficking. The hashish, which authorities suspected came from Morocco and was destined for the British market, had a street value in Britain of 33 million euros, the ministry said in a statement.

■ Serbia
Frogs rain down on town
Thousands tiny frogs rained on a town in north-west, of Belgrade, the daily Blic reported yesterday. Strong winds brought storm clouds over Odzaci, 120km north-west of Belgrade, Sunday afternoon, but instead of rain, down came the tiny amphibians, witnesses said. "I saw countless frogs fall from the sky," said Odzaci resident Aleksandar Ciric. The frogs, different from those usually seen in the area, survived the fall and hopped around in search of water. Belgrade climatologist Slavisa Ignjatovic described the phenomenon as "not very unusual." A tornado can suck in anything light enough from the surface or shallow water. Usually only dust accumulates.

■ Ethiopia
Police beat back students
Security yesterday beat rock-throwing students protesting the results of elections they say were rigged in a second day of violence that has left one person dead and seen hundreds arrested. About 100 students at a technical college tried to go into the streets to protest, but were forced to stay inside their campus by riot police and paramilitary soldiers, witness Sao Okutsu told reporters. The students began throwing rocks, which still littered the streets outside the school, Okutsu said. "Students sitting on the ground in the campus were being beaten harshly by the police," Okutsu said before police hurried him away.

■ United Kingdom
Children bullied by phone
One 10 British children say they have been threatened or made uncomfortable by people taking a photograph of them with a mobile phone, according to a survey published yesterday. Children's charity NCH said nearly a sixth of this total believed their image had then been sent to someone else. A recent craze of "happy slapping," where random attacks on strangers are filmed by camera phone, has fueled concerns about youth crime in Britain where tackling anti-social behavior is a top political issue.

■ Poland
Priest denies collaboration
A priest denied allegations Monday that he intentionally collaborated with Poland's communist authorities in the 1980s, when he was close to Pope John Paul II's entourage, but apologized to anyone he may have hurt. "I was never a conscious denouncer, who would aim to harm individuals, my fellow convent brothers, the Church hierarchy or the holy Church," Reverend Konrad Stanislaw Hejmo wrote in a statement. Hejmo acknowledged, however, that communist security agents gathered files on him that "blew my role out of proportion." Authorities recently made the files available to Poland's Institute for National Remembrance.

■ West Bank
Israelis kill two in raid
Israeli killed an Islamic Jihad commander and an unarmed Palestinian policeman yesterday during a raid against militants in the West Bank, residents and medics said. Chanting "revenge, revenge," hundreds of Palestinians marched through Jenin after the body of Maraweh Ikmil, Islamic Jihad's commander in the village of Qabatiya where the raid took place, was brought to hospital. Residents and medics said soldiers had entered Qabatiya and encircled a house, exchanging fire with militants holed up inside. They said an unarmed policeman was also shot and killed by Israeli forces during the fighting and that two Palestinians throwing stones at the troops were wounded.

■ Iran
EU gets one more chance
The EU has one last chance to strike a deal with Iran that would enable the country to produce nuclear fuel or Tehran will go its own way, a senior Iranian official said on Monday. Iran's nuclear activities are currently suspended until the end of next month under an agreement struck last November with France, Britain and Germany and extended last month. "This round of negotiations is the final chance and if negotiations are faced with a `No,' in fact that would be the end of it," said one official.

■ United States
Murder rate drops
The US murder rate declined last year for the first time since 1999, part of a nationwide reduction in all types of violent crime, the FBI said. Cities with more than 1 million people had the greatest decrease in violent crime, 5.4 percent, FBI statistics released on Monday showed. Cities of under 10,000 population saw the greatest decrease in murders, 12.2 percent. Murders fell by 3.6 percent from the 16,500 reported in 2003, meaning there were almost 600 fewer. One-fourth of the drop-off was posted by Chicago. Criminal justice experts say the decline in violent crime was something of a surprise because gang-related activity is increasing in some parts of the country, the economy is sputtering in some areas, the number of youth in decrepit urban neighborhoods is rising and law enforcement budgets are being cuts.

■ United States
Man jailed for killing wife
A Utah man who confessed to killing his pregnant wife to try and cover up his own lies about his education and plans to become a doctor was sentenced to six years to life in prison on Monday. Mark Hacking, 29, pleaded guilty in April to shooting his wife Lori while she slept and then throwing the body into the garbage. "I can't explain why I did it," he said in a hearing before the sentence was handed down. The sentence was the only one that Judge Denise Lindberg could hand down under state guidelines but she called Hacking "the poster child for dishonesty."

■ Canada
Grizzly kills jogger
A grizzly bear mauled and killed a woman jogging near a resort town in the Canadian Rockies, just days after it was airlifted from the area and fitted with a radio collar, officials said on Monday. Isabelle Dube was running on Sunday with two friends on a trail near the town of Canmore, when they came across the male grizzly. She decided to climb a tree while her two friends ran away to get help. Wildlife officers who rushed to the site found the animal guarding the body. One officer shot and killed the bear, a wildlife official said.