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World News Quick Take

■ China
T-shirt no laughing matter
A man has won 600 yuan (US$75) compensation from a clothes store for emotional distress after the shop sold him a T-shirt that said in English, "This Bitch Bites", a media report said yesterday. The unidentified man, who did not speak English, took action after his girlfriend told him why people laughed at him in the street, the Hong Kong edition of the China Daily reported. The clothing store agreed to an out-of-court-settlement after the man decided to sue the shop The cash was 10 times the cost of the shirt.

■ China
Show seeks new Bruce Lee
The famed Shaolin Temple is joining the worldwide reality television phenomenon. The temple in Henan Province, considered the birthplace of kung fu, is co-sponsoring a television competition to select the world's next Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan. The show will culminate in six months time with the selection of the winner of the worldwide kung-fu competition. The victor will then star in a television series on the Shaolin monks with the goal of spreading China's kung-fu cultural legacy around the world, said the abbot of the temple, Shi Yongxin. Competitors for the show are to be chosen in six Chinese cities as well as five international venues: the US, Germany, Russia, Australia and Italy, producers said.

■ Australia
`Jihad Jack' jailed
A former taxi driver who trained with al-Qaeda was jailed for five years yesterday. Joseph Terrence Thomas, nicknamed "Jihad Jack," was found guilty last month of receiving A$3,500 (US$2,500) and a plane ticket from a senior al-Qaeda agent after training with the militant network in Afghanistan in 2001. Thomas, a 32-year-old father of three, was jailed for five years and also received a one-year sentence for possessing a false passport. The passport sentence was to be served concurrently, Supreme Court Judge Philip Cummins said. Thomas had faced a maximum 25-year sentence over the funding charge but Australian Broadcasting Corp radio quoted Cummins as saying that Thomas had provided invaluable help to Australian police and presented good prospects for rehabilitation.

■ China
Oil thieves may face death
Authorities threatened yesterday to execute people who steal from fuel pipelines as the country grapples with global crude prices that climbed to a record US$70 a barrel last year. China arrested nearly 3,000 people last year for stealing oil in crimes which cost the industry more than 1 billion yuan (US$124.6 million) and caused the economy untold damage, police officials told a news briefing.

■ Bahrain
Tourists die in sea disaster
Fifty-seven people drowned when a cruise ship capsized off the coast of Bahrain on Thursday night, the Bahraini Interior Ministry said. Interior Ministry spokesman Colonel Tarik al-Hassan told a press conference yesterday that 67 people had been rescued and 13 were missing from the small ship, the Al-Dana. Al-Hassan said the dead included 17 citizens of India and 13 from the UK. He listed the death toll from other nations as: Pakistan five, South Africa four, Philippines three, Singapore two, Germany one and Ireland one. The 11 remaining dead had not been identified.

■ Germany
Prostitutes retrain as nurses
Prostitutes are signing up for a career change, training to become nurses to tend to the country's aging population or working phones as telemarketers. Thirty prostitutes have enlisted in a church-funded project in the state of North-Rhine Westphalia and more are on a waiting list, project coordinator Gisela Zohren said. "Competition in prostitution is fierce and the days when one could make a decent living out of it are long gone, especially once you hit the 30s," Zohren said. She said prostitutes' fees had hit rock bottom and they were well suited to jobs on offer in the retraining program. "After years of prostitution, they know how to listen, look after people and are savvy in selling over the phone," she said.

■ United Kingdom
Snitch admits death plots
An American supergrass giving evidence against seven British terrorist suspects admitted on Thursday that he had plotted to kill Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Mohammad Babar, 31, told the Old Bailey criminal court in London he had been involved in two separate attempts to assassinate Musharraf in 2002, and could be facing the death penalty in Pakistan, had he not made a deal with the FBI. But he said none of the seven British men on trial had anything to do with the Pakistan conspiracies. He says he met most of the defendants at terrorist training camps in Pakistan and helped with their plans to carry out a bombing campaign in the UK.

■ United Kingdom
Police stop more minorities
Black people are six times more likely to be stopped and searched in the street by the police than white people, according to Home Office (interior ministry) research published on Thursday. Black people are also over-represented at every level of the criminal justice system, from being three times more likely to be arrested all the way through to prison where minority ethnic groups make up 24 percent of the jail population. The figures also show South Asian people are twice as likely to be stopped as white people.

■ Albania
Saintly statue sparks row
Muslims in Albania's northern city of Shkoder are opposing plans to erect a statue to Mother Teresa, the ethnic Albanian Catholic nun in line for elevation to sainthood by the Vatican. The dispute is unusual for Albania, where religion was banned for 27 years under the regime of dictator Enver Hoxha and where religious harmony and mixed marriages are the norm. But Muslim groups in Shkoder rejected the local council plan for the statue, saying it "would offend the feelings of Muslims."

■ United States
Coral die-off unprecedented
A one-two punch of bleaching from record hot water followed by disease has killed ancient coral in the biggest loss of reefs scientists have ever seen in Caribbean waters. Researchers from around the globe are scrambling to figure out the extent of the loss. Early conservative estimates from Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands find that about one-third of the coral in official monitoring sites has recently died. "It's an unprecedented die-off," said National Park Service fisheries biologist Jeff Miller, who last week checked 40 stations in the Virgin Islands. "These are corals that are the foundation of the reef ... We're talking colonies that were here when Columbus came by have died in the past three to four months."

■ United States
Casino thief sentenced
A woman who made off with nearly US$2.95 million from a Las Vegas Strip casino and spent more than a decade hiding in the Netherlands was sentenced to five years in federal prison. Heather Tallchief, 34, told a judge on Thursday that she accepted responsibility and wanted to make amends for the armored car heist at the Circus Circus hotel-casino. Tallchief was working as a driver for the armored car company in October 1993 when she drove away with the cash, which has never been found. She promised to reimburse Loomis Armor Inc and its insurance carrier with any money earned from a Hollywood movie deal based on her story. But Tallchief said she wanted most to establish an identity and a future for her son, now 11 and living in Amsterdam.

■ United states
Immigrant plans slammed
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that two major proposals under discussion in Washington -- criminalization of illegal immigration and a temporary worker program championed by US President George W. Bush -- were unrealistic, shortsighted and a distraction from more pressing issues, like better border control and verification of job applicants' documents. He all but endorsed amnesty for illegal immigrants, a position that is anathema to most Republican leaders in Washington. "We're not going to deport 12 million people, so let's stop this fiction," the Republican mayor said in an interview taped on Monday and broadcast on Thursday evening on CNN. "Let's give them permanent status."

■ United States
Airport staff stole cash
Two US Transportation Security Administration officers at the Honolulu International Airport have pleaded guilty to stealing thousands of dollars in yen from the luggage of Japanese tourists. Christopher Cadorna, 25, and Benny Arcano, 27, admitted on Thursday to being among a group of security screeners who stole money from the baggage of outbound international travelers and divided the cash, federal prosecutors said. They have agreed to cooperate with the government's investigation into thefts by other screeners.

■ United States
Army relaxes tattoo rules
The US Army has relaxed its policy banning certain types of tattoos in a bid to attract new recruits who otherwise would have been barred from serving. It will allow recruits and all current soldiers to have tattoos on their hands and back of their necks as long as they aren't "extremist, indecent, sexist or racist," officials said on Wednesday. The army said it continues to prohibit tattoos anywhere on the head, face or throat area, although women can have "permanent makeup."

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