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World News Quick Take

■ Singapore
Bus stowaway caught
A Myanmar national was caught clinging onto the underneath of a bus while trying to sneak his way into Singapore from Malaysia, immigration officers said yesterday. The driver of the bus behind noticed a body beneath the SBS Transit vehicle and alerted his colleague. Tiew Eng Lee, the driver, then told immigration officers he suspected there was a man hiding under his bus, officials said. Using a mirror to check, Immigration officers spotted the man. He told investigators he got under the bus in Johor Baru and wanted to look for work in Singapore. He faces up to six months in jail and three strokes of the cane if convicted of illegal entry.

■ China
Asylum sought in school
Eight North Koreans entered a South Korean school in Qingdao yesterday in a bid to seek asylum in South Korea, the South's Yonhap news agency said. The entry came a day after Seoul protested Beijing's repatriation of seven North Korean asylum seekers who entered an international school in the Chinese city of Yentai in August. "The eight North Korean escapees heard about the repatriation at a safe house yesterday, but we let them go ahead because they strongly wanted to go to South Korea whatever the risk," a source who helped the asylum seekers said. North Korean defectors face imprisonment, forced labor and even execution if they return to their homeland.

■ Vietnam
Two killed by mousetrap
Police arrested a farmer for killing two passers-by with an electrified mousetrap near Hanoi last Wednesday, police said yesterday. Dinh Khac Nguyet, 35, was arrested shortly after Bui Van Huyen, 16, and Dinh Khac Anh, 29, were found dead in his paddy field, according to the criminal police chief of the province, 92km south of Hanoi. Nguyet had used 220 volt electric wires to set a mousetrap in his field, said the police chief. The men were killed as they traversed the field. Police said the man was likely to face murder charges because he knew that the electrified mouse traps were both dangerous and illegal.

■ Thailand
Phone plan to stop bombs
Unregistered mobile phones will stop working in the insurgency-plagued southernmost provinces by the middle of next month, in an effort to curb bomb attacks triggered by cellphones, Deputy Prime Minister Chidchai Vanasathidya said yesterday. "Starting Nov. 15, you must have registered your number," he said. "We wanted the three southern provinces to be a special zone, we must know all telephone numbers in the area," said Chidchai, who is also justice minister. "This measure will help prevent militants using mobile phones to trigger the bombs," he said.

■ Malaysia
Dengue cases increase
More than 1,200 suspected cases of dengue fever were reported last week, the Health Ministry said yesterday, with the death toll from the mosquito-borne disease reaching 76 so far this year. Officials have escalated efforts to curb the disease by inspecting construction sites and residential areas where mosquitoes might thrive in stagnant water, said Ramlee Rahmat, the director of the ministry's disease control division. Between January and the first week of this month, 29,820 suspected dengue cases were recorded, an increase of nearly 30 percent from the same period last year, Ramlee said.

■ United Kingdom
Smuggling ring busted
British police said they smashed a suspected people smuggling ring believed to be one of the biggest in Europe in a series of raids in London yesterday. Five men, including former asylum seekers alleged to have been among the vast criminal network's highest ranking operators, were arrested. It is believed the group, a large pan-European organization, could potentially be responsible for smuggling tens of thousands of people into the country illegally in the last few years. One police source described its scale as "absolutely massive" and "frightening." The gang is thought to have lured thousands of economic migrants from eastern Europe to Britain with the promise of a better life.

■ Sudan
Action urged on Darfur
A UN envoy on the prevention of genocide urged stronger action to protect civilians in Sudan's Darfur region, citing rising violence and a threat of genocide. "Unfortunately, I have to say that I found the situation much more dangerous and worrisome than I had expected it to be," Juan Mendez said late Monday at UN headquarters in New York. Mendez recently visited Darfur where earlier this year he conducted a study to determine whether the killing there amounted to genocide. The study ruled out genocide, but said the killing had elements of genocide. "We have not turned the corner in preventing it from happening," Mendez said on Monday.

■ Netherlands
Pirated cigarettes seized
Dutch customs intercepted more than 15 million cigarettes fraudulently marked with well known brand names, many of them from China, the Finance Ministry said on its Web site yesterday. A consignment of 6.6 million cigarettes was found on Sept. 26 hidden in a container of lavatory bowls. They were discovered by a sniffer dog trained to find tobacco. Earlier in the month a container with 9 million cigarettes was found. Both of these large illegal consignments originated in China.

