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World News Quick Take

■ China
Spit sacks a `disaster'
Foreigners are spewing bile at the nation's latest plan to curb spitting in Shanghai. The authorities plan to distribute 45,000 "spit sacks" to Shanghai cabbies to curb the common habit of rolling down the cab window and expectorating onto the street. But the proposal has foreigners spluttering with rage. "This solution is a recipe for disaster," a reader wrote in the Shanghai Daily yesterday. One of the many risks of the plan, which involves fixing a sack to the metal grill which surrounds the driver's seat, is that the bag may spill and unleash the "malodorous aroma of spit," the writer added. Another respondent said he was afraid drivers might toss the bags out of their windows and be encouraged to hawk even more. Local authorities are stunned by the livid reaction, the paper reported.

■ China
Recycling plant fire kills 13
Thirteen people were killed in a blaze at an illegal plastic recycling workshop in Guangdong Province, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday. The fire broke out in the early hours of Friday in the workshop, located in a four-story building in a village near Dongguan City, Xinhua said. Eighteen people were rescued from the building and taken to hospital, but only five survived, it said. Police are investigating the cause of the blaze, it said.

■ North Korea
US ban goes into effect
The US has made it tougher for North Korea to receive the luxury goods said to be coveted by leader Kim Jong-il, banning exports of fast cars, yachts, designer clothes and fine wine to the communist country. The US Commerce Department's rule was announced in November but did not go into effect until now.

■ Malaysia
Python munches 11 dogs
Guard dogs protecting a fruit orchard met their match -- a 7.1m long python that swallowed at least 11 hounds before it was finally discovered by villagers. "I was shocked to see such a huge python," orchard-keeper Ali Yusof told the New Straits Times in an article published beneath a picture of the captured snake, which was as thick as a tree trunk. Villagers did not harm the snake, which was tied to a tree then handed to wildlife officials, the paper said on Friday.

■ Uzbekistan
Activist to be charged
A human rights activist has been arrested and may be charged for alleged transport of "anti-constitutional" material, a defense lawyer and rights groups said on Friday. Umida Niyazova, 32, who has already been detained and released over the incident, may be charged with smuggling and making an illegal border crossing, her defense lawyer, Abror Yusupov, told reporters. Niyazova was first detained last month when she was returning from Kyrgyzstan. Her passport was taken away and her laptop computer was confiscated. New York-based Human Rights Watch demanded Uzbek authorities immediately release Niyazova, who works for the group.

■ Japan
H5N1 outbreak confirmed
Tests confirmed that an outbreak of bird flu at a poultry farm in the south was caused by the virulent H5N1 virus, the agriculture ministry said yesterday. A state laboratory analyzed samples from 3,000 chickens that died at a farm in Hyuga in Miyazaki, the country's main chicken-producing region, and found the birds had been infected with the H5N1 virus, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said in a statement. Earlier this month, some 4,000 chickens died from the H5N1 virus in another town in Miyazaki, about 900km southwest of Tokyo.

■ United Nations
Thailand ignores UNHCR
The UN refugee agency said on Friday it regretted Thailand's decision to deport 16 Hmong refugees to Laos, saying they had not been screened to see if they needed international protection. Deportations "should be done within a framework which ensures that any individuals among them who may have protection concerns are screened in line with international standards," UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) official Erika Feller said. The UNHCR said on Friday it was still hoping for a favorable solution for 153 other refugees, as resettlement arrangements with third countries are currently being worked out. It said there were an overall estimated 7,000 Hmong refugees in Thailand's Phetchabun Province.

■ India
Hostel collapse kills 11
Rescue teams yesterday ended their search through the rubble of a school residence in the west that had collapsed, killing 11 girls and injuring over a dozen, officials said. Parts of a three-story hostel belonging to the Adarsh Nivas school in Tichakpura Village came down on Friday, burying students. The residence was home to about 150 girls, mainly members of disadvantaged tribal communities, and 20 teachers. "The building collapsed when the girls were playing in the dormitory," fire official A.T. Dave said. The state government has ordered an inquiry and offered 100,000 rupees (US$2,265) in compensation to the families of those who died.

■ Ireland
Prisoner steals car
An Irish convict who stole a car to get back to prison after missing a weekend release deadline has been given a six month suspended jail sentence. Trevor Doyle, 25, grabbed the vehicle after falling asleep on a bus and overshooting his stop near Shelton Abbey open prison in Arklow, Wexford district court officials said on Thursday. The court, which would not reveal the man's prior conviction, also fined him 300 euros (US$390) for failing to submit to a breathalyzer test.

■ Italy
Berlusconi retirement hint
Silvio Berlusconi has long rejected any challenges to his political leadership. Now at 70 and after heart surgery last month, the former prime minister has crowned a right-wing leader as his likely successor at the helm of the conservative bloc. In rare comments raising the possibility he would not serve as the future center-right leader, Berlusconi told reporters on Thursday night that Gianfranco Fini would be the man to take his place. Until now, the combative media mogul had maintained he was the only person capable of holding the coalition together.

