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■ CHINA
Five die of gas poisoning
Leaking carbon monoxide from a generator killed five people checking on irrigation works, state media reported yesterday. The five, including two electricians and managers of a local reservoir, had been asked by farmers to check whether larger pipes could be fitted in a tunnel carrying water to fields, Xinhua news agency said. They were apparently overwhelmed by gas that had built up inside the tunnel while conducting an inspection on Monday evening, it said. Their bodies were found the next morning. Carbon monoxide is an odorless, colorless gas produced by all motors. If it accumulates in the blood, it can cause death.

■ AFGHANISTAN
Suicide bomber kills 17
A suicide bomber killed 17 civilians, including 12 children, on Tuesday in an attack aimed at Dutch NATO troops patroling a crowded bazaar in the south of the country, the interior ministry said. Some 30 people, including seven Dutch soldiers, were wounded in the attack in the small town of Deh Rawud, officials said. The interior ministry said some of the wounded were in a critical condition. The Dutch defense ministry said one of its soldiers was also critical. All the wounded were evacuated to a military hospital in the provincial capital Tarin Kot. Taliban militants claimed responsibility for the attack.

■ SOUTH KOREA
North Koreans seek asylum
Four North Koreans have entered the Danish embassy in Vietnam in an apparent bid for eventual asylum in South Korea, an activist said yesterday. The refugees were a man and three women, the South Korean activist said on condition of anonymity. The Danish embassy in Hanoi confirmed by telephone that a family of two adults and two children had entered the building, but gave no further information on how the case would be treated. The activist said that the defectors wanted to travel to South Korea and had requested help from a South Korean Embassy in an unspecified country, but that their plea had been rejected. The South Korean Foreign Ministry said it had no information about the latest asylum bid.

■ NEPAL
Royalty's allowance axed
The royal family will not be getting an annual allowance this year, officials and news reports said yesterday, amid government efforts to phase out the monarch's role in the Himalayan nation. The government last year allocated King Gyanendra and his family about 32.7 million rupees (US$500,000) in an annual allowance. But this year, the government decided to scrap the allowance, the popular Kantipur newspaper reported. Officials at the Finance Ministry confirmed the report but refused to elaborate. The government is scheduled to present its annual budget today, when details about the royal family's allowance are set to be released.

■ CHINA
Assassin gets death penalty
A court has sentenced to death the killer of a businessman shot in the head execution-style in a popular Hong Kong tea house in November 2002. The Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court convicted six of eight people charged in connection with the murder of millionaire Harry Lam at the Luk Yu Tea House, the China Daily reported. Hired assassin Yang Wen, 27, was sentenced to death, and an accomplice was jailed for 13 years. Three masterminds were sentenced to life in prison and a sixth man was jailed for three years.

■ TURKEY
Government office bombed
A small bomb went off in the car park of a local government office in Istanbul early yesterday, police said. Two people, including a police officer, were hospitalized. Police said the device was a percussion bomb, designed to make a loud noise but cause minimal damage. It went off outside the local governor's office in the mainly residential district of Bahcelievler. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

■ UNITED KINGDOM
Human walk most efficient
Scientists have explained mathematically why the silly walk of Monty Python's John Cleese has never caught on in the long history of Homo sapiens. The giant, leg-twirling strides of silly walks may enable an individual to leap around swiftly but are simply too expensive in metabolic energy compared to conventional locomotion, according to a paper published yesterday by Britain's Royal Society. Equations devised by researchers in applied mechanics at Cornell University in New York showed emphatically that walking and running are the most energy-efficient gaits for humans, honed by millenia of evolution.

■ SPAIN
Women want cow runs
A group of women has begun a tongue-in-cheek campaign for equality in Pamplona's famous San Fermin bull running festival -- they want cow runs. "If the boys run ahead of the bulls, we [women] have to run with the cows. It's pure logic," said a petition run on a Spanish student Internet Web site, www.estudiln.net on Tuesday.

