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World News Quick Take

■ Myanmar
Constitution forum to resume
The military government has said it will resume a convention to draft the country's new constitution next month, according to state-run radio and television. Lieutenant General Thein Sein, a top member of the ruling junta, said that the National Convention, which adjourned in January, will resume in the second week of next month. He spoke on Saturday at Naypyidaw, the new administrative capital 400km north of Yangon. The convention is the first stage of a seven-step "roadmap to democracy" proposed by the junta, which however has never announced a set schedule for a return to electoral democracy.

■ Australia
Lefty dogs in the minority
Fifteen percent of boxers are southpaws -- the dogs, not fighters -- according to the findings of a study. Scientists at the University of Sydney who are conducting a three-year study into what makes a successful working dog have examined whether being left-pawed, right-pawed or ambidextrous indicates an animal's suitability for a career in law enforcement or as a guide dog for the blind. The research team, studying 270 dogs attempting to steady their food containers, concluded that 15 percent are left pawed, the same proportion right pawed and the rest showed no preference.

■ China
Military to rein in roadhogs
The government is cracking down on military vehicles that use their special status to ignore Beijing traffic rules and create chaos in the capital's crowded streets, state media said yesterday. Beijing residents are used to the sight of vehicles with military license plates speeding or running red lights, but the Beijing News reported this will now have to stop. The top brass has decided to launch a campaign to instruct military drivers in the need to drive responsibly, the paper said. It did not mention if or how violators would be punished.

■ North Korea
Chinese tourists banned
Pyongyang has suddenly banned nearly all Chinese tour groups, citing a need to fix its roads and railways, travel agencies in China said yesterday. North Korea's National Tourism Administration issued the notice to Chinese tour organizers in the middle of last month, said an executive with the Guotai Travel Agency in Dandong, a Chinese border city. "They said it was because of maintenance of railways and roads," said the executive, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. An official with the China International Travel Service said that North Korea had explained the quota for Chinese tourists had been used up for this year.

■ Japan
Loud woman kills husband
An 86-year-old woman has been arrested on suspicion that she killed her 90-year-old husband by repeatedly stabbing then suffocating him with a plastic bag, police said yesterday. Tsuruno Yagi told investigators that the violent behavior of her husband, Shiro, drove her to murder, according to media reports. Tsuruno is suspected of stabbing Shiro several times in their home in Zama, about 40km east of Tokyo, early on Saturday, and then killing him by blocking his mouth and nose with a plastic bag, according to a local police official. "I tend to speak loud, and when I talked to my husband he sometimes beat me, saying I was too loud. So I killed him," Tsuruno was quoted by Kyodo News agency as telling investigators.

■ Ireland
Sheen set to hit the books
Martin Sheen, star of the US TV drama series The West Wing and dozens of Hollywood films, began a new career on Friday -- as a full-time student. Sheen, 66, who recently finished seven seasons playing president Josiah Bartlet on the Emmy-winning TV series, registered at National University Galway in western Ireland, where he plans to study philosophy, English literature and oceanography as part of a bachelor of arts degree. "I always had a fantasy about going to college because I left school after high school, and for the courses I want to do, NUI Galway is the best," Sheen said as he strolled through the largely empty campus.

■ Russia
Beslan police snatch inquiry
Police in the southern town of Beslan on Saturday briefly seized about 200 copies of a Russian lawmaker's report that contradicts much of the official inquiry into the 2004 hostage seizure at Beslan's School No. 1 that led to the deaths of 333 people. Security agents returned the printed copies after about three hours. The incident came as Beslan residents continued ceremonies marking the second anniversary of what was Russia's worst terrorist attack. The courier bringing the report was detained by security officials as he arrived at the airport outside of Beslan.

■ United States
Former Texan first lady dies
Nellie Connally, the former Texas first lady who was riding in president John F. Kennedy's limousine when he was assassinated, has died, a family friend said. The 87-year-old was the last living person who had been part of that fateful Dallas drive. Connally, the widow of former governor John Connally, died late on Friday of natural causes at an Austin assisted living center, Julian Read, who served as the governor's press secretary in the 1960s, said on Saturday. As the limousine carrying the Connallys and the Kennedys wound its way through the friendly crowd in downtown Dallas, Nellie Connally turned to president Kennedy, who was in a seat behind her, and said, "Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you."

