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World News Quick Take

■ Australia
Police fear serial attacker
A Japanese woman was beaten and sexually assaulted in the western resort town of Broome in the third sex attack on foreign tourists there in a month, police said. Police were reportedly concerned a serial sex attacker was stalking the town after the 32-year-old woman was attacked late on Saturday. "She's been confronted by a man who has violently punched her in the face, so she has broken teeth and injuries to her jaw," a West Australian police spokeswoman told the Australian Associated Press. "She was dragged to a tree and sexually assaulted." The Australian Broadcasting Corp reported that police believe the same offender may be responsible for the attacks.

■ Bangladesh
Hope fades for fishermen
Hopes of finding alive thousands of fishermen reported missing after a storm wrecked their boats in the Bay of Bengal are fading fast, officials said yesterday. Rescuers have found about 120 dead bodies off the coast since last Tuesday night's storm caught hundreds of fishing boats at sea. But officials said the number of fishermen unaccounted for was more than 3,000. However, officials said the numbers given by fishing community leaders and local government sources could be exaggerated in order to inflate compensation claims.

■ China
Tiger release criticized
The government will train 620 endangered Siberian tigers to survive in the wild as part of a controversial effort to return them to northeast forests, Xinhua news agency said yesterday. Some experts said the plan was doomed unless the forests were better protected from logging and human encroachment.

■ Japan
Driver kills two children
A car rammed into a group of day-care center children outside Tokyo yesterday, killing at least two of them and injuring more than a dozen others, fire department officials said. Hideyuki Izawa, the 37-year-old driver, was arrested. The 35 children were apparently walking along the side of a street in Kawaguchi, north of Tokyo, when the vehicle plowed into them. Two critically injured children later died, said fire department official Tetsu Taguchi. One adult was critically injured. Another four children had serious injuries and nine were lightly hurt, officials said.

■ Japan
Lawyers charged over delay
A court yesterday took the rare step of demanding punishment for lawyers of the doomsday cult guru behind a 1995 attack on Tokyo's subway system, blaming them for delays in the emotionally charged trial. The Tokyo High Court filed its demand with the Federation of Bar Associations asking it to take action against Akio Matsushita and Takeshi Matsui, two lawyers for Aum Supreme Truth court founder Shoko Asahara. It was the first time since 1989 that the Tokyo High Court has sought to punish lawyers, a court official said. The bar federation is required to punish members within three months unless it challenges the court's demand.

■ China
Teacher beats, kills student
A primary school teacher kicked and pounded an 11-year-old pupil with an iron bar before throwing her out of a fourth-floor window to her death, state press reported yesterday. Li Hengyi, 28, a history teacher at the school in Yongzhou City, Hunan Province, has been arrested but no charges have been made. According to the Beijing News, he allegedly kicked the girl, Zhang Yaoyi, repeatedly in the head and struck her with the bar. Then he picked up and threw the motionless girl from the window after announcing to the class that he was sending her "to the medical infirmary." Students who witnessed the attack last Wednesday fled from the classroom in tears, the paper said.

■ Afghanistan
Women's official killed
Two gunmen on motorbikes yesterday shot dead the top women's affairs official for Afghanistan's southern province of Kandahar as she was going to work, officials said. The men used Kalashnikovs to shoot into the car of Safia Hama Jan as she was about 150m from her home in Kandahar City, witnesses said. Around four bullets struck her head, a correspondent who saw the body said. "She was heading down to her office when she was shot," police officer Abdul Ali said at the scene of the murder. Her driver was wounded in the attack.

■ Indonesia
Boy dies from bird flu
A nine-year-old boy died from bird flu hours after he was admitted to a hospital in the Indonesian capital, becoming the 51st confirmed fatality in the world's hardest-hit nation, a senior health official said yesterday. Indonesia has attracted international criticism for not doing enough to stamp out the virus or to inform its 220 million citizens of its dangers. Many experts see the country as the weak link in global efforts to ward off a possible pandemic. The country's human toll continues to mount with two children dying in the last week. The nine-year-old died on Friday in Jakarta, nine days after he first showed symptoms of the virus, including high fever and difficulty breathing, said health ministry official Nyoman Kandun.

■ Mexico
Gunmen clash with leftists
A group of gunmen exchanged fire with leftist protesters outside Oaxaca's Camino Real hotel on Sunday, injuring two men and forcing dozens of hotel guests, residents and journalists to run for cover. The shootout came hours after the US embassy in Mexico renewed a warning for US citizens traveling to the historic southern city, where protesters have camped out for months, burned buses and fought pitched battles with police. The confrontation broke out after about 300 demonstrators armed with machetes, knives and pipes descended on the Camino Real searching for Oaxaca Governor Ulises Ruiz, who they are calling for to resign. They accuse him of rigging the 2004 election to win office and violently repressing dissent.