■ United Kingdom
Teens convicted of murder
Three white teenagers were found guilty at a court on Friday of the racially aggravated murder of a Pakistan-born taxi driver who was ambushed and beaten to death. Christopher Murphy, 18, Graeme Slavin, 18, and Steven Utley, 17, were convicted of murdering Mohammad Parvaiz in July last year. Michael Hand, 19, pleaded guilty earlier at the six-week trial in Leeds, northern England. Parvaiz, 41, believed he was collecting a fare when he was lured into a cul-de-sac in Huddersfield, northern England, and attacked by a teenage mob.

■ United Kingdom
Al Fayed slams inquest
The father of princess Diana's last boyfriend slammed on Friday a judge's "outrageous" decision to hold an inquest into the couple's death without a jury, and launched a legal bid to overturn the move. Mohamed Al Fayed reiterated his view that Diana, princess of Wales, and Dodi Fayed were murdered by a British establishment plot. They died in a Paris car crash in August 1997. "It is quite outrageous and I am determined that the British ruling class, the so-called `establishment,' including the very people who ordered these crimes, will not get away with their stratagem," he said in a statement. "The ordinary people of this country would be eminently capable of understanding all the evidence and making up their own minds," he added, after applying to the High Court for a judicial review of the decision.

■ Kenya
Two killed in carjacking
Two women in a US embassy vehicle were shot dead in a midday carjacking on the main highway on the western outskirts of Nairobi yesterday, police said. They said that the two women were among five people traveling in a black four-wheel drive bearing diplomatic plates issued to the US. "There was a person who was driving and an elderly lady who took too long to get out of the vehicle and the gangsters shot them and threw them out," police spokesman Gideon Kibunjah said. "The two were confirmed dead on arrival at the hospital." The shootings took place in Kinoo, a village-like western suburb of Nairobi on the road to resort towns like Naivasha favored for weekend getaways. There have been no arrests yet, Kibunjah said.

■ Canada
Caribou population falling
The caribou population in the vast Northwest Territories is falling rapidly and the increasingly warm climate could slow the animals' chances of recovery, a wildlife specialist said on Friday. Herds of barren-ground caribou have dropped by between 40 percent and 86 percent over the last 10 years. The largest single herd fell from 472,000 animals in 1986 to 128,000 last year and is still declining. "The level of concern is very high in the Northwest Territories," said Ray Case of the territories' environment and natural resources ministry.

■ Mexico
Drug reporter missing
Police in Mexico's southeastern state of Tabasco said on Friday they were searching for a journalist who went missing six days ago after writing about drug gangs. Rodolfo Rincon, who writes for the daily Tabasco Hoy, was last seen at work on Jan. 20, Tabasco state prosecutor Gustavo Rosario said. He said Rincon's disappearance could be related to his job. Tabasco Hoy recently published an article by Rincon on drug gangs that revealed the houses where narcotics are sold. There were more than 20 drug-related killings in Tabasco last year. Since 2004, at least 13 journalists have been violently killed in Mexico, most shot to death.

■ United States
Tom Waits settles lawsuit
Grammy Award-winning singer Tom Waits has settled a German lawsuit that claimed an automaker and ad agency violated his rights by imitating him in TV commercials, his lawyer said. Waits will donate the "net settlement proceeds" to charity, Marks said. "I'm glad to be out of the car sales business once and for all," Waits said in a statement issued on Thursday. The gravel-voiced singer sued Adam Opel AG in 2005 on grounds that his personality rights had been violated. "While the court can't make me active in radio, I am asking it to make me radioactive to advertisers." Waits claimed that a singer imitating him appeared in Opel ads that aired in Scandinavia after he turned down several offers to do the commercials.

■ United States
Turkeys used as targets
Dozens of domestic turkeys were staked to bales of straw and used as live targets in an archery contest, and a sportsman's club was charged in what one investigator called "the most gutless act of cruelty," authorities said. The contest at Elstonville Sportsman's Association featured the fowl secured at their feet, allowing them to flap their wings. Participants paid US$12 for three attempts to hit one with an arrow, with those drawing blood winning the animal, prosecutor Christine Wilson said. The association faces fines of as much as US$4,000 for eight summary violations of laws against the cruel treatment of animals and offering live animals as prizes in a contest.

■ United States
Topless lawsuit settled
A teenager who sued the city of Pensacola, Florida, after claiming a police officer forced her to do jumping jacks while topless has reached a US$35,000 settlement, officials said. Officer Shawn Patrick Shields found the girl, then 16, and a 19-year-old man together in a parked car in April 2003. Shields said he could arrest them for lewd and lascivious behavior. The girl told investigators that Shields told her to perform five topless jumping jacks, which she said she did as he shone his flashlight on her. Both teenagers passed polygraph tests. Shields was later fired and pleaded no contest to extortion.


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