■ Nepal
Electricity cuts begin
Electrical power cuts for 21 hours each week began yesterday because a lack of rainfall has affected power-generating reservoirs, an official said. People throughout the Himalayan nation will endure three hours without electricity each day and more cuts may be implemented next month, said Arjun Karki, chief of the nation's Electricity Authority. The power cuts have been blamed on inadequate rainfall during the monsoon season last year.
■ Malaysia
Dengue fever toll hits 13
Thirteen people have died of dengue fever this month, most of them in the most populous state Selangor, where authorities are scrambling to contain an outbreak, a news report said yesterday. Eleven people died in Selangor, which abuts Kuala Lumpur, the New Straits Times said, while two deaths were recorded in Kuala Lumpur and the state of Negeri Sembilan. Health Department Deputy Director Ramlee Rahmat said his ministry has "roped in health officers" from at least six other states to curb the Selangor outbreak, the paper said.
■ China
Students end up as bar girls
China has shut down a dancing school that sent 22 underage students half way across the country to work as bar girls, state media said on yesterday. The Guilin Dance Vocational School in the southern province of Guangxi had "violated state rules on internship programs," caused a "bad social impact" and offended the minors' legal rights, the Shanghai Daily said, citing a statement from the city's educational bureau. After six months at the dancing school, the girls were sent to nightclubs in Hangzhou, the paper said.
■ Pakistan
Militants kill policeman
Suspected Islamist militants killed a policeman and critically wounded another in the country's wild tribal belt where security forces are battling al-Qaeda and Taliban guerrillas, officials said. The suspected militants ambushed a police vehicle when it was on a routine patrol late on Thursday in the town of Tank. "They fired indiscriminately at the vehicle, killed a policeman and fled," an intelligence official said. Tank adjoins South Waziristan tribal region where a Pakistani air strike on a suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda base earlier this month killed up to 20 militants.
■ Australia
Gnomes `massacred'
It's being called the "Gnomesville Massacre" and emergency workers in the west are offering a reward for the capture of vandals who smashed their way through a local tourist attraction. An unknown number of attackers lopped off the heads or smashed several dozen of the pot-bellied statues this week at Gnomesville, a collection of more than 1,000 colorful characters deep in a forest south of Perth. The population of Gnomesville has grown from a handful of statues placed covertly in the forest a few years ago, making it a popular stop for tour buses.
■ New Zealand
Lamb Day declared
The country's love affair with sheep gained official recognition yesterday, when the agriculture minister declared Feb. 15 "National Lamb Day." The country has 4 million human inhabitants and 60 million sheep. Agriculture Minister Jim Anderton suggested the country had no reason to be embarrassed about their sheep population, and said that Lamb Day would mark the 125th anniversary of the first shipment of frozen meat from New Zealand to London. "We hope all New Zealanders will recognize this meat industry milestone and mark it by enjoying lamb for dinner on Feb. 15, to celebrate 125 years of meat exports," Anderton said.
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