■ New Zealand
Police called in over Stones
Noise control officers were sent to Auckland's Western Springs stadium during the Rolling Stones' first concert in the country after complaints from nearby residents, it was reported yesterday. Neighbors said the Stones' performance on Sunday night was the loudest event they had ever heard at the stadium, a regular venue for speedway as well as pop concerts, the New Zealand Herald reported. Several callers complained to talkback radio stations with one claiming his house was shaking, the paper said. The noise did not worry 59-year-old grandmother Faye Ngatauau, who told the paper, "If I could do what they do at their age, I would be getting as much sex, drugs and rock'n'roll as I possibly could."
■ China
Epic job quest flounders
Maritime police said yesterday they rescued an unemployed man after the bamboo raft he was using to travel to Shanghai sank in strong waves on the Yangtze River. Wang Faping, 33, set out on foot from his home near the city of Zhoukou in Henan Province in early February, hoping to find work along the way, according to the Oriental Morning Post and other newspapers. Wang first walked about 480km to the port city of Lianyungang, and then about the same distance from there to Nantong, a city on the Yangtze river, north of Shanghai, a maritime official said. Wang told police he made the raft to sail from Nantong to Chongming, a large island in the Yangtze Delta north of Shanghai.
■ Australia
Chemical ends prison siege
Prison guards fired a chemical spray to end a siege by inmates who overpowered a female guard, stole her keys and seized control of part of a maximum-security Tasmanian jail, officials said yesterday. Twenty-six prisoners surrendered after the chemical -- reported to be pepper spray -- ended a 20-hour stand-off in the Risdon Prison in Hobart around dawn yesterday, a prisons spokesman said. The rest of the prison had been locked down during negotiations and there were no reports of injuries. The female guard had escaped unharmed after her keys were taken. Inmates had demanded better food, dental treatment and access to exercise facilities, the spokesman said.
■ Indonesia
Villagers set to flee volcano
The government yesterday prepared to evacuate thousands of villagers living on the slopes of one the country's deadliest volcanos after warnings the rumbling mountain could blow its top at any time. Increased activity at Mount Merapi on Java has prompted volcanologists to raise its warning status to "Beware," one notch below the highest level, which would require immediate evacuation of the thousands of villagers who farm its fertile slopes. Local officials were preparing dozens of trucks and stocking up on medicines to be used at temporary shelters, an official in Jakarta said.
■ Sri Lanka
Mines kill troops, rebels
Anti-personnel mines exploded in two northern Sri Lankan towns yesterday, killing four soldiers and two Tamil Tiger rebels, as spiraling violence pushed the death toll from a week of bloody unrest to at least 50, police said. The Tamil Tiger rebels, meanwhile, formally told Norwegian peace brokers that they would not attend April 24-25 peace talks with the Sri Lankan government in Geneva unless they can hold a crucial internal meeting first, according to a pro-Tamil Web site said.
■ Turkey
Bomb leaves 31 injured
At least 31 people were injured, two seriously, in a bomb blast on Sunday in a residential neighborhood of Istanbul, police said. The device was planted in a trash can outside a shop and media reports spoke of extensive damage. Bystanders were reported to have attacked people suspected of planting the bomb and television pictures showed police firing in the air to disperse a crowd. No responsibility for the attack has been claimed.
■ United States
Stray bullet kills toddler
A 2-year-old New York City boy was shot and killed when a stray bullet pierced the minivan he was travelling in, police said. The boy was struck when two groups of men began arguing in a Bronx neighborhood and one of the men pulled out a gun and started shooting, police said. A bullet tore through the door of the vehicle, striking David Pacheco Jr. in the chest. The boy's mother, Joanne Sanabria, 28, described hearing her son scream, then seeing the bullet hole in the car and the blood on his body. "The bullet should have hit me," she said. The shooter remained at large.
■ United States
Probe finds mini-moons
NASA's Cassini probe has discovered four mini-moons in one of the rings around Saturn. The moons measure around 100m in diameter according to the US space agency. NASA experts believe there could be 10 million mini-moons hidden in the planet's rings. NASA says the discovery could lead to a better understanding of how the rings were formed around Saturn. It is now thought that billions of years ago, a large lump of ice broke up, and that fragments from it formed the rings around the planet. The mini-moons were found in the outer A-ring, the largest of the rings. Saturn has more than 100,000 rings, but pictures normally show just the large outer A-and B-rings.
