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World News Quick Take

■ United Nations
Nair cleared of misconduct
A Singaporean who headed the UN oversight office was cleared of anonymous accusations of misuse of funds and sexual misconduct by an internal investigation, a UN spokesman said on Wednesday. Dileep Nair last year resigned his post as a UN undersecretary-general for the Internal Oversight Services after allegations were lodged against him. He was accused of sexual misconduct and improperly paying a member of his staff.

■ Singapore
Internet rules may be eased
The government plans to ease its watch over the Web during the next general election after live video feeds and audio recordings by political parties were banned during this year's polls, a Cabinet minister was quoted yesterday as saying. While disclosing the likely change Communications and the Arts Minister Lee Boon Yang defended the government's restrictive approach for the April 6 poll. But on Wednesday he said that policies had to evolve.

■ Japan
Suicides rise among young
A total of 32,552 Japanese committed suicide last year, with younger age brackets showing the largest increase over the previous year, according National Police Agency statistics announced yesterday. The suicide rate increased by 0.7 percent overall from 2004 figures, with the highest number of suicide deaths recorded among those in their 60s or older at 10,894. But suicides in this age bracket declined 0.9 percent from 2004. But the suicide rate among the younger population soared, the agency said. A total of 4,606 people in their 30s committed suicide last year, up 6.3 percent from 2004, and those in their 20s accounted for 3,409, up 5 percent.

■ Japan
Shrine action urged
The nation's economic minister urged a Tokyo war shrine to remove war criminals from the list of war dead it honors to end criticism from victims of Japan's wartime atrocities, a national newspaper reported yesterday. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni shrine have strained ties with China and South Korea, which protest that his trips glorify Japan's wartime conquests. "It is Yasukuni shrine that can turn the situation back to natural, in which royals, politicians and the bereaved families can visit and pray without hesitation," Economy and Banking Minister Kaoru Yosano told the Mainichi newspaper.

■ India
No time for caste welfare
Medical student Karen Puri has abandoned his studies for the past two weeks to sit on a dirty carpet in the Indian capital's searing summer heat. Three years ago the upper caste student failed the tough admission test for medical school, passed over in favor of lower caste candidates who scored less marks. A year of grueling studies later, he finally won a place at a medical college in New Delhi. But Puri's frustration turned to anger last month when the government announced a plan to double seats for lower caste candidates in government-funded colleges and universities. "Instead of promoting merit, this government is promoting caste. That is what makes us mad," he said.

■ Japan
Bank robber needs lessons
A would-be Japanese bank robber asked staff how he should carry out the crime before meekly obeying a request to leave and then accidentally stabbing himself in the leg with a knife he was carrying. The 58-year-old man went into a branch of the Saitama Resona Bank in the town of Kumagaya, north of Tokyo, on Wednesday, intending to rob it, a police spokesman said. According to local media reports the man first asked a bank teller, "Any idea how you rob a bank?" The teller alerted another member of staff, who asked the man to leave. "He left quietly when asked to," the police spokesman said.

■ New Zealand
Toddlers go tunneling
Seven preschool toddlers and their two teachers were found walking through a busy freeway tunnel with vehicles zipping by at 100kph in Wellington, local media reported yesterday. Police told National Radio several drivers alerted them that the group was walking along a narrow curb in the tunnel, which has warning signs at both ends and a concrete barrier to prevent pedestrians from entering. The group was later rescued by police. A spokesman for highway agency Transit New Zealand, Mark Owen, said: ``The `footpath' is just a concrete ledge, very narrow, very dangerous.'' Police said the early childhood teachers were issued fines.

■ Japan
Birth rate trending down
Japan's birth rate last year dropped to a record low of 1.25 babies per woman, Kyodo News agency reported yesterday, adding to concerns over Japan's rapidly aging population and its economy. The country's birth rate was 1.29 in both 2003 and 2004, already the lowest figure since the government began releasing birth figures in 1947, according to the health ministry. The declining trend threatens to leave Japan with a labor shortage, erode the country's tax base and strain the pension system as fewer taxpayers support an expanding elderly population. Fewer than 2.1 babies per woman represents a negative population growth.

■ Hungary
Looking for hungry Hanna
Hungarians have been asked to look out for a stork named Hanna, whose aggressive begging for food could land her in trouble, a bird protection group fears. Anglers and commuters at train stations are among those to have experienced Hanna's pushy advances in western Hungary, the Hungarian Bird and Environment Protection Association (MME) said. "Due to her annoying behavior, we are afraid Hanna will get into more serious trouble, so anyone with information about her should get in touch with the local MME staff," it said.

■ Spain
Famous singer dies
Legendary singer and actress Rocio Jurado died early yesterday at her Madrid home aged 61, her family confirmed. Jurado had been battling cancer of the pancreas, undergoing months of treatment in Houston, Texas. She returned to Madrid in March but her state suddenly worsened on Friday. Jurado's body is due to be taken to her native Andalusian village of Chipiona for burial. Immensely popular in Spain, Jurado was also well known in Latin America, and even sang at New York's Madison Square Garden. Debuting in 1962, Jurado developed a career spanning four decades. Her romantic songs were influenced by styles of Spanish traditional singing such as the flamenco and the copla. Less well known as a film actress, Jurado starred in a number of movies from the 1960s to the 1990s.

■ Germany
Hilschenz found guilty
A court jailed a woman for 15 years yesterday for killing eight of her newborn babies in the worst case of infanticide in the country's criminal history. The court in Frankfurt an der Oder on the Polish border convicted Sabine Hilschenz, a 40-year-old who has borne a total of 13 children, of eight counts of manslaughter in a case that sparked soul-searching about a breakdown of social values in depressed areas of the former communist east.

■ Switzerland
Rock slide kills two
A rock slide hit several vehicles on a major north-south highway through the Swiss Alps early on Wednesday, killing two people, police said. The highway was blocked on the northern approach to the St. Gotthard tunnel, a major route linking northern Europe with Italy, state police said in a statement. About 60m3 of rock fell on the highway near the town of Gurtnellen, hitting a German-registered car traveling south and two goods trucks which were parked in a rest area on the northbound side, police spokesman Herbert Planzer said. The car's occupants -- a married couple from near Pforzheim in southwest Germany -- were killed. The two truck drivers survived the rock fall, although rocks tipped one of the vehicles over.

■ Ethiopia
AU calls for nuke-free treaty
The Peace and Security Council of the African Union on Wednesday urged member states that did not sign and ratify the African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty to do so urgently so that it could enter into force this year, the 10th year of its opening for signature. It also asked the AU Commission chair, Alpha Oumar Konare, to appoint a special envoy and take all necessary steps to speed up the entry into force of the treaty and the signing and ratification by all those concerned of the three protocols appended to the treaty.

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