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World News Quick Take

■ CHINA
TV fortunetelling banned
Authorities have banned televised fortunetelling schemes, saying they promote superstition and overcharge customers. The order, issued on Monday by the Ministry of Information Industry, bans the advertising programs that generally run late at night or on weekday afternoons, urging people to text message or call a special pay-per-call phone number to have their fortune told. The programs claim to be able to determine a person's fortune based on family name, or reveal marriage prospects as well as career and health futures. Other programs urge viewers to send a text to a special number for a chance to win cash or prizes such as MP3 players or digital cameras.

■ INDIA
Elephant reserves dropped
Authorities have dropped plans to set up two new elephant reserves, enraging conservationists who say the decision threatens wildlife and is aimed at helping mining firms operate in the area. Last year, the government approved two new reserves in the mineral-rich areas of Orissa State aimed at strengthening the conservation of elephants and other wildlife such as tigers, leopards, deer and hundreds of species of rare reptiles. But conservationists claim the plans have been dropped to ease the way for big steel investors like Vedanta Resources Plc, JSW Steel and Arcelor Mittal to mine for iron ore, manganese and bauxite.

■ INDIA
Poachers kill two rhinos
Poachers shot dead two endangered one-horned rhinos fleeing a flooded wildlife sanctuary, taking the number killed this year into double figures, officials said yesterday. The poachers took away the animal's horns after using silenced light automatic rifles to kill them near the Kaziranga National Park in the state of Assam. "The two rhinos killed were among hundreds of animals that have fled the sanctuary to take shelter in highlands and some strayed away to nearby human settlement areas making them vulnerable to poachers," park warden S.N. Buragohain said. "We are trying our best to check poaching and have killed three poachers and arrested six others so far this year," the warden said.

■ JAPAN
Five teenagers arrested
Five teenagers were arrested on Monday on suspicion of attempting to burn a homeless man to death, describing him as "garbage" making no contribution to society. Police arrested five boys, including three high school students, suspecting they set fire to the 52-year-old man when he was lying on a bench at a Tokyo park in May, a police spokesman said. The homeless man jumped into a fountain to douse the flames on his body. "The victim was severely wounded with most of his body suffering burns and is still in a hospital," the spokesman said.

■ VIETNAM
Police raid casino
Police arrested 28 people over the weekend for illegal gambling in a casino near the Chinese border that was set up only for foreigners, state media said on Monday. The gamblers were detained early on Saturday in the Hoang Gia (Royal) Casino in Ha Long City, 200km northeast of the capital Hanoi, the Nhan Dan newspaper said. Police confiscated nearly US$200,000 in cash, two cars, 26 mobile phones and three computers, the paper said. City police and casino officials could not be reached for comment. In May, police launched raids on casinos and gambling spots in three major hotels in Ho Chi Minh City, temporarily arresting at least 100 people.

■ GERMANY
Faulty beer tap delays train
The national railway wasn't about to risk sending a trainload of soccer fans to a German Cup match without beer. Federal police said on Monday that the beer tap failed aboard a special train carrying Bayer Leverkusen supporters to Hamburg on Saturday. The fault was discovered half an hour into the journey. "In order not to endanger the good mood" of the passengers, railway officials halted the train in Wuppertal for 25 minutes and had a replacement part delivered by taxi, a police statement said. It added that there was no trouble among the fans. Their team was less obliging. Top-division Leverkusen's 1-0 elimination from the cup by second-division St. Pauli in a first-round upset left its fans with plenty of sorrows to drown on the way home.

■ NIGERIA
Show canceled after death
A TV survival show has been suspended after a contestant drowned in preparation for the program, the show's sponsor said on Monday. Anthony Ogadje, 25, and nine other contestants had gone to Shere Hills Lake in Plateau State to prepare for the Gulder Ultimate Search, which sets a variety of physical challenges for participants. "All attempts to revive him by the attendant medical team and the lifeguards, including his fellow contestants, failed," said Nigerian Breweries. Broadcasting had been due to start tomorrow. The winner was to get 5 million naira (US$39,000) in cash, a four-wheel drive jeep and another 500,000 naira to buy clothes.

