■ Hong Kong
Ho elected Democratic chief
Albert Ho (何俊仁) won the chairmanship of the Democratic Party with 204 votes, defeating Chan King-ming's (陳竟明) 81, according to results posted on the group's Web site yesterday. Ho, 55, succeeds lawmaker Lee Wing-tat (李永達) as the party's leader. He made headlines in August when thugs with clubs beat him up in a crowded McDonald's restaurant. Ho suffered a broken nose and cornea damage. Four men have been charged with assault. Ho has suggested the attack was linked to legal work he has done that jeopardized the interests of gangsters.
■ China
Fake pill factory closed
Authorities have closed down a factory producing fake birth-control pills out of starch and glucose and arrested one person, media reports said yesterday. Tests by the Food and Drug Administration on Hainan found not only that the pills were useless in preventing pregnancy but also contained toxic ingredients, the Beijing News said. "The fake contraceptive medicines and abortion drugs have greatly harmed women's physical and mental health," it said, citing an expert. Police arrested the main suspect in the case and were looking for others, the daily said. The factory was also making fake Viagra pills, state TV said.
■ China
`Mermaid' baby dies
A baby who was born with "mermaid syndrome" with his legs fused together and abandoned has died, a hospital nurse in Changsha said yesterday. The unnamed baby was abandoned at the gate of the Hunan Children's Hospital on Nov. 12 with a note saying he had been born three days earlier. A nurse at the hospital said the baby died of heart failure on Sunday.
■ Japan
Rocket launch successful
Japan's space agency yesterday launched a domestically developed H2-A rocket carrying the country's largest satellite after poor weather caused a two-day delay. A live Web broadcast on the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's home page showed the rocket arcing into slightly cloudy skies over the launch site in the south. The launch was originally scheduled to take place on Saturday, but the agency decided to delay it due to poor weather conditions that raised concerns of a possible lightning strike in the flight's early stages.
■ Philippines
Communist guerillas kill five
Communist guerrillas ambushed a group of police and civilians aboard a small boat southeast of Manila, killing four officers and a civilian, officials said yesterday. The police were conducting combat operations on Sunday in Masbate province's Placer town, 440km southeast of Manila, when New People's Army rebels opened fire, said Chief Superintendent Victor Boco, the area's police chief. Four officers and a civilian were killed, he said. It was not immediately clear what happened to two other civilians who had been on the boat. "My men are still pursuing the guerrillas," Boco said.
■ Japan
Kidnap allegation denied
Officials yesterday denied Pyongyang's allegation that Japan had kidnapped a North Korean, saying the claim will not affect Tokyo's plan to press the North over its abductions of Japanese citizens. In a request just before multinational talks on North Korea's nuclear program resumed in Beijing, Pyongyang said Japan was presumed to have abducted a North Korean linguist who went missing in 1991. Japan Foreign Ministry spokesman Noriyuki Shikata denied the allegation. "An abduction by Japan is absolutely impossible, and we do not acknowledge any such incident," Shikata said.
■ Australia
Terror suspects on trial
Thirteen men accused of belonging to a terrorist cell that was plotting a major attack pleaded not guilty to the charges yesterday. The men appeared in the Victorian state Supreme Court, where they each pleaded not guilty to belonging to a terrorist organization and various terrorism-related offenses. All of the men opted to sit as their charges were read out, instead of standing as is customary in Australia. Judge Bernard Bongiorno said he understood this was for religious reasons, but did not elaborate. The defendants are Muslims. The men were among 18 suspects arrested last year in coordinated pre-dawn raids.
■ United Kingdom
Blair aides investigated
Police are investigating aides to Prime Minister Tony Blair and officials from his Labour Party on suspicion of withholding evidence in a probe into party funding, the Times reported yesterday. Prosecutors have advised detectives to look into suspected attempts to pervert the course of justice by impeding an investigation that aims to establish whether state honors were awarded by parties in return for cash, the paper said. The police are still waiting to receive some e-mails and documents, while others have "disappeared," the newspaper said. Neither Blair's Downing Street office nor the Metropolitan Police in London would comment on the report.
■ Senegal
Migrants die in boat wreck
A Red Cross official said yesterday that at least 80 African migrants died in a weekend boat wreck off Senegal's coast. There were up to 150 people on a boat from which fishermen rescued about two dozen survivors near St. Louis, a Red Cross spokesman said on Sunday. Authorities confirmed that 24 people were rescued. "All of them were taken to the hospital and they aren't yet in a state to speak," Lieutenant Mohamadou Moustapha Sylla, a spokesman for a European-Senegalese task force working to stop the tide of illegal migrants heading to Europe in small fishing boats, said on Sunday.
