World News Quick Take

■ China
Get carried away
Bids start at 128 million yuan (US$15.9 million) to sail away on the Minsk, an ex-Soviet aircraft carrier based in China, the official Xinhua news agency said on Wednesday. The carrier will be auctioned off next month after its owner turned it into a military-themed amusement park and went bankrupt, the agency said. Once the pride of the Soviet Union's Cold War-era Pacific Fleet, the carrier -- decks crammed with carnival attractions and souvenir booths -- now looms over fishing boats in Shenzhen.

■ Singapore
Ex-deputy PM dies
Former prime minister S. Rajaratnam, a founder of the city-state's ruling People's Action Party, has died at the age of 90, a TV news station reported on Wednesday. The report by Channel NewsAsia did not say what the cause of death was. Rajaratnam started out as a journalist but quit in 1959 to run in legislative assembly elections. In 1965, he became Singapore's first foreign minister following its independence from Malaysia. He also served as culture minister, labor minister and later as second deputy prime minister, a post which he held until his retirement in 1988 at age 73.

■ South Korea
Ex-spy HQ reopens as hostel
The nation's former spy headquarters opened its doors again yesterday, but this time as a youth hostel. Perched on the picturesque foothills of Mount Namsan in the heart of Seoul, the six-story structure was for years a feared symbol of rulers' pursuit of perpetual power. First opened in 1972 as the headquarters of South Korea's Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), it was the center of work directed as much at its own people as Communist North Korea.

■ Australia
Foul frogs repel mozzies
Scientists discovered a natural mosquito repellent in the smelly secretions of green tree frogs. Researchers at James Cook University in northern Queensland and at the University of Adelaide found that chemicals released through the skin of the frogs produces a pungent smell that wards off mosquitoes. "The smell is just not very good. Some smell of rotting flesh, some of nuts, some of thyme leaves," researcher Craig Williams said yesterday. But he said he did not expect the findings would lead to a new frog-based mosquito repellent for humans. "In the concentrations you would need, it would not smell good enough," he said.

■ Japan
Burglar sniffed out victims
A man arrested for alleged burglary picked his victims by sniffing women's homes for expensive perfume, police said on Wednesday. Seiichi Shirota, 46, sniffed at the doors of potential targets for expensive women's perfume to determine if the occupant was a single woman likely to own a collection of expensive designer bags, watches and jewelry, according to Kanagawa prefectural police spokesman Tsuneo Kosuge. The suspect was arrested on Dec. 23 last year for allegedly stealing three rings worth about ¥300,000 (US$2,530) after breaking into a woman's apartment in Yokohama Kosuge said. Shirota told police he relied on his smelling abilities to target apartments of single women. The alleged thief also made sure laundry hanging from a clothesline at a balcony included no men's underwear.

■ Mexico
Seven executed in Veracruz
The bodies of seven people executed in what appeared to be a gruesome settling of accounts among drug gangs were found on Wednesday in Mexico's Veracruz state, the latest victims in a wave of drug-related violence. The unidentified victims, between 20 and 30 years old, had all been shot in the head, their eyes and mouths covered and hands and feet bound. Each was found with a small wooden crucifix, investigators said. They were found in the town of Amatlan de los Reyes in the Gulf Coast state.

■ Ivory Coast
Murder suspect nabbed
Youssouf Fofana, suspected head of the "Gang of Barbarians" wanted for the kidnap, torture and murder of a young Jewish Frenchman near Paris, was arrested in Abidjan early yesterday by Ivorian police, a source close to the inquiry said. Fofana, a 25-year-old convicted petty criminal, is of Ivorian origin. In a sign of the affair's growing emotional impact, French President Jacques Chirac was to attend a Jewish memorial ceremony yesterday for Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old who was kidnapped and murdered in what French authorities now say was a crime motivated in part by anti-Semitism.

■ Netherlands
Man booked for smelly feet
Police Nijmegen have booked a man for his smelly feet, the Telegraaf newspaper reported yesterday. The 56-year-old turned up at a shelter for the homeless in the city near the German border and took his shoes off before putting his feet up. The stench was so unbearable that staff asked him to put his shoes on again -- a request the man refused to heed. The police were called, but the man refused to leave the center. He was detained and taken to the local police station where the incident was booked.

■ France
Diana photographers fined
Three who took pictures of Princess Diana on the night she died in a car crash have been fined a symbolic 1 euro each for invasion of privacy. The French appeals court decided the photographers who were among a swarm of paparazzi trailing the British Princess and her boyfriend Dodi Fayed in the early hours of Aug. 31 1997, had invaded the couple's privacy. It was a victory, of sorts for Fayed's father, Mohamed Al Fayed, who has pursued the photographers through the French legal system since his son's death. The complaint focused on three photographs of Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed leaving the Ritz Hotel in Paris by car and three taken after the accident.

■ United States
Google facilitates ogling
Google Inc's image search service violates the copyrights of adult magazine and Web publisher Perfect 10 Inc by displaying thumbnail-sized photographs from its Web site, a federal judge has ruled. However, Google is likely not responsible for displaying the underlying images from Perfect 10's Web site, a judge in the US District Court for the Central District of California said in a ruling last week that was made public on Tuesday. The order could effectively bar Google from featuring thumbnail photos, but not limit it from linking to actual photos which exist on other Web sites.

■ United States
Court upholds postal suit
The Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that the US Postal Service can be sued by a woman who tripped over mail left on her porch. The 7-1 decision revived a woman's claim that she was entitled to damages after suffering wrist and back injuries during the 2001 fall at her home in suburban Philadelphia. The letters, packages and periodicals were put on Barbara Dolan's porch instead of in her mailbox. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, dismissed government concerns of costly litigation. "The government raises the specter of frivolous slip-and-fall claims inundating the Postal Service," he wrote. "Slip-and-fall liability, however ... is a risk shared by any business that makes home deliveries."

■ United Kingdom
AI blasts rights abuse
Leading rights group Amnesty International (AI) blasted the UK for increasing the risk of security suspects being tortured due to its measures designed to clamp down on extremists. AI released a report which it said exposed the damaging effect of the country's anti-terror policies on human rights. AI secretary general Irene Khan said: "There is now a dangerous imbalance between draconian actions the UK is taking in the name of security and its obligation to protect human rights. These measures tarnish the UK's image and its ability to promote human rights abroad." The government has attempted to give police and prosecutors tougher tools to confront terrorism in the wake of the London bombings in July.

■ United Kingdom
Gay weddings a hit
Gay in the country reached 3,648 as of Wednesday, six weeks after they became legal, according to government statistics. The figures, the first to emerge since the Civil Partnership Act came into force on Dec. 5, reveal that twice as many men as women entered into partnerships. It means that 7,296 lesbians and gay men are now in legally recognized relationships with someone of the same sex and eligible for new shared rights in areas such as employment, pensions and inheritance.