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World News Quick Take

■ Hong Kong
Dancing banker wins claim
A Hong Kong banker who paid a Latin dance champion and her husband US$8 million for lessons in advance won the money back in court yesterday after being called lazy in practice. High-flying banker Mimi Monica Wong, 61, said she had been humiliated by flamboyant teacher Mirko Saccani when he told her "move your arse" in front of business clients and friends and called her a "lazy cow." Wong had agreed to pay HK$120 million (US$15.4 million) to Saccani, 31, and his wife, 14-times world champion Gaynor Fairweather, for eight years of unlimited exclusive lessons. Rival dance instructors at the session testified that they heard Saccani tell Wong: "If you do it again, Monica, I'll smash your head against the wall," and that he threatened to throw her out of the window.

■ Hong Kong
`Indecent' mag appeals
A Hong Kong magazine that sparked an uproar by running photos of a pop star changing her clothes in a recent issue has appealed its classification as "indecent," a court spokeswoman said yesterday. Easy Finder magazine has challenged the Obscene Articles Tribunal's classification of its Aug. 23 edition, whose cover showed Hong Kong singer Gillian Chung (鍾欣桐) changing her outfit after a concert in Malaysia's Genting Highlands, court spokeswoman Jaime Or said. Chung, a member of the female pop duo Twins, is shown with a bare back, but her breasts are not revealed. The tribunal will now hold a hearing on the matter, Or said. Chung has reported the matter to both Hong Kong and Malaysian police. She has also sought a court injunction demanding that Easy Finder give her the photographs.

■ Malaysia
One small steep for man ...
Malaysia plans to push the boundaries of space travel, by making a cup of tea. The country will send its first astronaut into the heavens aboard a Russian rocket next year and attempt for the first time to make the nation's favorite hot drink, teh tarik, in space. "The physics experiment is to see what happens to teh tarik in space," Haniff Omar, head of Malaysia's astronaut selection program, told reporters in all seriousness Monday after two Malaysian men were short-listed to make the trip. Making teh tarik (pulled tea) can be tricky and dangerous, even with the help of gravity. Malaysians pour boiling-hot milky tea swiftly and repeatedly from one vessel held high in one hand into another held low, producing a distinctive layer of froth.

■ Sri Lanka
Faction says it holds camps
A breakaway faction of Sri Lanka's ethnic Tamil guerrillas -- widely believed to have backing from the military -- said it had overrun four camps belonging to the mainstream group in the east, where spiraling violence has shattered a four-year-old ceasefire. The attack came just two days after the government claimed to have routed the mainstream Tigers from the eastern enclave of Sampur, a move the Tigers warned could return the country to war. The Karuna faction is now in total control of rebel-held areas in eastern Ampara district, T. Thuyavan, a spokesman for the group, said in a phone call to the Associated Press.

■ Nepal
Claim given short shrift
A Nepali boy's hope of being declared the world's shortest was dismissed on Monday by Guinness World Records which said he was too young to qualify. Fourteen-year-old Khagendra Thapa Magar, who is 50cm tall and weighs 4.5kg, will have to wait another four years before he can be considered the world's shortest man. The boy's family and friends had trumpeted his claim hoping it would get him funds for his education and heath care. They said they had raised around US$4,000 for a trust in his name by organizing shows where people can watch him dance and play. The story made headlines in Nepal and around the world.

■ Singapore
Cat murderer on the loose
The hunt is on for a serial cat killer who has slaughtered at least 20 felines in the past two weeks. The cats were found dumped in bushes and drains, with their throats slit. Singapore's Cat Welfare Society said yesterday that residents and cleaners on a western part of the island had found several dead, mutilated cats in their neighborhood. All the cats had their throats slashed, while some of them also had their heads smashed or their throats burnt. "It is really disturbing because in terms of frequency, there is nearly one cat getting killed every day," Dawn Kua, director of operations at the Cat Welfare Society, told reporters.

■ Thailand
Four sentenced for murder
A Thai woman and three accomplices were sentenced to life imprisonment yesterday for the grisly murder of her British husband, whose charred remains were found buried in a national park in central Thailand. Toby Leicester Charnaud, 41, disappeared in March last year after going to collect his son from the home of his ex-wife, Panatda Raolueang, in Petchaburi. Panatda lured her husband to her home, where three men were waiting for him. Initially, the men tried to shoot Charnaud, but the gun failed to work, so they beat him to death with an iron bar.

■ Cyprus
Thieves steal tombstone
Police are looking for graveyard thieves who did not settle for their normal booty of flowers and went for the tombstone instead. Authorities are investigating why thieves would want to remove a heavy marble slab off a family tomb. Its disappearance was noticed by a relative who had gone to tend to the grave. "I came to light a candle, the place was a mess. I thought I had stumbled on another grave and made a mistake," 63-year-old Chrysoulla Neophytou told the Simerini daily. Police said the tombstone was stolen in a graveyard located on a main thoroughfare of the capital in the last 20 days.

