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World News Quick Take

■ Malaysia
Tourists offered jail package
A Malaysian prison is offering adventurous travelers the chance to experience the joys of prison life -- right down to the food and lack of toilets. Johor Baru prison, Malaysia's oldest, has been turned into a visitor's center and is offering an overnight package for 50 ringgit (US$13). But so far there haven't been any takers. "Each visitor will be given a cell with a mattress and a blanket but no pillow, and they will eat prison food," Abdul Wahab Kassim, a senior prison department official, told the New Straits Times newspaper. He said the overnight stays would "give an insight into prison life." Asked why no one had yet tried the deal, he blamed a lack of publicity.

■ India
Gas leak kills 1, injures 200
One person died and 200 others were treated for breathing problems after chlorine gas leaked from a water treatment plant in the eastern Indian state of Orissa, local officials and doctors said yesterday. The leak was plugged after it was detected in the town of Sambalpur, a railway employee's colony, 300km west of Orissa's state capital Bhubaneswar, late on Friday, a city official said. "The situation is under control. The leak was detected and sealed by experts," said Raghunath Pradhan, a district magistrate in Sambalpur. Most of the 200 injured suffered from breathing problems, eye irritation and severe nausea, doctors said, adding that 56 of the injured were in serious condition.

■ Australia
Paul Hogan in tax probe
Millionaire actor-director Paul Hogan, the Australian behind the 1970s smash hit Crocodile Dundee feature films, has been caught up in an investigation into tax evasion using private trusts and offshore tax havens. The Sydney Morning Herald reported Saturday that tens of millions of dollars in royalty payments from the Crocodile Dundee films were routed through complex offshore tax structures in Chile and the Netherlands Antilles in the Caribbean. The paper reported that Australian Crime Commission officers intended to question Hogan about his knowledge of any tax avoidance schemes that might have been employed.

■ India
Dwarves fight for rights
Fed up with being put down, the Small Men Association in the southern Indian state of Kerala has formed to fight job discrimination. Balakrishnan Karassery, the newly-elected vice president of the group which was formed last month with 100 members, said they would ask the state government to list them as orthopaedically handicapped thereby entitling them to reservations in jobs, free bus rides and other facilities. "We are a neglected lot and [are] discriminated [against]," said Karassery, 30, who weighs 26kg and is 90cm tall.

■ Bangladesh
Nation No. 1 for acid attacks
Bangladesh has topped the list of countries in the world with the highest number of recorded cases of acid violence mostly directed against women, a report said yesterday. The Acid Survivors Foundation (ASF) in a survey report made available to the media yesterday said 1,719 people came under acid attack in the last five years in Bangladesh, the victims of the violence being mostly female. This is the highest figure on acid violence in any country in the world. In a breakdown of the total figure, the number of acid victims in Bangladesh was 221 in 2000, 341 in 2001, 485 in 2002, 410 in 2003 and 262 last year.

■ Lebanon
Peacekeepers pulled out
The UN has asked Ukraine to pull its peacekeepers out of Lebanon after allegations soldiers had resold about US$1 million in UN fuel. The misconduct was discovered by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services and showed "significant financial misconduct by Ukrainian military personnel, including the commanding officer," a UN statement said. The Ukrainians were part of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon which has some 2,000 soldiers. The mission has been in the south of Lebanon since 1978. The offending Ukrainian unit of 200 soldiers had already been repatriated, a UN official said.

■ Jordan
Saddam blesses grandkid
Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has "blessed" the engagement of his 18-year-old granddaughter Nabaa Saddam Kamel to one of her cousins, "probably through his lawyer Khalil Duleimi or the International Committee of the Red Cross," the daily al-Arab Alyawm said. "The engagement ceremony, which took place in Amman Friday, was attended by only 20 family members," the report said. Nabaa is staying in Amman with her mother Rana, who moved to live in the Jordanian capital along with her sister Raghad as guests of the Jordanian government in the wake of the US-led military coalition in 2003.