■ FINLAND
Sauna-sitting title decided
Finns stayed invincible to keep their world champion titles in male and female sauna sitting, beating Russian, US, German and Turkish competitors on their home ground, organizers said on Monday. Timo Kaukonen won the male championship for the third year in a row, staying in a sauna heated to 110oC for 12 minutes and 26 seconds. Among the women, Leila Kulin endured the incredible heat for 10 minutes and 31 seconds, almost two minutes better than her closest rival, another Finn. The world championships in sauna sitting have been held in Heinola, 140km northeast of Helsinki, since 1999.

■ UNITED KINGDOM
Bigamous mother convicted
A mother of five who entered into a civil partnership with a woman while still married to her husband was given a suspended prison sentence on Monday. Suzanne Mitchell had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to breaching the 2004 Civil Partnerships Act, which allows same-sex unions. She admitted to falsely claiming to be single to entering into a civil union with Caroline Beddows in February last year. At Shrewsbury Crown Court, Judge Robin Onions said Mitchell repeatedly lied in pursuit of the partnership, and her offense was one of "cruelty and deception." Mitchell was given an eight-month prison sentence suspended for two years.

■ ESTONIA
Blind driver arrested
Police stopped a man who was driving erratically on Sunday, only to find he was blind. The 20-year-old was driving in the southern city of Tartu early on Sunday morning -- with instructions from his 16-year-old passenger. "At first they thought he was just drunk, but the man kept missing the tube for the breath test, then they realized he was blind" and arrested him, a police spokeswoman said on Monday.

■ UNITED STATES
Escaped monkey recaptured
A monkey who somehow managed to free himself from his pen in Mississippi's Tupelo Buffalo Park and Zoo and was on the run for days was finally recaptured on Monday. Oliver was apprehended at Tupelo Stone & Masonry, the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal reported, six days after leading park staff on a chase through the park's trail system before eventually eluding them. Several days after the monkey's July 31 escape, an anonymous businessman offered a reward for the white-faced capuchin's capture and return. Motorist Mike Fair, who helped end the search for Oliver, got the reward. ``I think it's great,'' Fair said.

■ UNITED STATES
Wife sells cremation ashes
A woman from Elmira, New York, who was quick with the bargains at her rummage sale mistakenly accepted US$0.50 for a ceramic turtle with the ashes of her husband's previous wife inside. Now, Anita Lewis is desperately searching for the buyer who said she planned to use the urn as a cookie jar. Lewis said she had hauled items into her yard early Saturday while her husband slept. The buyer quickly selected the large turtle container, despite being unable to get the lid open. Her husband's previous wife collected turtles. ``We have lots of turtles,'' Anita Lewis said. ``It didn't even register that this was the one [containing the ashes].''

■ UNITED STATES
Old bacteria grow again
Microorganisms locked in Antarctic ice for 100,000 years and more came to life and resumed growing when given warmth and nutrients in a laboratory. Researchers led by Kay Bidle of Rutgers University tested five samples of ice ranging in age from 100,000 years to 8 million years. "We didn't really know what to expect. We knew that microorganisms were really hardy," Bidle, an assistant professor of marine and coastal sciences, said in a telephone interview. The findings were reported on Monday. The researchers tested samples of the oldest known ice on Earth and had success at growing bacteria from the younger samples.

■ UNITED NATIONS
Worker busted over visas
A Russian employee at the UN headquarters in New York was arrested on Monday and accused of using his position to make fraudulent US visa applications, prosecutors said. Vyacheslav Manokhin, 45, is accused along with two others of applying for entry visas for an unspecified number of people since 2005. "The scheme involved fraudulent documents, some of which were prepared on UN letterhead, that requested US entry visas so that aliens could attend conferences in the US that either did not exist or that the aliens did not attend," prosecutors said in a statement.

■ ISRAEL
Army punishes two officers
The army has punished two commanders whose troops mistakenly shot a Palestinian girl in Gaza last month, the military said on Monday. One officer was reprimanded and another was removed from his post and barred from holding a command position in the future, the army said. The human rights group B'Tselem said the army's disciplinary actions were inadequate and called for a full criminal investigation. "It's very worrisome that we still see the use of Palestinian civilians by troops during military operations," B'Tselem spokesman Sarit Michaeli. In a landmark 2005 decision, the Supreme Court banned the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields, and specifically outlawed taking Palestinian civilians on searches.


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