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World News Quick Take

■ CHINA
Ancient building discovered
Archaeologists have discovered an ancient and mysterious subterranean building near the tomb of the nation's legendary first emperor, state media reported yesterday. The building, more than 2,000 years old, is hidden inside a 51m-high pyramid-shaped earth mound on top of the tomb of emperor Qinshihuang (秦始皇) in Shaanxi Province, the Xinhua news agency said. The discovery came as a complete surprise because there is no description of the 30m-high building in surviving historical records, but it may have been built for the soul of the emperor, expert Duan Qingbo (段清波) said. The building is situated near the famed terra-cotta warriors and has four surrounding stair-like walls, said Duan, a researcher with the Shaanxi Institute of Archaeology.

■ INDIA
Maoists attack stations
Some 200 heavily-armed Maoists attacked two police stations in eastern Bihar state, killing six constables and a villager, police said yesterday. The attacks on the neighboring stations took place late on Saturday, police said from district headquarters some 30km away. "They attacked both the police stations so that they would not be able to aid each other," said a policeman in Rohtas district, more than 1,000km from New Delhi. "They used petrol bombs, grenades, rifles and AK-47's. Whatever weapons the police avail of, they also had." Five people were wounded in the attack and had been taken to neighboring Uttar Pradesh state for treatment, the policeman said.

■ INDIA
US aircraft carrier to port
An Indian Navy ship equipped with a radiation-monitoring laboratory will keep watch on the US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz when it comes calling at the southern port of Chennai today. The first ever port call by a US aircraft carrier has sparked controversy in the country. Some politicians said Washington was trying to absorb New Delhi into its sphere of military influence while some port workers voiced environmental fears. The Nimitz is due to lie at anchor off Chennai, formerly known as Madras, until Thursday in what has been termed yet another landmark in the growing warmth between Washington and New Delhi.

■ MALAYSIA
Bat virus upsets Melaka
The state of Melaka is upset that scientists have named a new bat-borne virus after it, news reports said yesterday. Australian and Malaysian scientists announced last week that they had discovered a new virus likely carried by bats that can cause respiratory illness in humans. They called it the Melaka Virus, using the name of the state where the virus was isolated last year in a man. Chief Minister Ali Rustam said on Saturday the state does not want to be associated with the virus and called the name "an insult" to Melaka, which is a popular tourist destination.

■ THAILAND
Election could be postponed
The post-coup general election could be pushed back until early next year as legal experts fear a new constitution and other laws will not be finished as planned, Army chief General Sonthi Boonyaratglin said yesterday. Sonthi, who ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's government in a bloodless coup last year, told reporters he would meet Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont to discuss possibly postponing the elections, originally set for the end of the year, until a later date.

■ IRAN
Brown welcome, Blair not
Iran yesterday criticized former British prime minister Tony Blair's appointment as Middle East peace envoy but welcomed his successor at Downing Street, Gordon Brown. "He did not have a good background and a good reputation in the region," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said when asked about Blair's new post. Arabs have also said they doubted Blair could succeed because he is too close to Israel and the US. They said Blair had little credibility in the Middle East because he took part in the invasion of Iraq, opposed an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon last year and failed to follow up on many promises to tackle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

■ UNITED KINGDOM
Piranhas really wimps
Despite their fearsome reputation, piranhas are wimps that gather in large shoals to protect themselves from predators, scientists said. Rather than aggressive killers, research shows piranhas are omnivorous scavengers, eating mainly fish, plants and insects, Anne Magurran of Scotland's University of St Andrews said. "It was thought piranhas shoaled as it enabled them to form a cooperative hunting group. However, we have found that it is primarily a defensive behavior," she said. Piranhas face constant attack from predators. "Their cautious behavior is crucial to avoid being eaten," Magurran said.

■ ISRAEL
President's deal protested
Tens of thousands of Israelis protested on Saturday against the dropping of a rape charge against the country's head of state who the attorney-general called a "serial sex offender." President Moshe Katsav has submitted his resignation after admitting to committing sex crimes against women employees in a plea bargain that omitted an original charge of raping another woman who worked in his office. If the court approves the bargain, Katsav will also be handed a suspended sentence instead of a jail term. The turnout of more than 20,000 in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square was the highest in years for a women's rights protest in the country.