■ United Kingdom
Prominent composer dies
Sir Malcolm Arnold, one of the best-known British composers of the 20th century, who wrote nine symphonies, composed 132 film scores and won an Oscar for the soundtrack to The Bridge on the River Kwai, died on Saturday in Norwich, England. He was 84. The cause was widely reported as a chest infection. He had suffered from mild dementia for several years. Arnold was one of the most popular British composers and was widely referred to as a neglected genius in his waning years. He wrote his music at a remarkable rate. His soundtracks included Hobson's Choice (1954), Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958) and Whistle Down the Wind (1961).

■ France
Police raid suburb
Investigators, riot forces and police officers launched a raid in Corbeil-Essonnes, a neighborhood in suburban Paris, yesterday, where a band of youths had attacked riot police last week, in an assault that seriously wounded one officer and revived memories of the violence that raged in poor French suburbs last year. There were no immediate figures on how many people were arrested. French authorities have kept a watchful eye on the low-income housing projects in suburbs nationwide where riots by youth -- many unemployed and from immigrant backgrounds -- erupted nearly a year ago and continued for three weeks.

■ United States
Blues legend dies
Etta Baker, an influential blues guitarist who recorded with Taj Mahal and was awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, died on Saturday in Fairfax, Virginia, her family said. She was 93. No cause of death was given, but it was reported that her health had been failing for years. Baker, who was raised in a musical family in western North Carolina and worked for 26 years in a textile mill, made her first mark in music in 1956, when she appeared on a compilation album that led to a country-wide folk revival. She toured well into her 80s but finally quit because of heart problems.

■ Russia
Medical student killed
An Indian medical student has died of wounds inflicted in a knife attack in St. Petersburg, a police official said yesterday. The student was attacked on the street near the city's medical academy on Sunday evening. According to the police, the man was unable to say what had happened to him and the circumstances of the murder were still being investigated. The city has a large foreign student population and has seen regular attacks on foreigners in the last year, amid concerns about a rising tide of extreme nationalism.

■ Egypt
European papers banned
Egypt has banned editions of two French and German newspapers, Le Figaro and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, because of articles deemed insulting to Islam, the state news agency MENA said on Sunday. Under a decree issued by Information Minister Anas el-Feki, the two editions will not be able to enter the country, it said. "They published articles which disparaged Islam and claimed that the Islamic religion was spread by the sword and that the Prophet ... was the prophet of evil," it added. The edition of Le Figaro, dated Sept. 19, contains an opinion piece on Islam and the Prophet Mohammed by French philosopher and high school teacher Robert Redeker.

■ United Kingdom
Singer criticizes pope
The singer Cat Stevens, now known as Yusuf Islam following his conversion to Islam, criticized Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday for his controversial comments about Islam. The singer, whose hits such as Moon Shadow and Peace Train made him a star in the 1960s and 1970s, said in an interview with the BBC that the pope's words proved that he was not infallible. "At one point I used to believe that the pope was infallible," Islam said, referring to teachings he received while attending a Catholic school as a boy. The pontiff "should have looked elsewhere if he wanted to quote, but we respect the pope and his position. I do believe he has retracted, in a way, that statement and that's all to the good," he said.

■ United States
Falwell `demonizes' Clinton
The Reverend Jerry Falwell acknowledged on Sunday saying that if Hillary Clinton were the Democrats' presidential nominee in 2008, it would motivate conservative evangelical Christians to oppose her more than if the devil himself were running. Falwell said that his comments to several hundred pastors and religious activists at the "Value Voter Summit" conference were tongue-in-cheek."I certainly hope that Hillary is the candidate," Falwell said on Friday in Washington. "I hope she's the candidate, because nothing will energize my [constituency] like Hillary Clinton," he said. "If Lucifer ran, he wouldn't."

■ Colombia
Kidnapped politicians alive
Rebels released a video on Sunday showing 12 Colombian lawmakers alive after four years in captivity and said Franco-Colombian former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt was being treated well. "Rufino Varela here," said a legislator from the city of Cali in the video taken months ago. "Today is Aug. 8, 2006. We have been detained for 52 months and our health is deteriorating." AFP viewed the one-hour and 30 minute video. In another video, a rebel leader said Betancourt was well and enjoyed the same food and treatment as the rebels.

■ Ecuador
Bus flips over, killing 46
At least 46 people, including several children, were killed on Sunday when a school bus crashed east of Quito, rescuers said. Six children who survived the accident were in critical condition, said Luis Arias, a doctor with emergency services. The bus flipped over and crashed into rocks, Arias said. He said 44 bodies were recovered at the crash site and that two people died later at a clinic. Ivan Collahuazo of emergency services earlier said that rescuers had recovered 30 bodies after the bus plunged down a ravine between the towns of Pifo and Papallacta about 60km from Quito.


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