■ Israel
Leaders call off summit
Israeli and Palestinian leaders called off a summit meeting that would have been a symbol of peace efforts following Israel's pullout from Gaza, but the stumbling blocks were day-to-day matters, not central issues like borders and refugees. The meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas was set tentatively for yesterday, but negotiators failed to reach understandings on prisoners Israel would release, handover of West Bank towns to Palestinian control and other issues. "There was not enough preparation for this summit ... to be held [yesterday]," Palestinian official Nabil Abu Rdeneh said.

■ Croatia
Gays ask for tolerance in ad
Hundreds of Croatian homosexuals published their names in newspaper adverts yesterday in what they said was a symbolic plea for more tolerance in the conservative Roman Catholic country. Two biggest selling dailies, Jutarnji List and Vecernji List, ran the ad entitled "We don't want to hide anymore." It contained first names, age and sexual orientation -- gay, lesbian, bisexual or trans-sexual -- of 1,200 Croats. "And this is just the beginning," the advert said, inviting readers to visit the Web site comingout.gay.hr.

■ United States
The Watergate is sold
The Watergate office building that was the site of the infamous burglary in 1972 of the Democratic National Committee office has been sold. BentleyForbes LLC, a Los Angeles real estate company, announced it paid US$86.5 million to Trizec Properties of Chicago for the 11-story Watergate office building and 18,600m2 of nearby retail space, the Washington Post reported. The office tower is part of six-building Watergate complex constructed in 1960s and 1970s along the Potomac River and near the Kennedy Center.

■ United States
`Wild West' heist foiled
In a confrontation reminiscent of the Wild West, police shot and wounded a man who allegedly took over a freight train with a bow and arrow. Juventino Vallejo-Camerena boarded the Union Pacific train Sunday night as it was stopped for a signal and threatened the engineer and conductor, the only people on board. The crew members escaped and disabled the train by turning off fuel switches, then used a cell phone to call police. Vallejo-Camerena was aboard the train in western San Bernardino County when officers arrived. The man cocked the bow and pointed the arrow at officers, who opened fire. Vallejo-Camerena suffered minor gunshot wounds to his arm, was treated at a hospital, then booked into jail for investigation of train robbery, assault and resisting arrest.

■ Sweden
Academy member resigns
A member of the Swedish Academy, the body which awards the Nobel literature prize, said yesterday he was resigning in protest at last year's selection of Austrian Elfriede Jelinek. The resignation of Knut Ahnlund, a member of the academy since 1983, comes only days before the announcement of the winner of this year's prize. Ahnlund called Jelinek's work "parasitic" and without "a trace of artistic structure." "The 2004 Nobel prize has not only caused irreparable damage to all progressive forces, it has [also] confused the general view of literature as art," Ahnlund said. "After this I cannot even formally remain in the Swedish Academy."

■ United States
`Look and leave' Ninth Ward
Some residents of New Orleans' devastated Lower Ninth Ward will be allowed access to their homes today. Dogs are still being used in the area to check large piles of debris for bodies, and one part of the Ninth Ward is still flooded with about 30cm of water, Terry Ebbert, chief of emergency operations, said. "We're going to have re-entry for a `look and leave' into the Ninth Ward starting on Wednesday into those areas where we don't have the large debris fields," Ebbert said. Residents will be allowed to view their homes and salvage belongings, but cannot stay. Lower Ninth Ward residents are mostly poor and black.

■ Brazil
Amazon drought worst ever
Four Brazilian cities in the Amazon jungle state of Amazonas have been declared disaster areas as the worst drought in 60 years dries up rivers that thousands of families depend on to receive food and medicine, in Manaquiri, Atalaia do Norte, Anori and Caapiranga , where more than 42,000 people live. In Manaquiri, small rivers have all but disappeared. Drinking water has also become scarce. Workers have been sent to dig wells there. "The little water that exists in the rivers is polluted," an official said. The fires used to clear the forest have quickly evaporated the little rain that fell this year.

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