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World News Quick Take

■ SOUTH KOREA

Piglet protest probed

Police said yesterday they were investigating allegations of animal cruelty by a group which ripped apart a live piglet to protest against the move of a military office to their area. There has been public outrage after local media published photographs and video of the two-month-old piglet, which had its legs torn off and was beheaded at a rally attended by about 1,500 protesters. The country's largest daily called the incident "an atrocity, pure and simple." A police spokesman said several animal rights groups had lodged complaints and that an investigation had started.

■ AUSTRALIA

Straights barred from bar

A hotel catering for homosexuals has won the right to ban heterosexuals from its bars so as to provide a safe and comfortable venue for gay men. In what is believed to be a first for the country, the Victorian state civil and administrative tribunal ruled last week that the Peel Hotel in the southern city of Melbourne could exclude patrons based on their sexuality. The country's equal opportunity laws prevent people being discriminated against based on race, religion or sexuality. But Peel Hotel owner Tom McFeely said the ruling was necessary to provide gay men with a non-threatening atmosphere to freely express their sexuality.

■ NORTH KOREA

Kim's health in doubt

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's health has worsened, a newspaper reported yesterday, possibly causing him to limit his public appearances. The Chosun Ilbo newspaper quoted an unidentified intelligence official as saying South Korean authorities were investigating a report that "Kim's diabetes and heart disease have worsened." There have been similar reports about the 65-year-old Kim's deteriorating health in the past, but the latest one is believed to be "more credible" than any other reports, the official was quoted as saying. US intelligence authorities obtained a similar report and were trying to verify it, the official said.

■ CHINA

Three arrested over blaze

Three people have been arrested in connection with a restaurant fire that killed 11 people and injured 16, the official Xinhua news agency said. The blaze on Saturday night at the Baixinglou restaurant in Liaoning Province's Chaoyang City raged for about an hour before it could be extinguished. The victims included eight diners and three waitresses, Xinhua said, citing Zhang Minghua, deputy director of the Chaoyang Municipal Public Security Bureau. Zhang said police have arrested 27-year-old cook Wang Yonghai, restaurant manager Zhang Chaohui and chef Wang Zhidong.

■ PAKISTAN

Same-sex couple jailed

A court yesterday jailed the country's first publicly acknowledged same-sex couple for three years for perjury — prompting the defendants to ask the president for help. The case of Shumail Raj, who was born female but had two operations to remove her breasts and uterus 16 years ago, and Shahzina Tariq has made waves by raising issues of homosexuality and transsexuality. The couple, who married last year, had approached the Lahore High Court for protection against harassment by Tariq's relatives. However, the judge accused them of lying about the gender of Raj, 31. Court-appointed doctors examined Raj and decided she was still a woman.

■ RUSSIA

Girl left in car dies

A four-year-old girl left alone in an unlocked car while her father went for a drink died after the vehicle was stolen, Russian news agencies reported yesterday. Police on the Kamchatka Peninsula, on Russia's Pacific coast, found the child's body 500m from the abandoned vehicle. A murder investigation has been launched, RIA news agency quoted prosecutors as saying. The child's father told police he left her in the back seat of the car, with the keys in the ignition, while he stopped off around midnight to drink beer, RIA reported.

■ ETHIOPIA

Five die in explosion

A blast ripped through a crowd in the country's volatile Somali region yesterday, killing at least five people and setting off a stampede that saw up to six more die, witnesses and aid workers said. The government quickly blamed the attack on the Ogaden National Liberation Movement (ONLF), separatist rebels who have been increasingly active in the remote east. Last month, the rebels attacked a Chinese-run oil exploration field, killing 74. However, an ONLF spokesman denied involvement in yesterday's blast.

■ SPAIN

Terror suspects arrested

Police arrested at least 12 people yesterday on charges of recruiting volunteers for terror training in Afghanistan and Iraq, news reports said. The arrests, which took place in Barcelona and two other northeastern towns, were ordered by National Court investigative magistrate Baltasar Garzon, leading Cadena SER radio reported. Police seized a substantial amount of computer material in the pre-dawn raids, the radio added. Spanish police have arrested dozens of Islamic terror suspect since the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington, and again after the 2004 train bombings in Madrid. The latest arrests came as the trial of 29 suspects, mostly Moroccans, in the Madrid train attacks continues in the Spanish capital.

