■ Kazakhstan
Man put in coffin during raid
Burglars locked a funeral parlor employee in a coffin and kept him there unconscious while rummaging for cash in the shop. Serik Sarsenbayev said he was on his own late at night when two masked burglars burst into the parlor and beat him until he fainted. The thieves then nailed him into a wooden coffin and carried on their search for a money safe, he said by telephone from the steppe town of Temirtau. He was later freed by the driver of the parlor's hearse. The thieves made away with the equivalent of US$23,000 and remain at large, the daily Express K reported.
■ Hong Kong
Soldier fined over theft
A Chinese soldier stationed in the territory has been fined for stealing a Mickey Mouse key ring from Disneyland, a court document showed. Tsuen Wan Magistrates' Court charged Zhang Qinggang, 27, with theft and ordered him to pay HK$1,000 (US$129) for pocketing the HK$35 key ring from a shop at the theme park in January, the document issued Friday showed. Zhang, a member of the People's Liberation Army, was shopping at the theme park with his wife when a security guard spotted him slipping the key ring into a carrier bag, the Ming Pao Daily reported yesterday.
■ Australia
`Bloody' ads back on TV
British television regulators have lifted their ban on an Australian tourism advertising campaign built around the slogan "Where the bloody hell are you?" officials said yesterday. The regulator last week stepped in to prevent television airing the ads because of their use of the word "bloody." The ban sparked a storm of ridicule in Australia, which dispatched Tourism Minister Fran Bailey to London to defend the campaign. Bailey said she pointed out in meetings with British officials that the word "bloody" had been used in British television advertisements before and that research found "bloody" was not regarded as offensive in Britain. "My faith in the British sense of humor has been restored," she said.
■ Philippines
Activist's release ordered
A government prosecutor has ordered the release of a former Cabinet secretary and an activist who were arrested in an alleged illegal protest against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, one of the detainees said yesterday. Police on Friday arrested former Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman and Vicente Romano, leader of the Black and White Movement, for leading a silent protest in Manila. The Black and White Movement is a prominent group of resigned Arroyo Cabinet members and opposition leaders. Soliman said the prosecutor ordered their release around midnight on Friday, telling them authorities would conduct further investigation into charges they violated a law against holding a rally without a permit.
■ India
Danish visit postponed
A visit by Denmark's prime minister has been delayed, an Indian foreign ministry official said yesterday, amid reports New Delhi feared the trip could provoke renewed anti-Danish protests by Muslims. The official, who would not be named, said the visit though not yet announced had been delayed but he was unable to give details or reasons. Newspapers said the Danish government had agreed, at New Delhi's request, to delay Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen's visit which the reports said was due to begin on April 2.
■ Sweden
Dismemberer confesses
A man was remanded in custody on Friday after confessing to murdering and dismembering his girlfriend and dumping her body parts in an ice-covered lake. The 31-year-old man was arrested on Wednesday, after a witness told police he spotted him cutting a hole in the ice of the Yngern lake south of Stockholm on Tuesday night and dumping plastic bags into the water. Police later found the bags contained the dismembered body of a woman. The suspect confessed to the crime during a detention hearing on Friday.
■ Iran
Dissident journalist freed
The country's most senior dissident journalist, Akbar Ganji, was freed after spending six years behind bars, his lawyer said yesterday. Ganji was jailed in 2000 after reporting on the murders of five dissidents by Intelligence Ministry agents and became a hero to the country's reformists for standing up to hard-line clerics. "Ganji was freed late Friday after spending about six years in jail," his lawyer Yousef Mowlaei said.
■ France
Virus on the wane
More than 5,000 new cases of a mosquito-borne virus have been reported on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion, though the disease's spread appears past its peak, local authorities said on Friday. Officials at the French island's prefecture reported 5,600 cases of the chikungunya virus from March 6-12, bringing the total number of cases to 212,000. The recent outbreak is believed to have caused 148 deaths, directly or indirectly. Chikungunya, which is transmitted to humans by infected mosquitos, has infected more than 20 percent of the population of Reunion. The number of cases on Reunion has dwindled constantly for a month, and the high point -- 46,000 cases in a single week -- came last month, officials said.
