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World News Quick Take

■ AUSTRALIA
Body found in suitcase
Children found a boy's naked body jammed into a suitcase floating in a duck pond at a suburban Sydney park, triggering a murder investigation yesterday and a police warning. There was widespread outrage at the apparent brutality directed toward the unidentified child, who police said did not match the description of anyone on missing-persons lists, though clues indicated the body had been there for days. "Put simply, it's one of the most monstrous acts imaginable," New South Wales state Premier Morris Iemma said.The children pulled the dark, tartan-patterned bag of carry-on luggage size ashore on Wednesday evening and reported their gruesome discovery after opening it.

■ NEW ZEALAND
Store offers beer for life
A boutique brewery was reported yesterday to be offering a lifetime supply of beer in return for a stolen laptop. The computer, containing designs, creative work, contact details and financial information, was stolen from the Croucher Brewing Company in the central North Island city of Rotorua. Owners Paul Croucher and Nigel Gregory were so desperate to get it back they were offering free beer to whoever turns in the person responsible for the burglary, the Daily Post said. Croucher said the laptop contained important information and while the company had back-up copies of its work they were not as up-to-date as the stolen data.

■ THAILAND
Pigs steal show
Pigs can fly? Well not quite fly, but they can jump through rings of fire and twirl on pedestals, as a new show at a Thai zoo proves. Five pink and black piglets are the unlikely new stars of the performance at Sriracha Tiger Zoo in Chonburi Province. They dance, pick up tennis balls and zigzag through poles. They even jump through flaming hoops, lured by the reward of biscuits. "We didn't think they could do anything like this. We thought pigs just lie there and do nothing. It's great!" Dutch tourist Tanja van den Bogert said. Surat Tiplaksaa, in charge of the zoo's new stars, said more patience is needed in training pigs because their attention span is limited by a constant urge to forage for food.

■ THAILAND
School issues apology
A school has apologized after students dressed up as Nazi stormtroopers and marched under a giant swastika as part of a sports day costume parade, its director said yesterday. Kanya Khemanan said the school sent an apology to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which had complained about the stunt. She said the high school students hold a costume parade with a secret theme every year and school authorities had had no idea what they were planning. "They thought they would do a new parade that no one has ever done before," she said.

■ VIETNAM
Weapons collected
A year-long weapons amnesty netted 26,000 home-made shotguns in an ethnic minority region of the mountainous northwest, state media said yesterday. Authorities in Dien Bien Province, near Laos, were worried about the high number of accidents caused by the weapons, traditionally kept by hill tribes for hunting and to fire at ceremonies such as funerals, the report said. Handmade shotguns had been used in 11 murders and had injured or killed people in over 50 hunting and other accidents, the English-language Vietnam News reported, quoting provincial people's committee officials.

■ GERMANY
Some feel Nazis not all bad
A poll published on Wednesday showed a quarter of the people believe there were at least some positive aspects to Nazi rule -- a finding that comes after a popular talk show host was fired for praising the Nazi attitude toward motherhood. Pollsters for the Forsa agency, commissioned by the weekly Stern magazine, asked whether National Socialism also had some "good sides [such as] the construction of the highway system, the elimination of unemployment, the low criminality rate [and] the encouragement of the family." Forsa said 25 percent responded "yes" -- but 70 percent said "no."

■ UNITED KINGDOM
Nobel winner not welcome
A Nobel prize-winning scientist who reportedly claimed Africans and Europeans had different levels of intelligence is no longer welcome to deliver a lecture at London's Science Museum, the museum said on Wednesday. James Watson, who won the Nobel Prize for co-discovering DNA, drew widespread outrage when he told the Sunday Times that Africans and Europeans did not share the same brain power. The newspaper quoted the 79-year-old American geneticist as saying he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours -- whereas all the testing says not really." He told the paper he hoped that everyone was equal, but added that "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true."

