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World News Quick Take

■ China
Flights canceled due to drills
Flights in Guangdong Province have been canceled due to military exercises being held in the area, the China Daily reported yesterday. The paper said 176 flights had been canceled so far this week, but it wasn't clear how long the disruptions would last. The paper gave no details on the exercises, but cited a Hong Kong daily as saying they were being held near Yangjiang.

■ China
Anti-terror law mulled
Beijing is preparing an anti-terrorism law which will seek to tackle the threat from terror groups by cutting them off from funding and other means, state media reported on Thursday. "Relevant departments have finished drafting the anti-terrorism law outline, with anti-money laundering as an important component part," Xiang Junbo, a central bank vice governor, was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency. Xinhua did not cite Xiang, speaking at a symposium in Beijing, as giving more specific details about the contents of the new legislation. He said China was aiming to speed up the legislative procedure to get the law passed as soon as possible, but was not quoted as indicating when it might happen.

■ Hong Kong
Academic swims to Macau
Beijing Sport University teacher Zhang Jian, 41, has become the first person to swim the 35km-long stretch from the territory to Macau, the South China Morning Post said yesterday. Zhang jumped into the water off Lantau Island on Thursday morning and emerged 10-and-a-half hours later on Coloane island, the daily said. He swam the English Channel in 2001 and in 2000 swam 109km across the Bohai Gulf, the daily said.

■ Hong Kong
Nagging drove man to ogling
A 76-year-old Peeping Tom told a Hong Kong court he went out spying on women as a way of escaping his nagging wife at home, a news report said yesterday. Mok Kong's lawyer said his client "found it hard to stay at home" because he was constantly henpecked and nagged by his 71-year-old wife, the South China Morning Post reported. He went out and spent some of his time spying on women and filming them in changing rooms and public toilets with his video camera, Hong Kong's Eastern Court was told. Mok was caught when a man coming into a changing room on a public beach saw him holding his video camera up near the ceiling of the women's shower next door.

■ Malaysia
Anwar demands apology
Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim demanded an apology yesterday from former prime minister Mahathir Mohamed and sought damages of 100 million ringgit (US$27 million), saying Mahathir had called him a gay. If it reaches the courts, the action could prove a major test for Malaysia's judiciary, which has already come down on Anwar's side in two rulings, first freeing him from jail and then awarding him damages against the author of a defamatory book. Anwar's legal team say Mahathir described his former deputy as gay in comments made to reporters on Sept. 9.

■ Indonesia
Three reported for shoot
Islamic hardliners have reported an actor, model and photographer to Indonesian authorities for allegedly posing in the nude for a photograph depiction of Adam and Eve, local news reports said yesterday. The hardline group, Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) alleged that actor Anjasmara, model Isabella and photographer Davy Linggar had insulted Islam by portraying Adam and Eve in the nude in a photograph displayed at the Bank Indonesia Museum in Central Jakarta. "The pictures display the classical story of Adam and Eve in Eden an FPI spokesman was quoted as saying by the Jakarta Post. "How could they depict a prophet in the nude like that?"

■ Fiji
President's wife startled
The wife of Fiji's president was recovering yesterday after confronting an intruder doing push-ups to loud music in the presidential residence. Iowane Tuinamasi, 25, told a Suva court yesterday he wanted to know what life was like "up there" at the presidential mansion, Internet news service Fijilive reported. Tuinamasi jumped the fence Thursday night and eluded guards at President Ratu Josefa Iloilos residence. He entered an empty room meters away from Iloilo and his wife and turned on a radio. Iloilo's wife found the man doing press-ups after investigating the loud music and her screams brought staff running.

■ West Bank
Suspects shot dead
Israeli troops shot dead three suspected militants in a raid near the city of Tulkarm on Friday, Israel said. It was the first deadly army raid since Israel completed its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and four northern West Bank enclaves this week. Military sources said two militants were shot after they opened fire while trying to flee arrest in the village of Illar. A third gunman who escaped was killed nearby, they said. Military sources said the raid was aimed at capturing senior members of Islamic Jihad which was responsible for two suicide bombings this year that killed 10 Israelis.

