■ India
Hostesses surprise PM
Two air hostesses and a man were detained after they gatecrashed the Indian prime minister's house in a luxury car, apparently intoxicated and wanting to meet the premier, police said yesterday. The security scare took place in New Delhi late on Thursday, in the full glare of TV cameras while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was presiding over a Cabinet meeting inside. The car, with one of the air hostesses at the wheel, drove past security posts into the sprawling complex. The driver blew kisses at the cameras after security guards asked her to turn back. The car sped away before it was stopped near a Delhi market and its occupants detained.
■ Malaysia
Clerics forbid Botox
Islamic clerics have banned Malaysian Muslims from undergoing Botox treatment for cosmetic purposes because the compound contains prohibited and harmful substances, a news report said yesterday. The National Fatwa Council, which advises the government on Islamic regulations, issued the edict on Thursday, but conceded that using Botox for medical reasons -- for example, to treat cerebral palsy sufferers -- was permissible if doctors deem it necessary, the New Straits Times reported. Council Chairman Shukor Husin said the ruling was not legally binding, but that Muslims who defy it would be committing a sin. Shukor said Botox contained extracts from pigs, an animal considered unclean in Islam.
■ Hong Kong
Train vandal arrested
A vandal suspected of slashing the doors of 70 underground commuter trains in Hong Kong began his vendetta because he was irritated by platform announcements, a news report said yesterday. The 45-year-old technician was arrested on Thursday after a huge police operation to catch the culprit responsible for slashing the rubber lining of underground trains over the past 14 months. Police sources quoted by the South China Morning Post say the man caused more than US$100,000 in estimated damage. More than 60 police officers and Mass Transit Railway officials disguised as passengers had spent a month trying to track down the vandal.
■ Indonesia
Haze blankets Sumatran city
Thick haze from forest fires and land clearing worsened yesterday over the eastern Sumatran city of Pekanbaru, about 670km northwest of Jakarta, limiting visibility and disrupting flights to and from the region, officials said. An official at Pekanbaru's meteorology and geophysics agency said visibility was generally limited to a range of 50m, but the haze was so thick in some areas that visibility was 20m. Smoke sparked by forest fires in Indonesia, now reportedly blanketing areas of Malaysia and southern Thailand, could also reach Singapore if the wind switches direction, meteorologists warned.
■ Australia
Rapist gets 31 years in jail
The ringleader in a series of gang rapes was handed a 31-year sentence yesterday for one of the four attacks he carried out. Bilal Skaf, 24, was found guilty earlier this year over the attack on a 16-year-old girl involving up to 15 men in a Sydney park in August 2000. His brother Mohammed was given a 15-year sentence after being found guilty of being an accessory to the attack. Both men are already serving lengthy sentences for their roles in the series of gang rapes committed in Sydney leading up to the 2000 Olympics.
■ United Kingdom
More suspects arrested
Two more teenagers were charged on Thursday with murdering a Pakistani-born taxi driver, bringing the total number of people arrested in the case to six. A 16-year-old and 18-year-old, both of whom cannot be named for legal reasons, appeared before magistrates in Huddersfield, northern England on charges of murdering Mohammad Parvaiz, 41. They join Michael Hand, 19, and three other teenagers, all of whom cannot be named, who were arrested on Wednesday. A married father of three, Parvaiz stopped to pick up a fare on Saturday last weekend and was then beaten to death in what police described as a racially aggravated assault.
■ Poland
Dog lands on shocked man
A man was bruised but alive on Wednesday after a Saint Bernard dog thrown out a second-story window landed on him as he was walking down the street in the southern Polish city of Sosnowiec. The 50kg dog was pushed out of the window by its drunken owner on Monday, police said. "The dog had a soft landing because it fell on a man," said police spokesman Grzegorz Wierzbicki. "The dog escaped with just a few scratches." "The man was also more in a psychological state of shock than physically hurt," Wierzbicki added.
■ United Kingdom
Hasselhoff `not drunk'
US actor David Hasselhoff missed a flight out of London's Heathrow airport on Wednesday under circumstances that caused witnesses to tell British tabloids he was drunk, but which his US representative explained as mere illness. "Mr Hasselhoff became ill at Heathrow airport yesterday and requested to be put on a later flight," his publicist Judy Katz said. Katz said the actor, 54, a one-time star of TV's Baywatch, had been given new medications for his recently injured hand that caused him to get sick. But people in the terminal told newspaper the Sun a different story. The tabloid wrote that Hasselhoff showed up for the early morning flight "reeking of booze."
■ Iraq
Saddam verdict in October
After nine months of testimony, the troubled trial of former president Saddam Hussein was adjourned until mid-October, when the five judges are expected to render a verdict that could send the ousted president to the gallows. The final hearing on Thursday ended without Saddam in court, but with two of his seven co-defendants proclaiming their innocence and slamming the tribunal for alleged bias. Chief Judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman adjourned the trial until Oct. 16, when the verdicts are expected. Saddam and the seven others have been on trial since Oct. 19 for their alleged roles in the killings of more than 148 Shiites in the town of Dujail.
■ Somalia
Eighteen ministers resign
The nation's virtually powerless government was unraveling as a fifth of its Cabinet resigned in disgust and the administration's Islamic rivals took over the presidential palace in Mogadishu. Eighteen key ministers in the 102-member Cabinet said on Thursday that their government has failed to bring peace to this chaotic African nation as it emerges from 15 years of anarchy. "We have seen that the government cannot carry out national reconciliation and development," according to a letter of resignation issued by the lawmakers.
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