■ United Kingdom
Drug trial men improve
Four men who became seriously ill in a clinical trial have regained consciousness, doctors said on Friday, but two others remain in critical condition. All six fell severely ill on Monday after being given doses of a monoclonal antibody. The two men in critical condition have shown early signs of responding to treatment said a doctor at the London hospital where the trial was being held. The other four remained in serious condition, he said, adding that they had shown "noticeable progress" in response to treatment but that "it is early days and they will clearly need continued specialist observation for some considerable time."
■ Belarus
Election trouble forecast
The country is bracing for violence in a presidential election today, with the opposition vowing street protests and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko threatening to "break the neck" of any demonstration. "God forbid that they dare to do something here in the country. We will break the neck immediately -- like a duckling's," he said in comments broadcast on state television. The main opposition candidate, Alexander Milinkevich, has accused Lukashenko of preparing a "total falsification" of the vote and has called for peaceful pro-democracy protests in the capital Minsk once polls close. There is a "probability of violence," a Western diplomat in Minsk, who asked not to be named, said.
■ Uruguay
Seven killed in reality show
Seven residents of a town were killed on Friday when they were run over by a train they were moving manually as part of a reality television show aimed at raising funds for a local hospital, police said. Several hundred townspeople from Young, about 380km west of the capital of Montevideo, were hauling a locomotive and two attached cars down a track -- pushing and pulling from different sides -- when some participants fell under the wheels, said Ramon Branca, spokesman for the Rio Negro provincial police department. Several other people were hurt in Friday's accident, three of them critically.
■ United States
RU-486 under investigation
Two more women have died after taking the abortion pill RU-486, but officials do not know if the drug played a role in their deaths, US regulators said on Friday. "At this time we are investigating all circumstances associated with these cases and are not able to confirm the causes of death," the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said in an advisory to the public. Four previously reported deaths were linked to complications from a bacterial infection that developed after the women took the abortion pill, which is sold by privately held Danco Laboratories. The FDA has not attributed those deaths to the drug but is continuing an investigation.
■ United States
Adams delayed in airport
Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams was delayed at a Washington-area airport on Friday for a secondary security screening, a Homeland Security Department official said. Adams had been scheduled to fly from Washington's Reagan National Airport to Buffalo, New York, for St. Patrick's Day appearances with Democratic Representative Brian Higgins of New York, but was unable to make the trip because of the airport delay, said Teresa Kennedy, a spokeswoman for the congressman. Earlier on Friday, Adams, along with Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern and other Irish leaders, attended a meeting at the White House with President George W. Bush.
■ Israel
Bird flu detected
The country detected its first cases of H5N1 bird flu on Friday, saying the virus had killed thousands of turkeys and chickens on two farms. Authorities treated four people in hospital amid fears they had the virus, but Israeli media reported late on Friday that the health ministry said none of the four poultry workers were suffering from bird flu. Three people who worked in poultry coops at farms where the virus was discovered were admitted to isolation units at Soroka Medical Center in the southern city of Beersheba. A fourth worker at a farm about 70km further north was admitted to hospital in Ashkelon. Two farms were confirmed to have infected poultry. Tests were being carried out on another two farms where H5N1 is suspected.
■ Serbia
Milosevic virus found
A global computer security firm warned yesterday it has been tracking a malicious program that involves spam e-mails claiming to have evidence that Slobodan Milosevic was murdered. SophosLabs, a network of virus, spyware and spam analysis centers, urged computer users worldwide not to open e-mails with subject lines such as "Slobodan Milosevic was killed." Experts said the e-mails contain a Trojan horse program that attempts to lower the security level on infected computers.
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