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World News Quick Take

■ China
Chemical plant explodes
An explosion at a chemical plant in eastern China's Anhui province has killed at least 10 people and injured 26, state media said yesterday. Rescue workers were still unclear how many workers were at the site when the blast ripped through a workshop at the Dun'an chemical group in Anhui's Dangtu county on Friday, the official Xinhua news agency said. The two-storey workshop was razed to the ground and the danger of more explosions from combustible material had hampered rescue work, the agency said. The plant produces explosives for mining and other civilian uses and the blast is believed to have happened during the emulsification process of powder. During the rescue operation, workers showered water over the debris to keep the temperature low and prevent more explosions, the agency said.

■ Australia
Vietnamese pilot detained
Australian police have asked Vietnam to help investigate a drug trafficking case, saying they have detained a Vietnam Airlines pilot in connection with a gang. Australia said Vietnamese pilot, Dan Tran-dinh, was detained at Sydney airport on June 3 with around US$500,000 and had testified he was carrying the money for members of a gang, the Saigon Giai Phong (Liberation Saigon) newspaper said. It said the Australian police have sent over a list of Vietnamese citizens accused of having connection to the gang. Vietnam's national flag carrier said a co-pilot was arrested in Sydney for failing to declare US$500,000 he was carrying back to Vietnam.

■ Japan
Six-pack triggers alert
Police in southern Japan closed off roads, evacuated residents and even brought in a bomb squad after spotting a suspicious box in a police station, only to find out it was a six-pack of beer. Police in Iizuka City in Fukuoka took precautions after discovering the box, wrapped in newspaper and sealed with adhesive tape, on the counter of a police station on Friday afternoon, a police spokesman said. A bomb squad was rushed to the scene after an X-ray scan showed metallic cylinders inside the box. A local television station broadcast the incident live using helicopters, he said. But police found out the true contents after a woman, having seen the TV report, contacted them saying that she had left the cans of beer on Friday morning in return for receiving advice on home security.

■ China
Testing for Confucius' kin
Chinese claiming Confucius for an ancestor can now use a genetic test to prove a direct blood connection to the grandfather of Chinese social mores, the Shanghai Morning Post reported on Friday. The test that will cost more than 1,000 yuan (US$125). How the scientists had obtained a sample of Confucius's DNA was not explained.

■ China
Lesbian hotline to open
China's first hotline for lesbians is set to open following the success of a service for gay men in a country where homosexuals still face stigma and discrimination, the Shanghai Daily reported. The hotlines, which operate in China's booming coastal cities of Shanghai and Guangzhou where social change outpaces the rest of China, are run by the Hong Kong-based Chi Heng Foundation, which oversees AIDS-related projects. The new line will be staffed by lesbians.

■ United Kingdom
Homophobic killers jailed
Two men who murdered a gay man in a homophobic attack in London were jailed for life on Friday. Thomas Pickford, 25, and Scott Walker, 33, attacked their victim, Jody Dobrowski, jumping on him and stamping on his head "as if trying to kill an animal," the court heard. Judge Brian Barker, told them: "I am quite satisfied from what I have heard that aggression was uppermost in your mind. Your target was those that were gay and vulnerable. You can only have had one intention when you went to the wood in Clapham Common and that was to engage in homophobic thuggery."

■ Ireland
Duck stops traffic again
A mother duck brought traffic in central Dublin to a standstill for an annual event on Friday as she marched her seven ducklings to a pond for their first swim. The duck was relocating her young from their birthplace in the grounds of Trinity College to St Stephen's Green, the city's historic public park, around half a kilometer away. "She's been doing it for about the last six or seven years now -- laying her eggs at the college and then taking the babies to the green," Trinity groundsman David Hackett said. "Usually she's good and picks an evening when it's quiet to waddle them up the street but sometimes she doesn't and in the past we've had to have the police help us out with the traffic."

■ United Kingdom
Examiners tackle plagiarism
A new computer program, sensitive enough to detect even small fragments of copied work, is scanning school coursework this summer, to see whether candidates have been lifting essays wholesale from the Internet. Exam board Edexcel is using the Turnitin program on coursework submitted for GCSEs and A-level examinations. Students accused of plagiarism will receive no grade for the module or possibly for the whole exam.

■ United States
Cancer scam woman jailed
A woman who faked stomach cancer in Massachusetts and went on a spending spree with some US$37,000 in donations from friends and family was sentenced on Thursday to two years in prison. Heather Faria, 27, was found guilty in April of duping friends into holding a fund-raiser for her medical treatments and then spending the money on a vacation, a television and jewelry, the Bristol District Attorney's office said. Faria, who worked as a high school special education teacher until last year, had told friends, family and colleagues that she could not afford cancer treatment and still have money left over for food. She was exposed after the institute where she said she was receiving treatment said Faria was not a patient.

■ Canada
Mini-jet crash kills pilot
A man piloting a type of small plane made famous in the James Bond film Octopussy died when the jet crashed during a practice session for a weekend air show, authorities said. Scott Manning, 48, was killed on Friday when his single-seat Stinger jet crashed at Carp Airport. Authorities and show organizers declined to comment on a possible cause for the crash. Although Manning was a seasoned pilot, another pilot at the airport said the Stinger is notoriously difficult to fly. The Stinger is listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the smallest jet in the world, measuring just 3.6m in length and with a wingspan of 5.1m.

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