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World News Quick Take

■ AUSTRALIA

Man crushed by elephant

An elephant crushed a circus worker to death at Yamba, about 680km north of Sydney, yesterday after it was being unloaded from a truck, police said. Media reports said the dead worker was a 50-year-old man who had worked as an elephant handler for two years, although police were unable to confirm the details. An ambulance service spokesman said the deceased suffered a cardiac arrest at the scene and could not be revived.



■ CHINA

Income disparity widening

The politically sensitive gap in incomes between the nation's booming cities and the poor countryside is widening, Xinhua news agency reported, quoting Agriculture Minister Sun Zhengcai (孫政才). The average city dweller's income was 3.28 times that of a rural resident's last year, up from 3.23 times in 2003, Sun said in a report to the legislature. The widening gap between the mostly urban elite who have benefited from three decades of economic reform and the poor majority has fed political tensions, prompting protests over poverty and tax burdens.



■ NEW ZEALAND

Mouse found in cracker

Betty Lawrence was sharing Christmas crackers with her family in the city of Invercargill shortly after Christmas dinner when a dead, decaying mouse was found in one, the Southland Times newspaper reported on Wednesday. "I had said to my granddaughter, `What's that smell?' and we couldn't work it out until we pulled the cracker," Lawrence said. "My niece started pulling it out, thinking it was a soft toy," she said, adding that the discovery wrecked the festivities. "It ruined my appetite for the rest of the day." The Indonesia-manufactured crackers, branded "Mayfaire," were part of a hamper supplied by nationwide supermarket operator New World.



■ JAPAN

Cheerleader kills self

A male cheerleader at Tokyo's Meiji University killed himself after he was bullied by his fellow cheerleaders, media reported on Wednesday. The dead student, whose name has not been released, committed suicide in July after he was forced to strip naked and was videotaped by senior students, the Sankei Shimbun reported. A recent investigation by authorities at Meiji University found violence was rife in the cheerleading squad, which ceased activities in September, the reports said. Younger members were hit in the face, chased with fireworks and forced to eat grass, the Asahi Shimbun said. "I just wanted him to have a good time," the student's weeping father told TV Asahi on Tuesday. "It's so sad."



■ JAPAN

Lunar probe operating

The nation's first lunar probe has gone into full operation on schedule, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said on Wednesday. The Kaguya orbiter completed a two-month initial phase to inspect the functioning of all the equipment before starting its main mission on Friday last week, JAXA said. "Normal operations will continue for 10 months to collect data for lunar and other research," it said in a brief statement. While the operation began on schedule, JAXA said it was still ironing out some technical issues to ensure the receipt of data from the orbiter. The ¥55 billion (US$478 million) lunar probe is on the most extensive mission to investigate the moon since the US Apollo program in the 1960s and 1970s.

■ IRAN

Suspected smugglers killed

Police killed four people during a clash with what were described as drug smugglers in the country's southeastern province of Kerman, state television reported yesterday. The incident occurred about 1,000km southeast of Tehran, the report said, in an area that has frequently witnessed clashes between police and gangs of drug smugglers. The report said police also uncovered guns and ammunition in the smugglers' den. The country lies on a major drug route between Afghanistan and Europe, as well as the Persian Gulf states, and confiscation of large amounts of narcotics is common. Every year, Iran burns more than 60 tonnes of seized narcotics as a symbol of its determination to fight drugs. Last year, Iranian authorities seized about 300 tonnes of narcotics.



■ NIGERIA

Fire from explosion kills 40

About 40 people have died in a fire at an oil pipeline after it was vandalized by looters in the southern state of Lagos, a police spokesman said on Wednesday. Thirty-four bodies had been recovered from the site of Tuesday's explosion, said Lagos state police spokesman Frank Mba, but others had already been buried at the scene. The tragedy occurred when a group of people vandalized a pipeline belonging to the state oil firm NNPC in a creek at Agbabo village on the outskirts of Lagos, Nigeria's economic metropolis on the south coast. "It happened at three in the morning on the night of 24 to 25," a local boatman, Sunday Olaytan, said. Signs at the scene of the explosion, where sand had been dug away to lay bare a punctured pipeline, indicated the vandalisation attempt was a fairly well-organised, large-scale affair.



