■CHINA
Reporters attacked
Two journalists were hit and slapped by guards and thugs yesterday as they tried to enter a village at the center of a bitter land dispute. Malaysian journalist Leu Siew Ying from the South China Morning Post and Abel Segretin from Radio France Internationale said they were attacked by some 20 people near Taishi village, Guangdong Province. They asked to be taken to the police station as the crowd grew frenzied. They said they thought the thugs were linked to local officials as police quickly arrived. The incident came just days after the lawyer who was helping villagers in the dispute was formally arrested.
■MALAYSIA
Mahathir rebuffs Anwar
Former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad has rejected a demand by his one-time deputy, Anwar Ibrahim, to apologize and pay US$26.7 million in damages for calling him a homosexual. "Our client does not accede to any of the demands... and will vigorooouslly defend the proceedings against him which your client has threatened to commence," said a letter by Mahathir's lawyer to Anwar's lawyer. The two men were once close friends but became bitter foes in a sordid power struggle eight years ago. Mahathir reignited the war last moonth, telling reporters:"I cannot have a sodomizer in my Cabinet... Imagine a gay PM... nobody will be safe."
■NORTH KOREA
Weapons first, now bikes
The production line started yesterday for the North's first home-built bicycles, China's Xinhua news agency reported. With annual production of up to 300,000 bikes, the plant will reduce reliance on second-hand Japanese and Chinese imports.
■AUSTRALIA
Pedestrian fine sparks anger
An 83-year-old Australian woman who was fined for crossing the road too slowly has had the ticket torn up following community outrage, reports said yesterday. Pensioner Pat Gallen, who uses a walking stick to get around, was fined A$30 dollars (US$23) for failing to cross a road in her hometown of Malanda in far north Queensland "in the most direct route," the Daily Telegraph reported. "She didn't know whether to laugh or cry," her friend Fay Millist was quoted as telling Australian Associated Press. "Everyone thought the whole thing was so wrong in the first place for someone of that age." Police said the ticket, which had been issued by officers who were passing through the town, had been torn up.
■ CHINA
Heartless cabdriver sought
Police in Shanghai were looking for a taxi driver who ordered a pregnant woman going into early labor to get out of his cab, local newspapers reported yesterday. The woman, seven months pregnant, suffered a miscarriage and lost her child after she was forced to take a motorcycle part of the way to the hospital, the reports said. Guo Meiling, 28, had hailed the cab with her sister in law and was on the way to the hospital on Thursday when the driver suddenly ordered the pair out, saying he couldn't find the hospital. "I told him it was no joking matter, but he told us to get off," Guo's sister-in-law, identified only by her surname, Lin, was quoted as saying by the Shanghai Daily.
■ BANGLADESH
Rains displace thousands
At least 12 people have died, up to 50,000 have fled their homes and about 1.5 million are marooned following heavy rains that flooded several districts in northern Bangladesh, government officials said yesterday. The deaths were mostly caused by the collapse of dozens of mud houses, an official told reporters in the town of Bogra, one of the areas affected by the flood, about 200km north of Dhaka. Thousands of families were camped out in schools and river embankments, displaced by the second wave of flooding in the northern region this year.
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