World News Quick Take

■ SRI LANKA
Five civilians executed
Five were dragged out of their homes and shot dead in eastern Sri Lanka, the military said yesterday, blaming separatist Tamil Tiger rebels. The attack on ethnic Tamil civilians took place on Friday night in Eravur town, in Batticaloa district, 220km east of the capital, Colombo, an official at the Defense Ministry's information center said. Rebel officials could not be reached for comment.

■ CHINA
`Beidou' satellite launched
China the fifth satellite in its ambitious "Compass" global satellite positioning system yesterday, the latest effort in the nation's fast-developing space program, state media reported. The "Beidou" or "Big Dipper" satellite was launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan province at 4:11 am, and accurately entered its planned orbit, Xinhua news agency said. The satellite was the fifth such vehicle put into space as part of China's indigenous global satellite positioning system, the report said. The system would provide "navigation and positioning services in transportation, meteorology, petroleum prospecting, forest fire monitoring, disaster forecast, telecommunications and public security among others," it said.

■ CHINA
Cheating official sacked
A senior Chinese Communist Party disciplinary official has been sacked after being caught in a "compromising position" with a Russian woman in a Beijing hotel room, Xinhua news agency said on Thursday. Du Xiangcheng (杜湘成), deputy secretary of the Hunan Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Chinese Communist Party, was caught with "a woman other than his wife" in the five-star hotel while on a business trip in December. He has since been thrown out of the party and an investigation has been launched into his assets, Xinhua said. Du, who built a reputation for himself for his stance against graft, was quoted as giving mitigating circumstances for his hotel room service. "Cadres are only human and they have desires," he was quoted as saying.

■ BRUNEI
Commercial fishing banned
A moratorium on commercial fishing will be imposed in coastal waters starting next January following a plunge in fish stocks, an official said. Only small-scale, individual fishing will be permitted until marine resources recover to sustainable levels in waters known as Zone 1, which covers 4.8km from Brunei's shoreline, Fisheries Department officer Ranimah Abdul Wahab said on Thursday. According to Fisheries Department statistics, fish stocks in this tiny sultanate on Borneo island fell 43 percent between 1980 and 2000. The worst affected area was Zone 1, where waters are as much as 50m deep.

■ PHILIPPINES
US volunteer missing
A US Peace Corps volunteer has been missing for nearly a week in a mountain region in the northern part of the country, the American Embassy said yesterday. Julia Campbell, 40, was last seen on April 8 in the town of Banaue in Ifugao Province where she planned to hike alone, embassy spokesman Matthew Lussenhop said. The area, about 260km north of Manila, is famed for its mountain rice terraces and pine forests. The communist New People's Army also operates there. Lussenhop said the Peace Corps started looking for Campbell on April 11.

■ TURKEY
Students killed in crash
A bus carrying elementary school students crashed into a truck yesterday, killing at least 30 people, many of them young children, authorities said. The bus was bringing elementary school students from Izmir, a city on the Turkish Aegean, to Cappadocia, a popular tourist spot known for its unusual geological formations. The crash occurred in the city of Aksaray, near Cappadocia. Aksaray Governor Sebati Buyuran said the number of dead was at least 30, the government-owned Anatolia news agency reported. More than 20 injured were sent to regional hospitals for treatment.

■ MOROCCO
Bombers target US
Two bombers blew themselves up in the middle of a street in Casablanca yesterday, killing themselves and wounding a woman, an interior ministry official said. The bombers killed themselves on a boulevard that runs behind a US cultural center, the official said. The US consulate and a synagogue are also both in the neighborhood. A senior police source said the attack was clearly aimed at US targets. "There is no doubt they aimed at the US targets. They made that statement with their own bodies," the source said, adding the two could not get closer to the two buildings because of the buildings' fortifications.

■ UKRAINE
Neo-Nazis attack diplomat
Neo-Nazis an Egyptian diplomat in Kiev the Egyptian state news agency MENA said yesterday. A group of 12 people assaulted the diplomat, Khaled Nader, in the city center as part of a series of attacks on foreigners by racist groups, it said. The agency did not say when the attack took place or whether the diplomat was injured. As soon as he heard the news, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit told the Egyptian embassy in Kiev to make a formal protest. The Ukrainian foreign ministry said it regretted the attack on the diplomat and the authorities are trying to identify his attackers, the agency added.

