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World News Quick Take

■ Hong Kong
Staff fined over waste
Staff at a theme park say management have fined them hundreds of dollars for the loss of disposable paper plates and lunch boxes, a media report said yesterday. Unions at Ocean Park, a cliffside zoo and recreation park, say that although the lost items cost just a few cents, management had fined a handful of employees the full cost of the drinks and meals -- up to HK$25(US$3.2) -- that would have been served in them. The fines averaged a total of US$1,000 a month, the report said.

■ Cambodia
Swiss found guilty of abuse
A court sentenced a Swiss man to 11 years in prison yesterday for sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl. Hurni Hans Ulrich, 68, from Basel, was found guilty on Friday of debauchery, a legal term for sex offenses involving minors. Municipal court judge Chan Madina handed down the sentence yesterday and ordered Ulrich to pay 5 million riels (US$1,250) in compensation to the girl's parents. Ulrich denied the charges against him, saying he had never mistreated the girl and had spent more than US$1,000 to help the family and provide for her school expenses.

■ Vietnam
Bird flu found in north
Bird flu has struck poultry in Ha Tay Province, the latest in a string of outbreaks reported in recent weeks across the country, officials said yesterday. Symptoms of the H5N1 bird flu virus have been detected in two chickens at a farm in the province, just eight days after an outbreak was reported in the nearby province of Hai Duong, said Nguyen Huy Dang, director of Ha Tay Animal Health Department. Authorities slaughtered 550 chickens at the farm, Dang said. Test results released by a government laboratory in Hanoi yesterday confirmed the two chickens were infected with H5N1.

■ Bangladesh
Man enjoys time in tree
Tired of trying to get a bit of peace and quiet in one of the world's most densely populated countries, a Bangladeshi man in Dhaka with a head for heights has hit on the perfect solution. Each day carpenter and aspiring writer Salim Hossen Gaus, aged 25, winches himself 30m in a precarious home-made pulley to a small wooden platform he has built at the top of a palm tree. "I spend four to five hours minimum in the tree reading and writing, listening to the birds chirping," he said, adding that his favorite authors were Shakespeare and the Nobel laureate, Bengali writer and poet Rabindranath Tagore.

■ Australia
Military buys new bombers
Canberra will buy 24 advanced Super Hornet fighter bombers for a total of A$6 billion (US$4.6 billion), the government said yesterday. The F/A-18F Super Hornets would ensure that the air force capabilities would be maintained during the transition to the Lockheed F-35 Lightning Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) over the next decade, Defense Minister Brendan Nelson said. The Super Hornet aircraft are built by a team including US companies Boeing, Northrup Grumman, GE Aircraft Engines and Raytheon along with more than 1,800 suppliers in the US and Canada. The Super Hornet is a highly capable, battle proven, multi role aircraft that is currently in service with the US Navy through to 2030, Nelson said.

■ Serbia
Pensioners fight over love
Police had to separate two septuagenarians fighting with a gun and an axe in a love feud over a younger woman, local media reported on Monday. The woman, 52-year-old Zivkica Jankovic, was shot in the leg during the fracas, and more than two dozen police had to be called in to stop the brawl in the southern town of Leskovac. Radivoje Sinadinovic, 77, said Jankovic had been his lover but was wooed away by his neighbor Ljubisa Petkovic, 78, who had bragged about the size of his pension. "We had planned to get married," Sinadinovic said. "But when Ljubisa came to buy plum brandy and boasted of how high his pension was, it went to her head. She left and did not come back."

■ Germany
Ostrich case in court
Three teenagers may face a hefty fine if a court decides their festive firecrackers near a farm scared the libido out of an ostrich. Rico Gabel, a farmer northeast of Dresden, is claiming US$6,450 in damages for the alleged antics in 2005 by the three youths, aged 17 to 18. The farmer says that fireworks set off by the boys made the previously lustful bird depressed and unable to perform for six months with two female breeding partners. Before the bird regained his sex drive, the farmer estimates he lost out on 14 ostrich offspring. The suit is due to be heard on Monday in a regional court in nearby Bautzen.