■ GEORGIA
Three wounded in attack
Grenade attacks wounded three people yesterday on the third day of cross-border violence with the Russian-backed breakaway region of South Ossetia. An official said two were wounded on the South Ossetian side of the border by grenades fired from Georgia. A Georgian peacekeeper said one person was wounded by a grenade fired in the other direction. South Ossetia's status has been a source of tension between Tbilisi's pro-Western leadership and Moscow since the region broke away from Georgia to join Russia in a 1991 war. Last year South Ossetia, about 100km from the Georgian capital Tbilisi and with a population of 70,000, voted for independence in a referendum.

■ SWIZERLAND
Turks arrested for racism
Two Turks were arrested on Saturday on suspicion of breaking anti-racism laws for denying that the killing of Armenians in the early 20th century constituted genocide, police said. The two were arrested at a conference in the Zurich suburb of Winterthur, where posters were hung up and leaflets distributed saying the killings were not genocide. One of the Turks organized the event and the other was shouting slogans before a crowd.

■ UNITED STATES
Plane crashes into house
A small plane crashed into a house yesterday, killing the male pilot and a woman on the ground, authorities in Arkansas said. Faulkner County Coroner Patrick Moore said at a news conference the woman killed was an occupant of the house, which is near Conway Municipal Airport, about 15km north of Little Rock. Moore said a passenger in the plane and another person in the house survived. He did not release their names or the conditions of the survivors. Authorities said they believe the plane was trying to land at the Conway airport, but did not say what might have caused the crash or where the plane had come from.

■ UNITED STATES
Cuban man, 105, naturalized
A 105-year-old Cuban-born man finally had his one pending wish fulfilled -- he became a US citizen. Jose Temprana celebrated by sipping champagne with friends at the Hispanic Community Center in Miami on Friday. Nicknamed "El Nino" (The Boy), he rides his scooter to the store to play the lottery, rolls his own cigars, drinks whiskey with neighbors and has a girlfriend. Temprana was born in the Cuban province of Pinar del Rio on Sept. 26, 1901, he worked as a sponge diver and lobster fisherman. In 1964, he was imprisoned in Cuba for smuggling weapons from the US into the island for an insurrection against Cuban President Fidel Castro. Temprana got out at age 93, applied for a humanitarian visa and flew to Miami.

■ UNITED STATES
Park ride causes death
A safety precaution put in place for a New York amusement park ride after a fatal accident three years ago was not being followed when a worker was killed on the same ride on Friday, a park official acknowledged. Gabriela Garin, 21, died after she was thrown from the Mind Scrambler at Rye Playland, a National Historic Landmark in Rey, about 40km north of New York City. Garin was loading a few riders onto the Mind Scrambler, a spider-arm-shaped attraction that spins passengers around in two-seat cars, before she was to head home at the end of her shift, Tartaglia said.

■ UNITED STATES
Nude dancing banned
No more nude dancers in Daytona Beach, Florida, a Spring Break city. A court says exotic dancers in adult bars that serve liquor now must wear conservative bikinis instead. G-strings and pasties will not be enough to meet the new requirement, a federal appeals court said. The ruling upheld municipal zoning and nudity ordinances in a dispute between the city and Lollipops Gentlemen's Club. A district court had ruled last year that Daytona Beach's nudity laws were unconstitutional because they violated the right to free speech, and dancers at adult clubs had been going nude ever since. The city appealed.

■ UNITED STATES
Shipping lanes changed
For the first time in US history, shipping lanes are being changed to protect wildlife. The busy shipping lanes in and out of Boston Harbor will be narrowed and shifted northward yesterday in an effort to lower the risk of rare right whales being killed by ships. Each year, ships from around the world make about 3,500 trips through the lanes stretching from southeast of Cape Cod into the port of Boston. Researchers say the slight northeast rotation to the final stretch of that corridor will take ships outside an area with a high concentration of North Atlantic right whales, reducing the ship strike risk by more than 50 percent.


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