World News Quick Take

■ Hong Kong
Truck driver freed
A truck driver who killed 21 people by shunting a double-decker bus over the edge of a 30m highway bridge was freed from jail yesterday after serving just seven months. Li Chau-wing, 53, was convicted of dangerous driving causing death following the accident in July 2003. A trial last July heard how Li veered sharply from the middle lane of the highway and shunted into a double-decker bus. The bus, which was full of commuters on their way to work, teetered briefly on the edge of a highway bridge before plunging nose first down a 30m ravine. Li was jailed for 18 months. However, an appeals court yesterday overturned his conviction and substituted it with a lesser charge of careless driving.

■ Hong Kong
Disney sued over death
Disney being sued by a Singaporean woman who claims her dying mother was made to wait nearly three hours for an ambulance at the Hong Kong theme park, a news report said yesterday. Nge Yoi Chan, 82, fell ill at the new Hong Kong theme park in its first month of opening last September. She was pronounced dead upon arrival at hospital. Her daughter Joanna Boey told the South China Morning Post that Disney did not offer first aid when she fell ill and made her wait half an hour for a bus to the Disney hotel. Hotel staff allegedly refused to make an emergency call on her behalf and an ambulance was turned away at the front entrance and told to go to the back to protect Disney's image, Boey claims. "[Disney] staff are so well trained in protecting Disney's reputation but not in protecting human lives," she said. A Disney spokeswoman told the daily an internal investigation found staff had "handled the case in the most appropriate manner."

■ Japan
Taro Aso backs down
Foreign Minister Taro Aso yesterday backed away from an earlier claim that China lured a consular official with a female spy, saying he offered the account only as a possible scenario. Aso said over the weekend that a consular official who committed suicide in Shanghai was blackmailed by Chinese intelligence agents who set him up with a woman to obtain classified information. "I was just offering it as an example. It did not have any meaning beyond that," Aso said in a committee meeting in the lower house of parliament yesterday. The aftermath from the suicide has further inflamed tensions between the two nations.

■ New Zealand
PM criticizes cartoon
Prime Minister Helen Clark said yesterday that as a woman, she found a television cartoon offensive in its depiction of a statue of the Virgin Mary bleeding. A television network said it would show the controversial "Bloody Mary" episode of the South Park cartoon series, which depicts the statue menstruating, despite a call for a boycott from Roman Catholic bishops that was read on Sunday at Masses throughout New Zealand. "I'm not a religious person myself, but I think it is important to show religious faiths respect and tolerance towards each other," Clark said when questioned about the controversy.

■ Japan
US beef report `insufficient'
Farm Shoichi Nakagawa told Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that a US report on how banned parts got into a shipment of US veal to Japan was "insufficient", Kyodo news agency reported yesterday. The US Agriculture Department on Friday published a report on what went wrong with the shipment, which had prompted Japan to suspend US beef imports on Jan. 20 -- just a month after it ended a two-year-ban on US beef imposed over mad cow disease fears. "I reported that, for the Japanese side, the contents were insufficient," Kyodo quoted Nakagawa as telling reporters after meeting Koizumi.

■ Singapore
Student phone-sex scandal
A polytechnic is investigating whether a video clip of one of its students engaging in sexual acts is making its rounds on the Internet, the institution said yesterday. The probe was triggered by forums and blogs claiming a 17-year-old girl named Tammy taped a sex act with her boyfriend on her mobile phone, the Straits Times said. According to one blog entry, the Nanyang Polytechnic cheerleader's mobile phone was stolen by another girl who was jealous of her popularity. The thief reportedly found the video, uploaded it and mass e-mailed it to students and lecturers. The school said it has yet to positively identify the person in the video as one of its students.

■ Australia
PM slams Muslim extremists
Prime Minister John Howard has criticized the minority of Muslims who "rave on about jihad" and have "extreme attitudes" toward women, saying they do not fit into Australian society. Islamic leaders condemned the remarks as "offensive and ignorant," saying they would fan the flames of prejudice against Islam. Howard's comments were made in interviews last December for a book by journalists from the Australian newspaper to mark his 10th anniversary in power next month, the paper reported yesterday. Howard later defended his comments as his "right and duty" to express his thoughts.

■ United States
California killer set to die
Barring last-minute intervention by the courts, California was to execute the third death-row prisoner in as many months at one minute past midnight last night. The planned lethal injection at San Quentin prison near San Francisco follows the rejection on Friday by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of a clemency petition on behalf of the murderer Michael Morales. All five appeals to Schwarzenegger were rejected. Morales, 46, was convicted for the 1981 rape and murder of Terri Winchell, 17. His lawyers requested that his sentence be commuted to life without parole, citing good conduct, his remorse, the influence of drugs on his actions and the role of a prison informant in his conviction.

■ Mexico
Explosion traps 65 miners
A gas buildup in a northern Mexico coal mine triggered a pre-dawn explosion on Sunday, trapping 65 miners who were only carrying six hours of oxygen. Emergency officials were slowly tunneling through the debris hoping they had access to fresh air and had survived. At least eight other miners were rescued and were treated at a local hospital for burns and broken bones, union and company officials said. The injured were near the mine's exit when the explosion occurred and able to escape. Union and company officials said they believed there were 65 miners trapped throughout the mine, near the town of San Juan de Sabinas, 135km southwest of Eagle Pass, Texas.

■ Bolivia
Morales doesn't like title
Bolivian Evo Morales says he still can't get used to being called "Mr President" nearly a month after he was sworn into office. "I never liked the term `president,' though now I'm quite liking `comrade president' or `brother president' ... that sounds okay," Morales said. Wearing a leather jacket and trainers, he told a news conference in an elaborate room at the presidential palace on Sunday that he still doesn't feel like a president. "It's the same as when I was campaigning, [or] a union leader," he said. In four weeks Morales has held more than 300 meetings and he said his grueling schedule was taking a toll on some of his Cabinet ministers and palace staff.

■ Brazil
Free concert leaves big mess
The Rolling Stones' monster free concert on Copacabana Beach was a gas, but the more than 1 million spectators left a monstrous cleanup job on Sunday. About 400 city workers hauled almost 200 tonnes of trash left behind by the masses who attended the concert, which brought a carnival spirit to the city a week ahead of the world-famous annual celebration. Organizers were already dismantling the huge stage, as well as the eight video screens and the 16 sound towers that allowed fans a glimpse of the sexagenarian rockers.

■ United States
Perverts may be exposed
The state of Mississippi plans to plaster the names and faces of convicted sex offenders on billboard advertisements along local highways. Sex offenders, particularly those who prey on minors, may soon adorn as many as 100 state-wide advertisements in an attempt to make the public aware of their crimes, said Don Taylor, head of the state Department of Human Services. The agency hopes to have as many as 100 billboards ready by summer with images and names of sex offenders who are currently in prison.