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World News Quick Take

■ AUSTRALIA

Chihuahua survives crash

A chihuahua that went paragliding in Australia strapped to its owner's chest survived when the pair crashed into a tree shortly after taking off, police said on Saturday. Victoria state police said a 42-year-old man set off early Friday evening for what they described as "a routine flight" with his pet dog. The man and his intrepid canine got into difficulties and crashed into a tree, where they became entangled 35m up. Police found the pair after the man called them from his mobile phone. The man received abrasions in the crash. The chihuahua was believed to be unharmed.



■ AUSTRALIA

Gay march marks 30th year

Up to 300,000 people were expected to line Sydney's streets to watch the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras yesterday as the largest gay pride march in the Asia Pacific region marks its 30th anniversary. Serving military personnel will for the first time be among the 10,000 costumed participants sashaying through the city's Oxford Street gay district in a sign of how much attitudes have changed since the first event in 1978. That march, when male homosexuality was still illegal in New South Wales state, was a demand for gay rights that ended with more than 50 arrests as police and protesters clashed.



■ MALAYSIA

Cops bust alleged drug ring

Police said yesterday they broke up an international drug trafficking ring that used college students to smuggle heroin overseas. Four African men aged between 30 and 45 were detained along with a 45-year-old Malaysian housewife following a raid on Tuesday on an apartment in a Kuala Lumpur suburb, said federal narcotics crime investigations director Zulhasnan Najib Baharuddin. Police also seized heroin and other drugs worth 1.7 million ringgit (US$531 million). Investigations showed the syndicate paid couriers up to US$11,000 each to allegedly smuggle heroin. The five suspects may be charged with drug trafficking, which carries a mandatory sentence of death by hanging if convicted, Baharuddin said.



■ MALAYSIA

Centenarians on rolls

The Election Commission has found nearly 9,000 people aged more than 100 on its electoral rolls as it heads for general elections later this week, raising suspicions that the books are "contaminated" with dead voters. The commission found the names of 8,666 registered voters with birth dates from a century or more ago, the New Straits Times said on Friday, quoting commission secretary Kamaruzaman Mohd Noor. They included two 128-year-olds, the daily said. "As far as the commission is concerned, as of Dec. 31 last year, these voters are still alive," Kamaruzaman said. The Election Commission says it relies on a dead voter's family or officials to notify it of the death and so rolls can be updated.



■ CHINA

Millions lack drinking water

The number of people facing drinking water shortages has more than doubled to 5.9 million because of a severe winter drought, state media reported. The figures released late on Friday jumped from 2.43 million a week earlier, the Xinhua news agency said, citing figures from the State Flood and Drought Relief Headquarters. A spokesman was quoted saying the situation was due to lingering and severe winter drought. Drought has seen parts of the Yangtze River hitting their lowest water levels in at least 140 years, leading to more than 40 ships running aground since October, state media said in January.



■ SPAIN

Drug users top EU list

One in five of the EU's cocaine users lives in Spain, and 3 percent of its own people are regular users, the US State Department said on Friday. The country is also Europe's largest consumer of designer drugs and hashish, while remaining a major transshipment site for cocaine imported from South and Central America, the department said in its annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report. "The Spanish government ranks drug trafficking as one of its most important law enforcement concerns and continues to maintain excellent relations with US counterparts," said the report released on Friday.



■ SPAIN

'Serpico' to be extradited

Madrid agreed on Friday to extradite a former Argentine navy officer who is accused of torturing and killing dissidents during the country's "Dirty War." The government "has agreed to extradite Ricardo Miguel Cavallo to the Argentine authorities," Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said following a Cabinet meeting. Cavallo, dubbed "Serpico" or "Marcelo," was arrested in Mexico in 2000 on the orders of Spain's leading anti-terrorist judge, Baltazar Garzon. In 2003 he was extradited to Spain, which accuses him of having participated in 227 kidnappings and acts of torture concerning 110 people in Argentina.