■ United Kingdom
Lord goes to prison
A judge sentenced a British lord to 16 months in prison on Thursday for causing a fire at a hotel. Lord Mike Watson, 56, admitted to setting fire to a curtain after having several drinks at an awards ceremony in Edinburgh on Nov. 12. "I have to say that someone in public office ought to know how to conduct himself on all occasions," Sheriff Kathrine Mackie said as she pronounced sentence. Watson planned to keep his seat in the Lords, the unelected upper house of Britain's parliament. The only grounds for disqualification from the Lords are bankruptcy, treason or committal to a mental institution.

■ United States
`Lawnmower' man held
The driver of a stolen car who deliberately plowed into pedestrians on the Las Vegas Strip, killing two and injuring dozens, will face charges of murder and attempted murder. Stephen Ressa, 27, of Rialto, California, accelerated as he drove along the crowded sidewalk, Deputy Police Chief Greg McCurdy said. One witness described it as "a humans lawnmower," McCurdy said. Ressa was arrested on Wednesday at the chaotic scene under the marquee of the Bally's hotel-casino. During interviews with detectives, Ressa's statements were "bizarre in nature," McCurdy said. He may have been taking methamphetamine, a policeman said.

■ Zimbabwe
All white farms to go
The government has ordered the cancelation of title deeds for over 4,000 white-owned farms and vowed to take over all the remaining farms, a newspaper said yesterday. The cancelation of the deeds follows last month's constitutional amendments barring white farmers from appealing, the Herald said.
Lawmakers from President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU- PF party forced through a law to make all agricultural land state property. Only around 400 white farmers remain on their land.

■ South Africa
Government seizes farm
The government has for the first time moved to seize land from a white farmer, saying that talks to buy the property were taking too long. A Commission on the Restitution of Land Rights spokesman on Thursday said that the seizure was a last resort. The commission was set up to restore land lost by black and mixed-race South Africans under apartheid. Previously, a willing seller, willing buyer approach to land reform was used, but the government accuses some white farmers of asking too much and dragging out sales. Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka indicated in July the government was considering getting tougher.

■ United Kingdom
Incident shuts airport
Police arrested a man under Britain's anti-terrorist law yesterday, and the Army bomb squad was called in after an incident at Manchester airport, a police spokeswoman said. Officers were called in when the man was seen "acting suspiciously in the apron area where aircraft are parked," she said, adding that the man was detained with a Taser gun after a struggle. Parts of Terminals 1 and 2 were closed, police said, and the army bomb disposal unit was called to check a suspicious package found near an aircraft. The bomb squad carried out a controlled explosion on a suspect suitcase, the BBC reported.

■ United Kingdom
Britain becoming segregated
The head of Britain's race-relations watchdog said Thursday that the country was growing increasingly segregated and warned that some areas risked becoming "fully fledged ghettoes." Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, said the sort of segregation on view in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina could become a reality in Britain. In a speech to the Manchester Council for Community Relations, Phillips said Britons could end up "living in a New Orleans-style Britain of passively coexisting ethnic and religious communities, eyeing each other uneasily over the fences of our differences."

■ Iraq
Bomber kills five
A suicide bomber set off hidden explosives inside a public bus in downtown Baghdad yesterday, killing at least five people and wounding eight, police said. The blast occurred as the minibus was parked at a bustling open-air bus terminal in the capital's al-Tayaran square, said police Major Mohamed Younis. Iraqi soldiers and police joined US troops in sealing off the area, where the street was covered with the dismembered bodies of the victims and the ruins of the bus. The explosion also damaged nearby shops and stalls being used by street vendors. The bomber used a belt of explosives strapped to his body beneath his clothes, Younis said.

■ N Ireland
Loyalist feud gets bloody
Nearly 150 people in Northern Ireland have been warned by police that their lives may be under threat from feuding loyalist paramilitaries. The British government's ceasefire watchdog, the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC), said yesterday (September 22) that the loyalist shooting war -- in which the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) intends to "wipe out" the smaller Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) -- involved the worst violence it had ever investigated. Ten men have been shot dead in feuding since Billy "King Rat" Wright and his associates were stood down by the UVF in 1996 after the sectarian murder of a Catholic taxi driver. Wright formed his own group, the LVF, and tension has festered ever since. But this summer the rivalry erupted into a six-week murder spree across north and east Belfast.

■ Russia
Tycoon's sentence reduced
A Moscow court has rejected an appeal by Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky who is fighting charges of fraud and tax evasion but announced Thursday that it would reduce his prison sentence from nine to eight years. Explaining his decision, a judge in Moscow's City Court said he had dismissed one of the charges against Khodorkovksy and his business partner Platon Lebedev.

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