■ Turkey
Imam-killer lynched
A group of angry worshippers lynched a 27-year-old man after he fatally wounded an imam in Istanbul yesterday, the Anatolia news agency reported. The crowd set upon the man and beat him to death after he stabbed a 54-year-old imam following morning prayers, the agency said. The reason for the attack on the preacher, who died in hospital of his stab wounds, was not known, Anatolia said, adding that a police investigation had begun. The attacks took place at the Ismailaga mosque in Carsamba on the European side of the Turkish city, in an area the liberal press refers to as the "Muslim ghetto" because its inhabitants wear traditional Muslim dress.

■ United States
Father kills two sons, self
A father and his two sons died in an apparent murder-suicide at a West Virginia university, authorities said. Douglas Pennington, 49, shot sons Logan, 26, and Benjamin, 24, multiple times, then shot himself once in the chest with a .38 caliber revolver on the Shepherd University campus, state police said. Both sons were identified as Shepherd students. Police said the elder Pennington traveled to the campus to visit his sons, but offered no reason for the shootings.

■ Iraq
PM says Iraqi flag must fly
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki yesterday ordered that the Iraqi flag be hoisted everywhere across the country after a Kurd leader banned it from flying in the northern Kurdish region. "The present Iraqi flag should be hoisted on every inch of Iraqi soil until the parliament takes a decision about it," Maliki said in a statement issued by his office. Massud Barzani, president of the Kurdish region in northern Iraq, last week banned the flag from being hoisted at government offices in the region, leaving the Kurdish colors to fly alone.

■ United States
Man dies in dog rescue bid
A Pennsylvania man who tried to rescue his dog from a flooded retention basin was sucked into a drainage pipe and died, police said. Thomas Chipley and his wife were walking their golden retriever in a neighborhood park in Telford on Saturday when the dog jumped into the basin fed by two drainage streams, authorities said. The remnants of Tropical Storm Ernesto had brought rain across the state. The dog was drawn into the basin's outflow pipe, and Chipley went into the basin to try to rescue the animal but was also pulled into the pipe, police said.

■ United States
Death penalty possible
An Army investigator has recommended that four soldiers accused of murder in an Iraqi raid face the death penalty. Lieutenant Colonel James Daniel made the recommendation in a report obtained by reporters on Saturday. Daniel found several aggravating factors that warrant a sentence of death in the case of four soldiers accused of killing three men during a May raid. The soldiers have claimed they were ordered to "kill all military age males" during a raid on an island on a canal in northern Salahuddin Province. According to statements from some of the soldiers, they were told the target was an al-Qaeda training camp.

■ Iran
Holocaust `exaggerated'
The scale of the Holocaust has been "greatly exaggerated," Iran's foreign ministry spokesman said yesterday, adding that he had visited several former concentration camps in Eastern Europe. "When I was ambassador I saw several of these camps in [former] East Germany and Poland. In my opinion it has been greatly exaggerated. It is far from what is being publicized," Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters. His comments come ahead of a conference to be held on Dec. 11 in Tehran, which the Islamic republic hopes will present "hidden aspects" of the slaughter of Jews under Nazi Germany.

■ Iraq
Prison controlled by Iraqis
The US military has transferred control of Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib jail to Iraqi authorities and the "prison is now empty of any detainees or prisoners," a government spokesman said on Saturday. "The Abu Ghraib prison has been officially handed over yesterday by the coalition forces to the Iraqi forces and the prison is currently under the Iraqi administration," Ali al-Dabaqh told reporters. A US military spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Keir-Kevin Curry, said: "Coalition forces transferred operations of Abu Ghraib on Sept. 1 to the Iraqi Ministry of Justice, effectively ending detainee operations." Dabaqh said detainees at the prison had suffered human rights violations "during the former regime and also under the US forces" and that Iraq will decide what to do with the facility in the future.

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