■ Portugal
Woman unharmed by train
An elderly woman walked away without a scratch after being run over by a train, the daily Jornal de Noticias reported on Monday. Maria Delores Ramos, 77, slipped as she attempted to cross the railway near her home in the northern village of Barroselas, it said. She was unable to get up on her own as she suffers from arthritis. When a train approached she decided to lay down after her frantic waving failed to get the attention of the conductor, Ramos told the newspaper. "I started to pray and ask God for forgiveness for my sins. But when I saw that the first carriage passed over me and didn't touch me, I realized I was safe. And I survived," she said.

■ United Kingdom
Israel tops negative poll
Israel, Iran and the US are the countries with the most negative image in a globe-spanning survey of attitudes toward 12 major nations. Canada and Japan came out best in the poll, released yesterday. The survey for the BBC's World Service asked more than 28,000 people in 27 nations to rate Britain, Canada, China, France, India, Iran, Israel, Japan, North Korea, Russia, the US and Venezuela as having a positive or negative influence on the world. Israel was viewed negatively by 56 percent of respondents and positively by 17 percent; for Iran, the figures were 54 percent and 18 percent. The US had the third-highest negative ranking, with 51 percent citing it as a bad influence and 30 percent as a good one.

■ France
WWI veteran passes on
World War I veteran Jean Grelaud has died at the age of 108, leaving only two French survivors of the war, the Veterans Ministry said on Monday. Grelaud died on Feb. 25 in Paris and was buried in private, respecting the wishes of his family, the ministry said. He had been living in a rest home in Tosny in the Eure region in Normandy, National Veterans Office official Eva Bernard said. Grelaud was a recipient of the Legion of Honor, the country's highest award.

■ United States
Squirrels to get birth control
Santa Monica officials have tried poison, gassing and euthanasia to control a breeding frenzy among squirrels in a city park here. Now, they plan to give birth control a shot. "We don't want to kill them if we don't have to," said Joe McGrath, the city's parks chief. "I personally like squirrels, but we also have to be receptive to the county's concerns. When you are dealing with mammals, people get upset." Health officials say the squirrels, which number an estimated 1,000 in the park, pose a public health risk. They warn the rodents are aggressive and may carry rabies or host fleas that can spread disease.

■ United States
E-mails spur NASA drama
NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak's bizarre 1,450km road trip to confront a romantic rival may have been sparked by steamy e-mails sent to her boyfriend by the other woman, documents released on Monday by the Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office in Florida showed. Nowak collected e-mails sent to space shuttle pilot Bill Oefelein. Police have said Nowak raced 1,450km in her car from Houston to Orlando on Feb. 5 to confront Shipman. Nowak donned a wig and trench coat, then sprayed a chemical into the woman's car when Shipman wouldn't let Nowak in, police said. Nowak was charged with attempted kidnapping and burglary with assault.

■ United States
Abducted baby found
Authorities say an illegal Mexican immigrant was bullied into giving up her newborn son by a former roommate who threatened to turn her in to immigration officials. The 20-year-old woman was reunited with her baby on Sunday. Police arrested Artemia Hernandez, 44, on suspicion of child abduction. In May, Hernandez intimidated the mother into handing over her son, police said. Police said Hernandez persuaded the woman to list Hernandez as the baby's mother on his Los Angeles County birth certificate. Working off an anonymous tip, El Monte, California, police detectives located the baby and delivered him to his mother on Sunday.

■ United States
Warrants issued for attack
San Francisco police issued arrest warrants for two men accused of a New Year's Eve attack on members of an all-male a capella group from Yale University. Richard Aicardi and Brian Dwyer were charged on Monday with assaulting two members of the Baker's Dozen outside a party held in honor of the 16 student singers. Witnesses at the time said the trouble started after the vocalists sang The Star Spangled Banner. Evan Gogel, one of the two most seriously injured chorus members, suffered a concussion when Aicardi, Dwyer and others repeatedly kicked him while he was on the ground, police said.

■ United States
Place crash may be suicide
A pilot and his eight-year-old daughter were killed when their small plane crashed into his former mother-in-law's house in Indiana, authorities said. A preliminary crash investigation leads "us to believe that this was an intentional act," Indiana State Police spokesman 1st Sgt. Dave Bursten said. Monday's crash in Bedford killed Eric Johnson, 47, of Bedford, and his daughter Emily, Bursten said. Emily did not go to school on Monday, and Johnson's ex-wife, Beth Johnson, had gone to the police about 11:30am to say she believed he might have abducted the girl, Bursten said.

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