■ United Kingdom
Official sues to overturn ban
A Kenyan cabinet minister began legal action against the British government, hoping to overturn a ban on him entering or travelling through Britain. Lawyers for Transport Minister Chris Murungaru started judicial review proceedings at the High Court in London. Murungaru had his visa revoked at the end of July. British officials have refused to explain why, other than to say his presence was not conducive to the public good and he was barred for his "character, conduct and associations."

■ United Kingdom
Muslim tipped for the crown
A British Muslim of Iraqi origin was tipped to win the Miss England crown on yesterday -- though she will not wear the traditional beauty contest bikini. Biochemistry graduate Sarah Mendly, 23, is the four-to-one favorite to win the contest, being held in Liverpool, northern England. Already named Miss Nottingham in her central English home city, Mendly is one of four Muslims among the 20 finalists. Miss Nottingham has vowed not to wear a bikini on stage. Instead, she was to wear a one-piece swimsuit underneath a sarong. "I wanted to show that there are attractive British Iraqi girls who are proud of being both British and Iraqi," she said. Mendly was born in the United Arab Emirates to Iraqi parents.

■ United Kingdom
Britons used to be happier
Britons were more content overall during the dark days of the Great Depression of the 1930s than they are in these affluent days, according to a study into illness and the causes of social exclusion published on Thursday. "The things that relate to happiness across countries and cultures ... are family relationships, social networks, support networks and a sense of belonging," according to the study, headed by Mansel Aylward of the University of Cardiff's psychology department. Being out of work was the equivalent of smoking 60 cigarettes a day because there was no stimulus, there was social exclusion and a lasting psychological scar, Aylward said.

■ United States
Kanye West blasts Bush
Rapper Kanye West surprised viewers of an NBC benefit concert for Hurricane Katrina victims on Friday by accusing US President George W. Bush of racism. "George Bush doesn't care about black people," West said from New York during the show aired live on the East Coast on NBC and other stations, just before cameras cut away to comedian Chris Tucker. West, who is black, suggested moments earlier that delays in providing relief to survivors of the hurricane that hit the Gulf Coast on Monday and flooded New Orleans were deliberate. He said the US was set up "to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off as slow as possible."

■ United States
ABC sued over Osama tape
An Egyptian cameraman has sued ABC News for copyright infringement, claiming that rare footage he shot of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan during the 1980s was used by the network without his permission. In a suit filed last Wednesday in US District Court in Denver and made public this week, Essam Mohamed Aly Deraz seeks US$10 million in damages and to bar ABC from further use of the still photos and video pictures that he took "at great risk to his personal safety." Deraz, who lives in Cairo, claims that in 1998 ABC News paid him a total of US$15,000 to twice air the images on a "limited basis" but continued to use the pictures without his permission.

■ Peru
Giant croc unearthed
Peruvian explorers have discovered the fossilized remains of a giant, 14m-long crocodile deep in the Amazon jungle, lending credence to a theory that the world's largest rainforest was once a huge inland sea, a scientist said on Friday. A French-funded expedition of 12 scientists found the remains of the crocodile's huge skeleton, jaw and teeth under the thick undergrowth of Peru's northern jungle. Once weighing 9 tonnes and with a 1.3m-long head, the crocodile is only the second fossil discovery of its kind in three decades, scientists said.

■ Zimbabwe
Newspaper attacks movie
Harare says a Hollywood blockbuster about an African president fighting to defend himself against charges of crimes against humanity before the UN Security Council is a blatant propaganda attack on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, the state-controlled Herald reported yesterday. The paper said the CIA was behind the release of The Interpreter, which shows the aging president of an imaginary African country, Matobo, forced to defend himself at a UN General Assembly against charges of genocide. The Herald claimed the release of the film had been specially timed to coincide with the opening of the UN General Assembly next week.

■ Brazil
Top economic aide quits
The top aide to the architect of Brazil's market-friendly economic policy resigned after denying he took part in a corruption scandal shaking the government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the Finance Ministry said on Friday. Juscelino Dourado, chief of staff to Finance Minister Antonio Palocci, submitted his resignation on Thursday night without giving a specific reason but saying he always acted ethically. The move came a day after Dourado testified in Congress that he never participated in a kickback and illegal campaign finance operation with Palocci when Palocci was the mayor of the city of Ribeirao Preto in Sao Paulo state.

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