■ UNITED KINGDOM
Trolleys guide wins award
A guide to the different types of abandoned shopping trolleys has won the Diagram Prize for oddest book title of the year, following an online vote for industry publication The Bookseller. The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification by Julian Montague secured 1,866 out of a total of more than 5,500 votes from a six-strong short-list. In second place was Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoon Boxes of Daghestan with 1,365 votes; third was Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence with 685 votes. Montague himself said he was surprised to have won the accolade.

■ UNITED KINGDOM
Prince's break-up confirmed
Prince William has broken up with his longtime girlfriend, Kate Middleton, the Sun newspaper said yesterday. Friends of the second in line to the throne confirmed that the tabloid story was correct but an official spokesman would only say: "We do not discuss his private life." The Sun said that the couple, who met while studying at St Andrews University in Scotland, had reached "an amicable agreement" to end their relationship. The affair by the son of the late Princess Diana had been conducted under the full glare of media publicity with paparazzi constantly hounding Middleton.

■ UNITED STATES
Sticker man incarcerated
A man accused of printing up stickers with his ex-girlfriend's picture, phone number and the words "call me now for the best," has been sentenced to four months in jail. Thomas Carl Tiedeman, 62, pleaded guilty in December to a felony harassment charge, authorities said. Police received reports in September that someone was putting the stickers on cars and buildings. Police searched Tiedeman's home and found the photo used on the stickers. Tiedeman admitted he had printed about 20 stickers and placed them on vehicles, authorities said. Tiedeman also was ordered to serve five years on probation, perform 32 hours of community service and pay a US$100 fine.

■ UNITED STATES
Iranians will not be freed
In a move likely to irritate Tehran, the US has decided not to release five Iranians captured in Iraq, a newspaper reported on Friday. The Washington Post said that after intense internal debate, the Bush administration had decided to keep the Iranians in custody. Washington says the five, seized in a Jan. 11 raid by US forces in the Kurdish city of Arbil, are linked with Iranian Revolutionary Guard networks involved in providing explosive devices used to attack US troops in Iraq.

■ UNITED STATES
Woman dies in balloon crash
A Canadian woman was killed and two others were injured when a hot air balloon struck power lines and crashed in the Southern California desert amid strong winds, authorities said. The balloon took off with calm winds on Friday morning, said Allen Kenitzer of the Federal Aviation Administration. About 30 minutes later, winds picked up and the pilot lost control, Kenitzer said. After crashing into nearby power lines, the balloon landed hard near the town of Mecca, Kenitzer said. A woman was ejected and taken to a hospital where she later died. The woman was identified as Linda Dickson, 56, a Canadian from London, Ontario, according to the county coroner's office.

■ BRAZIL
Carnival chief arrested
Federal arrested the chief organizer of Rio's annual carnival parade, along with a federal judge and prosecutor, in a crackdown on illegal gaming and money laundering. Ailton Guimares Jorge, the president of the Independent League of Samba Schools, was among 24 people arrested on Friday for involvement with illegal numbers running, bingo parlors and the distribution of slot machines, police said in a statement. Police found Guimaraes Jorge in his beachfront penthouse in Niteroi, a city facing Rio across Guanabara Bay.

■ UNITED STATES
Robber lets victim dial 911
A gunman robbing a convenience store in Florida allowed the clerk to call for medical help and apologized after the woman said she might be having a heart attack. But he still took US$30 and cigarettes, authorities said. The masked man entered a convenience store in Orlando early on April 7 and pointed what appeared to be a handgun at 60-year-old clerk Mary Parker, according to surveillance audio/video released on Thursday. He demanded access to the safe, but she said she did not have the keys. She started hyperventilating and pleaded with the gunman for help. The gunman let Parker call emergency services. She told the operator she was having a heart attack, but did not mention the robber.