■ UNITED KINGDOM
Home dentistry on the rise
A shortage of National Health Service dentists has led some people to pull out their own teeth or use super glue to stick crowns back on, a study says. Many dentists abandoned the country's publicly funded health care system after reforms backfired, leaving a growing number of Britons without access to affordable care. "I was not surprised to hear those horror stories," said Celestine Bridgeman, 41, of London. "Trying to find good NHS dentists is like trying to hit the lottery because the service is underfunded." The National Health Service provides care to the vast majority of people, often for free.

■ UNITED KINGDOM
Spy agency to embed ads
One of the intelligence agencies will embed advertisements into popular video games this month in a bid to attract new recruits, the Times reported yesterday. The Government Communications Headquarters, the country's intelligence listening post, will embed the adverts as billboards in video games including Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent in a bid to attract "computer-savvy, technologically-able, quick-thinking" recruits. "We find increasingly we have to use less conventional means of attracting people ... to go beyond glossy brochures and milk-round stalls," a GCHQ spokeswoman said.

■ UNITED KINGDOM
Pets popular in burial plans
Bury me naked. Put a mobile phone in the coffin. Cremate me with my pet's ashes. Those were some of the most popular requests by people planning their funerals, according to research by the charity Age Concern, which promotes the interests of elderly people. Age Concern Funeral Plans polled more than 100,000 of its customers and found that being buried with their pet's ashes was the most common funeral rite request.

■ BOLIVIA
Bars, brothels wrecked
Hundreds of people fed up with underage drinking and crime stormed a neighborhood of bars and brothels in the impoverished El Alto slum outside La Paz on Wednesday, setting beds, TV sets and chairs on fire. Vigilantes have stormed the red-light district three days running, complaining it is a haven for criminals and that the bars there serve alcohol to minors. They want local authorities to shut them down. "There is a lot of violence here because of the bars ... We want them out. The authorities aren't doing anything so we have to burn them down," a mother said.

■ MEXICO
Revelations on Hidalgo
People learned on Wednesday that the father of the nation's independence movement did not die excommunicated nearly 200 years ago, clearing a stain from his legacy ahead of the 2010 bicentennial celebrations. Roman Catholic investigators said the excommunication of priest and independence hero Miguel Hidalgo was annulled when he confessed his sins shortly before being shot by a Spanish firing squad. Hidalgo, a Catholic priest, was expelled by the Church on Sept. 24, 1810, nine days after he issued the first call for people to take up arms against the Spanish colonial government.

■ UNITED STATES
Toilet find scares woman
A New York City woman said she discovered a python in her toilet as she was washing her hands in her third-floor bathroom one morning. Peeking out from the toilet were the eyes of a python, its 2m-long body hidden in the pipes, Nadege Brunacci told the Daily News. "I turned on the light and screamed," she said. "It still makes my heart race." Brunacci slammed down the lid, put a heavy box on top of the toilet and began calling for help, which came from her landlord and firefighters. Plumbers had to tear apart the downstairs neighbor's pipes to capture the snake, she said.

■ UNITED STATES
Bird hooked on pop
Snowball the cockatoo cannot get enough of the Backstreet Boys. The 11-year-old medium sulfur-crested cockatoo lifts his legs, squawks and bobs his head, flashing his bright yellow crest to the beat of the boy band's Everybody (Backstreet's Back). He even takes a bow with a vigorous bob of his head at the end of the 1997 pop tune. When Snowball was given to a bird rescue shelter a few months ago, the man included the CD and instructions to watch his reaction. Its owner said she almost fainted at the sight. To see Snowball dance, go to birdloversonly.blogspot.com/2007/09/may-i-have-this-dance.html.

■ UNITED STATES
Ashes robber in court
A woman accused of digging up her ex-boyfriend's grave and stealing his ashes pleaded not guilty to felony vandalism, prosecutors said. Martha LaFollete, 48, lived with Roger Barber in Roseville, Ohio, for five years until his death last November, Athens County sheriff's Lieutenant Darrell Cogar said. Police said she may have stolen Barber's ashes because she was not invited to his funeral. The grave was dug up in June, but the theft was not discovered until about two weeks later, authorities said. Police found Barber's ashes several weeks ago at a home belonging to one of LaFollete's relatives, Athens County prosecutor David Warren said.


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