■ Russia
Intrepid walker to appeal
British adventurer Karl Bushby is to appeal against a court order deporting him from Russia and wrecking his plan to walk from South America to Britain, the Interfax news agency reported yesterday. The court in the remote eastern Chukotka region ruled last week that Bushby broke the law by failing to get a stamp in his passport when he entered Russia after walking from Alaska across the treacherous ice of the Bering Strait. Anyone deported from Russia is usually barred from returning for five years -- a bitter blow for Bushby, who is halfway through his 60,000km trek. The object of his expedition is to follow an unbroken route on foot. From Chukotka, the only way home is through Russian territory. If this is off limits to him, the trip is over, his support team in Britain say.
■ Greece
Three die in train collision
Twenty passengers remained hospitalized yesterday after a collision between a truck and a train in northern Greece left three people dead, authorities said. Police had earlier said four people were killed in Sunday's crash, but revised the number yesterday. The crash occurred near the northern city of Drama after a truck driver apparently ignored warning signals at a rail crossing and smashed into the passing passenger train, causing three cars to derail. The truck driver and two train passengers were killed and 40 other passengers received hospital treatment. Two of those injured remain in serious condition, hospital officials said.
■ Canada
Mad cow case confirmed
The country confirmed a case of mad cow disease at a farm in British Columbia -- the country's fifth case since May 2003, when the US closed the border to Canadian beef. However, no part of the animal entered the human food or animal feed systems, so it will have no bearing on the safety of Canadian beef, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said in a statement Sunday. The agency had announced on Thursday it had a suspected case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. In humans, meat products contaminated with BSE have been linked to more than 150 deaths, mostly in Britain, from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, a rare and fatal nerve disease.
■ Canada
Firefighters rescue dog
Firefighters rescued a shivering dog from a river after it was spotted clinging to an ice shelf. "Buddy," a Rottweiler-shepherd cross, had escaped from an Edmonton backyard early on Sunday morning. While his owners searched the neighborhood, a passer-by spotted him in the icy water 3m from the shore of the North Saskatchewan River. "They thought he was a piece of wood until he was howling and making some noise," Captain Brian Corus said. Six fire trucks from three stations were dispatched to the river. Four firefighters in a rescue boat eventually reached Buddy, pulled him from the river and wrapped him in a blanket.
■ United States
Sex offenders murdered
Two registered sex offenders were fatally shot in their central Maine homes, and a Canadian man sought in connection with the slayings fatally shot himself after Boston police cornered him on a bus, Maine authorities said. Stephen Marshall, 20, shot himself in the head on Sunday with a .45 caliber handgun when officers stopped the bus he was on and climbed aboard, said David Procopio, spokesman for the Suffolk district attorney. Officers heard a gunshot and found Marshall with a massive head wound in a window seat 13 rows behind the driver, Procopio said.
■ United States
Woman burns guests
A woman was accused of crashing a Sudanese wedding party in Schenectady, New York, and splashing people with an acidic substance, injuring six people, authorities said. Six people were injured in the early Sunday attack, including two firefighters whose latex gloves melted as they tried to treat the others. Police said they didn't know the reason for the attack and the acidic substance has not been identified yet. "You gotta be pretty twisted. It was pretty nasty," said Darren Marino, one of the firefighters. Marino said the firefighters thought they were answering a call for a hot-water burn and didn't realize they were dealing with acid until they reached the hospital.
■ Peru
Election result close
A shrinking margin separated two presidential hopefuls in elections a week after the April 9 vote, as moderate-left former president Alan Garcia and conservative former congresswoman Lourdes Flores vied for a spot in a runoff. With delays in the vote count persisting, it could be weeks before it is known who will face nationalist former army officer Ollanta Humala in the second round in late May or June. Results from election officials on Sunday showed that with almost 90 percent of the ballots counted, Garcia and Flores were separated by only 95,619 votes, down from more than 120,000 last week.
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