■ TURKEY

Nine die in storms, flooding

Powerful storms and flooding killed nine people in the eastern part of the country yesterday, Turkish officials said. Six people were killed in severe flooding in mountainous Agri Province near the Iranian border, where rivers were swollen by melting snows. Two more people were missing. In nearby Van Province, a two-year-old child died when landslides triggered by heavy rain demolished a house. Two other girls also died and another person was injured after being struck by lightning. In nearby Greece, six hikers died while trying to cross a river in the south. They were in a group of 18 people swept away by a flood wave in the rain-swollen Lousios River.

■ HOLY SEE

Islam office to be restored

The Vatican will restore the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, its main conduit for relations with the Muslim world, its secretary of state said on Sunday. Last year, Pope Benedict merged the department with the Vatican's culture ministry and removed its president, Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald, a Briton who is one of the Catholic Church's most experienced figures in dialogue with Islam, was sent to Cairo in what was widely seen as a demotion. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone told La Stampa daily the council would now be reinstated as a department in its own right.

■ CANADA

Wildfires wreak havoc

Wildfires burning out of control have destroyed vast swaths of forest over recent days in the eastern province of Quebec, authorities and media reports said on Sunday. Hundreds of firefighters battled the blazes, which have ravaged more than 62,000 hectares in northern Quebec. In the Sept-Iles region of the province, 1,500 people had to be briefly evacuated from a reservation. A spokesman for a Quebec fire prevention agency, Jacques Nadeau, said on Sunday 26 fires were burning, of which six were "out of control." No casualties were7 reported. He said lightning and dry weather had contributed to the blazes. Local media reported the Sept-Iles fire may have been caused by criminal activity.

■ SAUDI ARABIA

Murder suspect caught

Security forces have arrested a Saudi man for allegedly being involved in the February shooting deaths of four French nationals, an Interior Ministry statement said. Majid bin Rashid al-Harbi was arrested in a desert area some 100km south of the northern city of Hail, the ministry said late on Sunday. Last month, the Saudi Interior Ministry said Waleed bin Mutlaq al-Radadi, the alleged mastermind and one of the triggermen in the shooting, was killed. The ministry claimed al-Harbi was with al-Radadi when they first saw the French nationals asking for directions by the roadside. The French nationals were shot dead on Feb. 26 on the side of a road leading to Medina.

■ NICARAGUA

Police arrest PRC illegals

Police have arrested 38 illegal Chinese immigrants on their way to the US after the boat in which they were traveling collided with another craft on a river, Chinese state radio said yesterday. The accident, which claimed five lives, happened early on Friday, the radio said in a report carried on its Web site. Three Chinese were still unaccounted for, it added. The boat was also carrying 14 undocumented Ecuadorean immigrants, the report said. Repatriation of the Chinese or official assistance to them could be complicated by the fact that China and Nicaragua have no diplomatic relations, Managua maintaining formal ties with Taipei.

■ IRAQ

Terrorist prison camp raided

US and Iraqi troops raided a suspected al-Qaeda prison camp north of Baghdad and freed 41 men, some of whom said they had been held for four months, the US military said yesterday. The air and ground operation on Sunday followed a tip-off from a local resident. The camp was 10km south of Baqubah in Diyala Province, where many insurgents have set up new bases to escape a major security crackdown in Baghdad. "The individuals, who were living in a small, concrete and mud compound ... were sleeping in cramped rooms on dirty blankets and pillows," the military said.

■ VENEZUELA

RCTV goes off the air

Despite protests by democracy activists, Venezuela's oldest television network went off the air at midnight on Sunday, victim of a fresh push by President Hugo Chavez to tighten his grip over the nation's media. RCTV screens went black after the station broadcast previously-recorded images of its teary-eyed employees singing the national anthem. The channel's successor, Chavez-backed TVes, began broadcasting minutes later. Network president Marcel Granier told US-based Univision television that Chavez was driven by "a megalomaniacal desire to establish a totalitarian dictatorship."

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