■ NAMIBIA
German tourist murdered
Police were searching on Tuesday for two men suspected of killing a German tourist and driving off with his wife -- a rare incident in this normally peaceful desert country. Johannes and Elke Fellinger had arrived only hours before they were attacked Sunday about 60km west of the capital, Windhoek, police spokesman Stephan Nuuyi said. Johannes Fellinger, 56, was shot in the head while taking photos, and died instantly, Nuuyi said. After shooting the man, the attackers threw his body into the couple's vehicle and drove off with his wife still inside, police said. After dumping the man's body, a local farmer gave chase. The car overturned and the attackers escaped on foot, leaving Elke Fellinger behind.

■ LIBYA
Death sentences upheld
The Supreme Court yesterday upheld the death sentences of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor convicted of infecting more than 400 children with the AIDS virus. But the verdict issued by Judge Fathi Dahan is not the final word. Libya's Supreme Judicial Council, which is headed by the minister of justice, could approve or reject the convictions or set a lighter sentence. In announcing the verdict, the judge mentioned nothing about a settlement announced on Tuesday by a foundation headed by the Libyan leader's son. The Gadhafi foundation had said that the families of the HIV-infected children reached an agreement with the nurses and doctor but did not provide more details. The five nurses and doctor, who have been in Libyan custody since 1999, have said they are innocent. Libyan court officials said they admitted infecting the children, but some of the nurses have since said they confessed under beatings and torture.

■ UNITED STATES
Hitman wins reprieve
A hitman who received US$2,000 to gun down a San Antonio woman 15 years ago in a scheme devised by her husband and his brother to collect her life insurance benefits won a reprieve that blocked his scheduled execution on Tuesday evening in Huntsville, Texas. Rolando Ruiz, who turned 35 last week, received a stay from the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals more than an hour after he could have been given lethal drugs. Ruiz was condemned for the July 14, 1992, fatal shooting of 29-year-old Theresa Rodriguez, killed in the garage at her home. Her husband, Michael, and his brother, Mark, were at the scene.

■ UNITED STATES
Nanobubbles to treat cancer
Tiny bubbles injected in mice delivered potent cancer drugs to tumors without harming surrounding tissue, a US researcher said on Tuesday, in a finding that may lead to new targeted cancer therapies. The technique uses ultrasound imaging to track the drug in the body and release it with a pop once it has reached its target. "Imagine soap bubbles," said Natalya Rapoport of the University of Utah's Department of Bioengineering. "Now imagine a drug in the soap bubbles." These tiny bubbles loaded with the drug seek out cancer tumors and congregate. "When these bubbles accumulate, I give strong ultrasound radiation to the tumor to blow them up. Then the drug gets [to] the tumor site."

■ UNITED STATES
Body lodged on car
A drunk man drove home with a man's body lodged on his windshield and left it sitting there for six hours, police said on Tuesday. Police did not say whether the man had died on impact or after the driver parked in his garage in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Nor did they say what the driver was doing between the time he struck two people on Sunday evening and called police on Monday morning. The 41-year-old woman he had been walking with around midnight had been discovered and taken to a hospital. Steven Warrichaiet, 41, was arrested on charges of hiding a corpse, hit and run causing death and drunk driving.

■ UNITED STATES
Woman sues over porn name
A Houston woman is suing a former high school classmate who took her name and starred in pornographic movies. Kristen Syvette Wimberly, 25, is asking that Lara Madden and film distributor Vivid Entertainment Group stop using or publicizing her name, which Madden took as a stage name. The two met in ninth grade at Kingwood High School. According to the lawsuit, they "were friends but eventually that friendship ended due to conflict." Madden, 25, began her adult-film career in 2004 and has appeared in about a dozen adult films using the name Syvette Wimberly.

■ UNITED STATES
Woman to row the Pacific
A woman who rowed alone across the Atlantic Ocean last year is planning to take off this week on her next big voyage: a solo row across the Pacific to raise awareness about marine conservation efforts. Roz Savage, 39, a former management consultant, plans to take off from San Francisco on the first leg of her endurance journey which will take her to Hawaii, Tuvalu and Australia. Her vessel is a 24-foot long rowboat named Brocade after her corporate sponsor, San Jose-based Brocade Communications Systems, which makes computer networking gear.


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