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■ PHILIPPINES
Ferry death toll rises to 15
The bodies of a child and two other victims of a ferry sinking washed ashore yesterday, raising the death toll to 15 as strong waves prevented divers from recovering corpses spotted inside the sunken vessel, officials said. The ferry tilted and sank about 500m from San Francisco town in Quezon Province during a storm early Thursday. The army counted at least 129 survivors. The number of people on board the vessel when it sank was not clear because the passenger manifest did not include all the people inside trucks, buses and other vehicles on board the ferry. Survivors and crew said 14 trucks tilted to one side of the vessel in rough waters spawned by strong monsoon winds.

■ JAPAN
Gifts found in cemeteries
The tens of thousands of dollars in neatly packaged envelopes that has appeared in the men's rooms of public buildings across the country in recent weeks are not without precedent. Identical packages of cash were found at three cemeteries last summer. The cases reported last year and this year add up to almost ?4.5 million (US$37,000), according to media tallies. Each ?10,000-bill has come with a letter evoking the language of Buddhist monks asking the finder to do good deeds and "fund your self-enrichment." The police have been holding the money gathered in recent weeks in case someone claims it. But in last year's cases, the cash was eventually deposited in the public coffers.

■ INDIA
Muslims can marry online
A conservative Islamic theological school said on Thursday that marriages of Muslim couples over the Internet using Web cameras were acceptable and legal. The decision was taken by the fatwa department of Darul Uloom Deoband in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh and came after two rare cases of Muslims marrying over the Internet in Lucknow, the state capital. One case was brought to the Deoband school for approval. "The Internet assumes the role of a lawyer in such cases and is, therefore, competent to formally supervise the ijaab [offer of marriage] and qabool [acceptance] made by the bride and bridegroom." top Deoband cleric Khalid Safiullah Rehmani said.

■ CHINA
Baby survives eight-story fall
A 10-month-old girl survived an eight-story plunge after her drunk father apparently threw her out a window during an argument with his mother-in-law, the Shanghai Daily said yesterday. The child suffered only a broken leg when her fall was slowed by branches of a tree and she landed in a flower bed, the newspaper said. She was in hospital but out of danger. Her father, a 26-year security guard, was in detention.

■ UNITED KINGDOM
Lawyers toss out wigs
Lawyers and judges are to break with a centuries-old tradition and cease wearing horse-hair wigs of white fake curls in non-criminal cases, the head of the country's judiciary announced on Thursday. Chief Justice Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers said new dress rules would mean the wigs, which legal professionals have worn since the 17th century, would not be needed in civil or family court cases. Wing collars and bands can also be dispensed with in such cases, while judges will need just one gown in future instead of a variety of colourful outfits currently required. The wigs will still be worn in criminal courts.

■ ISRAEL
Porcupines pose problems
A new type of intruder has been needling authorities at the government's top secret nuclear research center -- one of the four-legged variety. A spokeswoman for the Parks Authority, Osnat Eitan, confirmed a newspaper report that park rangers had been sent to the facility at Dimona -- believed by experts to be used to produce atomic weapons -- to catch dozens of porcupines that have been chewing through saplings and garden hoses. Using potatoes and chocolate milk as bait, the prickly animals were being trapped and moved elsewhere, Eitan said. The Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper quoted the site's gardener, David Golan, as saying a porcupine population explosion posed a security threat.

■ NETHERLANDS
Ban on `burqa' proposed
A right-wing lawmaker wants women jailed for wearing the head-to-toe Islamic robe known as a burqa, calling it a "symbol of oppression." Geert Wilders of the Freedom Party filed a proposed law change on Thursday that would make wearing a burqa in public a crime punishable by up to 12 days jail. "The burqa and niqab are a symbol of oppression of women," Wilders said in a telephone interview. "If you want to wear a burqa, you should do it somewhere other than the Netherlands," Wilders said. A prominent spokesman for the nation's Islamic community, Ayhan Tonca, called the proposal "totally out of proportion" and accused Wilders of seeking to broaden a rift between Muslims and the rest of Dutch society.

■ TURKEY
Clashes kill two soldiers
Two troops were killed in combat with separatist Kurdish rebels and a mine blast in the east, army sources said yesterday. One soldier was killed in a clash between Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas and troops in Bingol Province, the sources said. Another soldier was killed and one was wounded in Erzincan in a mine blast, the provincial governor said. The PKK launched an armed struggle against the state in 1984, with more than 30,000 people killed since then.

■ AUSTRALIA
IAEA, Iran reach agreement
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said yesterday that it had agreed with Tehran on how to resolve remaining issues regarding its past plutonium experiments following two days of talks in Iran. The IAEA also said it had agreed with Iran on a visit of its inspectors to its heavy water research reactor by the end of this month and how to deal with safeguards at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant by early next month. Last month, Iran and the agency agreed to draw up an "action plan" on how to resolve questions about the disputed nuclear program.

■ MEXICO
`Natural' quintuplets born
A 32-year-old woman has given birth to quintuplets in an extremely rare occurrence of the multiple births without fertility treatment, hospital officials said. The three boys and two girls, each born about one minute apart, were in "stable" condition and doing well, the Mexico City public hospital said on Wednesday. The mother had two earlier miscarriages and one prior caesarean section, medical officials said. Medical experts estimate the chance of having "natural" identical quintuplets, without fertility treatment, is about one in 55 million.

■ UNITED STATES
Toddler kicked off flight
A woman said she and her son were kicked off a plane after she refused a flight attendant's request to medicate her son to get him to quiet down and stop saying "Bye bye, plane." Kate Penland said she and her 19-month-old son, Garren, were flying from Atlanta to Oklahoma last month on a Continental Express flight that made a stop in Houston, Texas. As the plane was taxiing in Houston, "he started saying `Bye, bye plane,'" Penland told WSB-TV in Atlanta. The flight attendant objected, she said. When Penland asked the woman if she was joking, she said the stewardess replied, "You know, it's called baby Benadryl," referring to an allergy medication that can also be used as a sleep aid. She said other passengers began speaking up on her behalf, and the attendant announced they were turning around and that Penland and Garren were going to be taken off the plane. The airline said it was investigating.

■ UNITED STATES
Tasting leaves people ill
More than 120 people who ate from the same booth at the Taste of Chicago food festival last week became ill, at least nine of them with salmonella poisoning and 10 who were hospitalized, the Chicago Department of Health said. It confirmed on Thursday that nine of the illnesses were caused by salmonella bacteria. The number could increase because lab results are pending in some of the cases. The 126 people all ate at the Pars Cove Persian Cuisine booth. It was the first confirmed outbreak of a food-borne illness associated with the Taste of Chicago in at least 20 years, the health department said in a release.

■ UNITED STATES
Jeffs faces new charges
The jailed leader of a polygamist sect has been indicted on new sex charges by an Arizona grand jury, adding to charges he already faces in Arizona and in Utah. Warren Jeffs, who heads the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was indicted on eight new sex offense counts involving two young women, Mohave County Attorney Matt Smith said on Thursday. Jeffs is awaiting trial in Utah on two felony counts of rape as an accomplice related to a 2001 arranged marriage between a 14-year-old girl and her cousin. The new Arizona charges also stem from his alleged arrangement of marriages between underage girls and adult men, Smith said.

■ UNITED STATES
Hilton's jail stay probed
The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department opened an investigation on Thursday into allegations that Paris Hilton received special treatment during her 23 days in jail. The probe will examine whether she was given free access to a cordless phone instead of having to wait in line to use a pay phone, received a new jail uniform instead of the recycled ones most inmates get and had her mail specially delivered.

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