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■ CHINA
Name change causes upsets
The 50 residents of a small hamlet on Hainan island thought changing the name of their village would improve their fortunes. Instead, it left them in a legal limbo after police computers were unable to register a very rare character that is part of the new name, the China Daily said yesterday, citing an earlier report in the Nanguo Metropolitan News. "Many villagers have not been able to get marriage certificates and are facing difficulties while seeking jobs, traveling and dealing in property," the China Daily said. A fortune teller had advised the village to change its name. It's name used to be Tianmeidong, but was changed to Tianwei, plus a third character that even the Nanguo was forced to describe it because its computer could not write it.

■ AUSTRALIA
Rudd leads Howard in poll
Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd still has a winning margin over Prime Minister John Howard, an opinion poll released yesterday showed, despite a scandal over his visit to a New York strip club four years ago. The poll published in the Australian newspaper showed Rudd had extended his lead as preferred prime minister to 46 percent against 39 percent for Howard. The telephone survey of 1,152 voters was taken between last Friday and Sunday, when newspapers revealed the boozy visit Rudd made four years ago on a taxpayer-funded trip to the UN. His Labor Party led the ruling Liberal-National coalition 55 points to 45 on a two-party-preferred basis.

■ MALAYSIA
Japanese diver saved
A Japanese man, who went missing on a diving trip, was rescued after 10 hours adrift at sea, news reports said yesterday. The 32-year-old, whose family name was given as Miyazawa, was pulled to safety by fishermen. He appeared dazed and did not know where he was when rescued on Monday. He had gone on a diving expedition to photograph corals with a friend but failed to resurface. Police quoted by the Bernama news agency said Miyazawa was apparently swept away by strong underwater currents. He was taken to hospital for observation and reunited with his family.

■ INDIA
Body returned after 40 years
The snow-preserved body of a soldier was given to his family in Assam state yesterday, nearly 40 years after he died in a plane crash in the Himalayas,an army commander said. Soldiers discovered the frozen bodies of Mahendranath Phukan and two others half-buried in snow on a glacier at an altitude of 5,300m on a search earlier this month,close to where an army plane crashed in 1968 in the mountains of Himachal Pradesh state.

■ EGYPT
Men jailed for bombing
Four men were jailed for 25 years by a court on Monday in connection with three attacks that killed three foreign tourists in Cairo two years ago. The tourists were killed in a bomb attack at a famous bazaar in Cairo's district of al-Azhar in April 2005. A suicide bomber attacked tourists later in the same month while his sister and girlfriend opened fire at a tourist bus. The four attackers were killed in the attacks, while 26 people, including 11 tourists, were wounded. The State Security Supreme Court also handed down jail terms of between one and 10 years to five other defendants. Four others, including two women, were acquitted.

■ GERMANY
Serial killer believed caught
Police said on Monday they believe they have captured a serial killer responsible for the deaths of at least five young women between 1983 and 1990. Police in the western town of Aachen arrested a 51-year-old man for stealing scrap metal in March. At the time of his arrest fingerprints and DNA samples were taken and cross-referenced with a central criminal database. "Two weeks ago the DNA samples showed a match for one of the unsolved murders," a police official in Aachen said. The man has since confessed to five murders and the authorities are now trying to determine whether he killed anyone else, the police said.

■ SPAIN
TV axes afternoon bullfights
Some 51 years after state television channel TVE made its first bullfighting broadcast, it looks set not to show a single live bullfight. The disappearance of live bullfighting from the broadcaster's output has enraged traditionalists and aficionados while provoking satisfaction among a growing lobby that wants the so-called "national fiesta" banned completely. "The absence is especially surprising given that this is a proven audience-winner," commented El Mundo newspaper. The public broadcaster continues to show bull-fighting highlights late at night, but says restrictions on what can be shown during children's viewing times make it increasingly difficult to program a live fight.

■ SUDAN
EU donates US$2.7m
The EU donated 2 million euros (US$2.7 million) for flood relief efforts in the country on Monday as heavy rains turned Khartoum's roads into rivers and brought traffic to a standstill in the capital. Officials have described this year's floods as the worst in living memory with unexpectedly early rains destroying more than 70,000 houses and killing more than 70 people in just one month. "ECHO [The European Commission's humanitarian aid wing] has given 2 million euros to address the immediate impact of the month-long floods," the EU mission in Khartoum said in a statement on Monday.

■ RUSSIA
Kasparov dissident released
A member of an opposition group led by former chess champion Garry Kasparov was released on Monday from a psychiatric clinic after being held against her will for 46 days, a spokeswoman for the group said. Larisa Arap, 48, a member of Kasparov's group in the northern port city of Murmansk, was forcibly hospitalized last month in what opposition activists said was revenge for exposing alleged abuse of children in a local psychiatric hospital.

■ UNITED STATES
GPD leads to murder charge
A man on Monday pleaded not guilty to killing his 12-year-old baby sitter in a crime police say was tracked by a global positioning system (GPS) his suspicious wife had installed. George Ford Jr, 42, of Norwich, New York, was charged last week with second-degree murder. Ford told police he was taking Shyanne Somers home the night of July 8, took a detour to show her some horses and accidentally ran her over as he turned his truck around. Investigators determined he only drove the girl around and spent more than three hours with her behind an abandoned home. Police believe the girl had gotten away from Ford when he drove over her.

■ BRAZIL
Bank heist suspect caught
Police captured a man accused of building a tunnel that thieves used to steal US$70 million two years ago in one of the world's biggest bank heists, authorities said on Monday. Marcos Rogerio Machado de Morais, a 33-year-old engineer, was arrested while shopping with his family at a Sao Paulo mall on Friday, a spokeswoman with the Sao Paulo state Public Safety Department said. He is accused of overseeing the construction of an 80m tunnel that stretched from a house to the vault of a Brazilian central bank branch in the city of Fortaleza. More than 10 suspects have been jailed in connection with the robbery, but less than US$10 million has been recovered.

■ CANADA
Smoking crackdown starts
Ottawa aims to bring the number of smokers down from 19 percent of the population to 12 percent by 2011 through tougher smoking bans and by clamping down on cigarette smuggling. "Reaching a 12 percent smoking rate is a very ambitious goal, but it is by no means unrealistic," Health Minister Tony Clement said on Monday. The government plans to reduce the 15 percent smoking rate among 15 to 19-year-olds to 9 percent, which could prove difficult because it is the only age group that has not cut back on smoking in the past few years. It also wants to increase the number who quit smoking to 1.5 million and slash those exposed to secondary smoke from 28 percent of the population to 20 percent.

■ UNITED STATES
Lightning kills matron
A woman who was to serve as the matron of honor at her best friend's wedding in Newark, New Jersey, was struck by lightning and killed during the rehearsal dinner on the eve of the ceremony. Cindy Osler, 45, had gone outside with the best man on Friday night to check their car windows when she was hit by lightning. "Everybody was so happy, and then it became a nightmare," said Dave Tarnowski, the best man. The bolt tore through the pavement and knocked Tarnowski down. The wedding was postponed indefinitely after Osler's death.

■ UNITED STATES
Topless car wash fools men
Male drivers who paid US$5 for a topless car wash in Brookhaven, New York, ended up getting doused with disappointment. Scantily clad women held up signs along a parkway advertising the car wash on Sunday and telling the drivers where to go. But hidden behind a big blue tarp were shirtless male firefighters who were washing the cars. "A little bit of a bait-and-switch," Assistant Chief Donald Prince admitted. "All the guys back there are all topless." The money raised will go to school booster clubs and charities, the Brookhaven fire department said.


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