■ Finland
Squirrel floors opera singer
A squirrel scampered into the bicycle wheel of an unlucky opera singer, causing him to fall, knock himself out and break his nose just ahead of the world premiere of a new opera. Esa Ruuttunen was pedalling his way to the Helsinki Opera House last month when the squirrel ran into his spokes. The singer ended up concussed and in a local hospital, rather than at his rehearsals for the opera Kaarmeen hetki ("Hour of the Serpent"), which opens on Sept. 15. "He is not yet singing in rehearsals, but thinks he will be able to perform at the world premiere," Finnish National Opera spokeswoman Heidi Almi said. The squirrel died in the accident.

■ United Kingdom
Leigh voted most beautiful
British actress Vivien Leigh, the star of Gone with the Wind, topped a poll published on Tuesday for the most beautiful British woman of all time, ahead of Catherine Zeta-Jones and Kate Moss. Actor Cary Grant was voted most handsome man of all time in the poll of 1,000 people carried out for the Bottlegreen Drinks company. Leigh, who died in 1967, was ahead of Elizabeth Taylor -- born to American parents in Britain -- in second place, and actress Catherine Zeta-Jones in third. Princess Diana was in fourth place ahead of actresses Julie Christie and Honor Blackman, model Kate Moss and actresses Sienna Miller, Liz Hurley and Jane Seymour.

■ Netherlands
Dog gets `kiss of life'
A good Samaritan saved a French Mastiff that had nearly been strangled by giving it "the kiss of life," police said on Tuesday. According to an official police report, the 18-month-old dog fell from a balcony in the town of Zevenaar on Monday night but remained dangling from his leash and collar until neighbors and several bystanders noticed and cut the animal loose later the same evening. It was unconscious and had stopped breathing, police spokesman Paul Koetsier said. "First they tried heart massage, but that didn't work," he said. "I wasn't there but as I understand it, they then closed its mouth and breathed through its nose." The dog began to show signs of life, and a passing ambulance stopped and gave the animal further assistance.

■ Turkey
Ankara pledges troops
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was yesterday to meet with leaders of Turkey, the first Muslim country with diplomatic ties to Israel to pledge troops to an expanding international peacekeeping force that will monitor a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. Ruling party lawmakers voted in favor of the deployment of peacekeeping troops on Tuesday, despite objections from opposition parties.

■ United States
Shuttle is `go' for launch
The weather looked favorable for yesterday's launch of the space shuttle Atlantis on a mission to resume construction of the International Space Station for the first time since 2003, NASA officials said on Tuesday. The forecast had worsened slightly from Monday, but officials saw only a 30 percent chance of a delay due to clouds and possible rain around the Kennedy Space Center in central Florida at takeoff time. "Everybody on the team is `go' and in good spirits," Kennedy Space Center shuttle manager LeRoy Cain told a briefing on Tuesday morning. "We're ready to press ahead," he said.

■ United States
Swamp jogger found
A 62-year-old jogger reported missing for four days was found stuck in a swamp on the outskirts of Orlando, Florida, a local daily reported on Tuesday. Eddie Meadows, who survived his ordeal by drinking swamp water, had insect bites all over his body but was in great spirits, according to the Orlando Sentinel. Meadows was reported missing after he failed to return to his workplace from a lunchtime jog last Thursday. Ron Eaglin, a professor at the nearby University of Central Florida, said he heard a sloshing sound as he searched for the missing jogger, and eventually found him under a mangrove.

■ United States
Cook allegedly dices four
A 31-year-old cook has been charged after allegedly murdering and dismembering four people over the weekend in the normally placid northeastern state of Maine, police said on Tuesday. "We think he shot and killed his victims and then dismembered their bodies," state police spokesman Stephen McCausland told reporters, describing the killings as the worst in the scenic New England state in 14 years. Christian Nielsen had been charged with four counts of murder for the killings of his bed-and-breakfast landlady, her adult daughter and a female friend as well as a 50-year-old male guest. Police said Nielsen was cooperating with their inquiries.

■ United States
Villager goes down for drugs
A California judge on Tuesday sentenced singer Victor Willis, who dressed as the policeman in the hit 1970s disco band the Village People, to three years probation on drug and gun possession charges. Willis, who co-wrote some of the band's biggest hits such as YMCA and In the Navy, pleaded no contest and got a suspended three-year, eight-month prison sentence on condition that he complete a 30-day drug treatment program at the Betty Ford Center in Southern California, followed by at least six months in a treatment program in Long Beach, California. Willis, 55, was arrested in March near San Francisco on drug and gun charges, the latest in a series of run-ins with the law.

■ United States
Bus rolls off interstate
A bus traveling from New York to Boston rolled over on an interstate off-ramp on Tuesday, injuring 34 people, authorities said. The bus, operated by Fung Wah Bus Transportation, which offers low-fare Chinatown-to-Chinatown routes, was carrying 57 passengers when it turned onto its left side while negotiating a curve about 64km southwest of Boston. Fung Wah employees in the Boston and New York offices had no immediate comment. The driver, Chen Chuandai, 44, of Brooklyn, New York, was cited for driving beyond the "reasonable and proper speed," said State Police spokesman Scott Range.

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