■ DENMARK

Octogenarian robs bank

An 80-year-old man was placed in protective custody on Friday for robbing a bank with a water pistol after his bank refused to let him repay an account overdraft in instalments, police said. The German-born man walked into a Sydbank branch in the western town of Viborg on Thursday wearing dark glasses and carrying a cane. Pointing a water gun at the teller, he politely asked her to give him a bit of money. "Don't worry," he said."I don't shoot people." He left the bank with a plastic bag filled with about 30,000 kroner (US$6,100), but only managed to walk some 300m before he was stopped by police.



■ DRC

Six killed in clashes

At least six people were killed and nine wounded on Friday in violence between separatists and police sent to impose order in western Bas-Congo Province, hospital staff said. Clashes between members of the ethnic-based political and religious movement Bundu dia Kongo (BDK) and security forces broke out overnight in the town of Luozi, 200km west of Kinshasa. Residents of the town's BDK neighborhoods fled as police shot at militants manning improvised barricades, witnesses said. Violence continued on Friday.



■ ZIMBABWE

Prison chief orders vote

The head of the prison service has ordered his officers to vote for President Robert Mugabe and said he would resign if the opposition won next month's election, official media reported on Friday. The southern African country will hold joint presidential, parliamentary and council elections on March 29 in which Mugabe faces former ally Simba Makoni and long-time rival Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Retired Major General Paradzayi Zimondi, who now heads the prison service, which is part of the Defence Forces, said he would retire to his farm if Tsvangirai or Makoni were elected to lead the country.



■ UNITED STATES

Man suspected of shootings

A 24-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of shooting eight people, including three children in southern Los Angeles, police said. Police chief William Bratton said on Thursday that the man, a known gang member, was suspected of opening fire as the victims waited for a bus and then fled. Earlier reports had said there were two gunmen. Among the victims, three girls aged 10, 11 and 12 were hospitalized along with a 49-year-old woman after Wednesday's shooting, fire service spokeswoman Lisa Davies said on Thursday. Hines allegedly fired 15 rounds from a 9mm handgun. He was identified by witnesses and on footage captured by surveillance cameras and was arrested near the scene of the shooting, Bratton said.



■ UNITED STATES

Ricin found in ill man's room

A man was hospitalized in critical condition after staying in a Las Vegas hotel where the deadly poison ricin was found, police said on Friday. The man went to a hospital on Feb. 14 complaining of breathing difficulties. The possible ricin link was not discovered until later, when a person who came to collect his belongings found vials of white powder on Thursday. "We can confirm it was ricin," said David Staretz, chief legal counsel at the FBI office in Las Vegas. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 500 micrograms of ricin -- about the size of a pin head -- is enough to kill an adult. The poison is derived from the castor bean plant and can be dissolved in water, injected or sprayed.



■ UNITED STATES

Workers awarded US$5.19m

A judge has awarded US$5.19 million in damages and interest to the staff of a Chinese-language daily who sued the paper for forcing them to work unpaid overtime, lawyers said on Friday. The suit was brought by 200 staff of the Chinese Daily News based in Monterey Park, Los Angeles, in 2004. They alleged that the paper, one of the largest Chinese-language newspapers in Los Angeles, in some cases forced them to work shifts as long as 12 hours without any breaks, in violation of state and federal laws.



■ GUATEMALA

Bus crash kills 37

A crowded bus plunged off a cliff into a deep ravine on Friday, killing 37 people and injuring 25, emergency workers said. The bus was packed with people traveling to the village of Chiquimulilla when it skidded off the edge as it sped around a bend, said Mynor Rodas, a spokesman for the municipal fire department. "It went straight into the ravine," Mynor said. The injured were taken to nearby hospitals, he said. In rural areas, peasants often travel long distances on overcrowded, rickety school buses to work as day laborers on agricultural plantations. Fatal accidents are common on the dangerous, badly maintained roads.



■ BRAZIL

Police kill six in shootout

Police in Rio de Janeiro killed six alleged drug traffickers on Friday during a dawn shootout in a city slum, officials said. The firefight broke out in the Todos os Santos neighborhood when the six tried to enter a zone controlled by a local militia that had forced them out previously, they said. Vigilante groups have sprung up in several Rio slums since last year to combat the heavily armed drug gangs that often hold sway. The militias extort "protection" money from residents. Brazilian police rarely enter the crime-ridden areas, except in assaults that are criticized by rights groups as being excessively violent.
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