■ RUSSIA

Egg my Hummer, man says

A Hummer owner in St. Petersburg has given antiglobalists the green light to pelt his oversized vehicle with rotten eggs, news agencies reported on Wednesday. "Peter Antiglobalist" activists told news agency RIA they found a driver willing to let them express their dissatisfaction with consumerism by throwing things at his luxury sport utility vehicle, a spokesman said. A Moscow car dealer puts the base price of a Hummer H3 at US$49,500. "Luxury is a false value, clouding modern society's vision. Advertising posters, TV shows and slick marketing constantly tells us that buying things is the most important value in our society," RIA quoted the spokesman as saying. The antiglobalists said throwing eggs and tomatoes at the Hummer will help draw attention to their cause.



■ SERBIA

Kosovo resolution adopted

The parliament adopted a resolution that threatens to halt the country's integration into the EU and cut off diplomatic ties with Western countries if they recognize Kosovo's independence. The resolution -- passed on Wednesday with 220 votes in favor, 14 against and three abstentions -- also rejects the idea of the EU setting up a mission in Kosovo before the breakaway province's status is resolved, and denounces NATO for allegedly supporting the separatist Kosovo Albanians. The document requires government officials to reject Kosovo's statehood. Ethnic Albanians, who account for about 90 percent of Kosovo's 2 million people, have said they would proclaim independence early next year.

■ UNITED STATES

Observatory mascot retires

Neither strong wind nor high flames bothered Nin the cat during a dozen years patrolling the US Northeast's highest peak as mascot of the Mount Washington Observatory. It is retirement that bums him out. The regal ex-stray with a bright white coat and black splotches was carried off the mountain on Wednesday for the last time and will live with some park rangers in the valley below due to old age and a recent infection claiming the last of his teeth. "He's 17 or 18 years old, so he's getting up there. We wanted to do the most humane thing for him," said Scot Henley, executive director of the nonprofit weather observatory.



■ UNITED STATES

Bette Davis to be honored

A face that will tease you, and please you and perhaps unease you is coming to US post offices next year: it's those Bette Davis eyes. On the 100th anniversary of her birth the great actress will be honored on a US commemorative stamp, the 14th in the Legends of Hollywood Series. A 10-time Academy Award nominee, Davis won twice, for her roles in Dangerous (1935) and Jezebel (1938). Also next year the post office will launch a new multiyear Flags of Our Nation series, a 60-stamp set scheduled to include the Stars and Stripes as well as the flags of each state, the District of Columbia and territories.



■ UNITED STATES

Cops probe tiger escape

The big cat exhibit at the San Francisco Zoo was cordoned off as a crime scene as investigators tried to determine whether a Siberian tiger that killed a visitor escaped from its high-walled pen on its own or got help from someone, inadvertent or otherwise. Police shot the 135kg animal to death after a Christmas Day rampage that began when the tiger escaped from an enclosure surrounded by what zoo officials said are a 5.5m wall and a 6m moat. Two brothers who also were visiting the zoo were severely mauled. Police Chief Heather Fong said the department has opened a criminal investigation to "determine if there was human involvement in the tiger getting out or if the tiger was able to get out on its own."



■ UNITED STATES

Louisiana regains residents

Louisiana appears to be rebounding from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, gaining 50,000 residents in the year ending July 1, new Census Bureau state population estimates showed yesterday. After the storm hit in August 2005, the bureau estimated the state lost 250,000 residents. Despite the most recent gain, the state is far from returning to its pre-Katrina population level of 4.5 million. In Louisiana, the Census estimates a net increase of people moving into the state of 29,000, accounting for more than half the jump.



■ UNITED STATES

Hilton donates US$2.3bn

Hotel magnate Barron Hilton will give US$2.3 billion, the bulk of his fortune, to charity, officials said on Wednesday. Hilton, the 80-year-old grandfather of Paris Hilton, bequeathed the money to the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, a charity founded by his father in 1944. "We are all exceedingly proud and grateful for this extraordinary commitment," Hilton's son Steven Hilton, president and chief executive of the foundation, said in a statement. "Working to alleviate human suffering around the globe, regardless of race, religion or geography, is the mandate of the foundation set by my grandfather ... and now reinforced by my father.
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