■ South Africa
Theater man murdered
Popular Cape Town theater personality Taliep Petersen was shot dead during an armed robbery at his home, police said on Sunday. He apparently opened the door late on Saturday to the criminals, who robbed other family members of their possessions and locked them in their bedrooms, a police spokesman said. The gunmen killed Petersen, 56, in the living room and fled, the report said. Petersen studied music in Britain in 1979 and was so inspired by the West End shows that he wrote a revue based on his memories of New Year in Cape Town's District Six -- a bohemian area cleared of all nonwhites under apartheid. In 1986, Petersen co-wrote a musical titled District Six, which was staged in London. He co-wrote another six musicals.
■ Italy
Giant mirror lights village
The northern village of Viganella was basking in sunlight on Sunday thanks to a giant mirror. Mayor Pierfranco Midali said "I've waited for this moment for seven years." The village's 185 residents are plunged in chilly darkness during winter months as surrounding mountains cut off direct sunlight. The answer: A towering 8m-by-5m mirror installed on the flank of one bluff and computer-driven to follow the sun's path and cast its rays back on Viganella. "It wasn't easy, we had to find the proper material, learn abut the technology and especially find the money," Midali said of the nearly US$131,000 operation.
■ Greece
Briton denies stealing baby
A British woman who has been accused of snatching a seven-month-old girl from a Romanian Gypsy in Athens denied the charges as she appeared in court for the first time on Sunday. Marie Golby, 41, said she had given the mother 50 euros (US$66) for food and the woman disappeared. Golby was arrested on Cephalonia on Friday after abandoning the baby at the island's hospital. Police said she admitted snatching the girl in Athens' Omonia Square last Tuesday
■ Venezuela
Cocaine shipments increase
Cocaine shipments through Venezuela have increased tenfold over five years, the US ambassador to Caracas said as the two countries struggle to renew a counter-narcotics accord. Venezuela last year ended cooperation with the US Drug Enforcement Administration after President Hugo Chavez accused the agency of spying on him amid increasing confrontation between Washington and Caracas. "Right now our estimate is that between around 200 and 300 tonnes of processed cocaine [every year] pass through Venezuela -- 10 times the amount of five years ago," US Ambassador William Brownfield said.
■ United States
Missing climber found dead
Rescuers looking for three missing climbers on Oregon's Mount Hood found a body in the area where one of the climbers made a distress call last week, authorities said. The dead climber had not yet been identified, said Pete Hughes, a spokesman for the Hood River County Sheriff's Office, on Sunday. The victim was believed to be one of the three missing climbers, authorities said. The body was found in a snow cave near another cave where rescuers found a sleeping bag, ice axes and rope, officials said. Rescuers planned to resume the search for the two others yesterday, authorities said.
■ Mexico
Additional terms considered
Reformers say the slogan that sparked the Mexican Revolution, "Effective suffrage. No re-election," is ready for a tweak. While many nations bar presidents from running for re-election, the nation also bans consecutive terms for legislators, which is rare and, some say, outdated. "Many who come to Congress for the first time have no idea what Congress is, so every three years we have to start from scratch," said Congresswoman Dora Martinez, who will present a reform bill during the current legislative session. Reformers say spectacles like a punch-up in Congress before President Felipe Calderon's Dec. 1 inauguration would not happen if lawmakers knew they would face voters again.
■ United States
Gunman kills diner
Frightened customers at a crowded Chicago pizzeria dove for cover behind tables and chairs as a gunman opened a door and began firing inside, killing one teen and injuring two others, police and a restaurant employee said. "People were panicking. Everybody jumped under tables and some people ran out the back," said Lorena Sanchez, a cashier at Pizza Nova on the city's west side. Around 50 people were in the pizzeria on Sunday evening when a lone gunman flung open the door and started shooting, Sanchez said. The shooting lasted for at least several minutes, she said. "The guy shot five or six times," she said.
■ United States
Group says `fake' fur is real
An animal rights group on Friday accused Macy's department store of selling a coat with a real animal fur collar even though it was advertised as fake fur. The Humane Society of the United States said a US$237.99 Sean John Hooded Snorkel Jacket for sale on Macy's Web site was described as having an "imitation rabbit fur collar." But the group said when it purchased the coat, the label read "Made in China" and "genuine raccoon fur." The group said it is testing the fur to see if it is from a raccoon dog, a type of dog raised in China whose fur resembles that of a raccoon.
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