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■ PHILIPPINES

E-jeepneys debut in Manila

Electric-powered versions of the popular smoke-belching jeepney made their debut in Manila yesterday in a bid to lessen pollution in the capital’s congested streets. Three “E-jeepneys” were launched by Jejomar Binay, mayor of the financial district of Makati, who said passengers would travel free during the first week of service. The E-jeepneys, or minibuses, were unveiled last year but could only operate within private, gated communities because the transport department had not approved their use on public roads. Permission was finally given last month, Binay said. “We envision they will soon be a common sight on Makati’s busy jeepney routes,” he said.



■ AUSTRALIA

Man charged in killings

A man was charged yesterday with hacking his wife and two grandchildren to death and badly wounding his daughter in an ax attack that has shocked the country. John Walsh, 69, did not enter a plea and was ordered to be held in custody when he appeared in court briefly on three charges of murder and one of attempted murder stemming from Monday’s attack in Cowra, 250km west of Sydney. He will return to court next Monday. He faces a maximum penalty of life in prison. Investigators had few clues to the motive of the attack, which took place in the house where the man and his wife often looked after their grandchildren while their mother went to work as a police officer.



■ MALAYSIA

Man allowed fourth wife

An odd-job man with 18 children has finally won permission to take a fourth wife, after being knocked back repeatedly because of his low income, reports said yesterday. A judge in the conservative northern state of Terengganu finally relented after being convinced that the new wife, 34-year-old Suzi Sulong, was truly in love with Mohamed Nor Awang, who is 16 years her senior, the Star daily said. “To be frank with you, before this proceeding, I met your future wife and her family and urged them to look for another candidate as you already have three wives,” Judge Sheikh Ahmad Ismail Hakim said in the Islamic sharia court. “But Suzi told me that no man could replace you in her heart,” he reportedly said.



■ SOUTH KOREA

Seoul seeks military trade

The country is seeking a deal to trade its 1,300-tonne diesel-electric attack submarines for Indonesian-built patrol aircraft, military officials said yesterday. The deal will be discussed when arms procurement officials from the two nations meet in Jakarta next week, a defence ministry spokesman said. He declined to confirm local media reports that the two nations would sign a memorandum of understanding on a US$1 billion deal to trade two South Korean submarines for eight Indonesian-built CN-235s.



■ SINGAPORE

Maid sentenced in murder

An Indonesian maid has been sentenced to nine years in jail for killing a 70-year-old woman in her care, the maid’s lawyer said yesterday, confirming details in a newspaper report. Tri Lestari, 22, admitted in the High Court on Monday to suffocating Choy Ah Moy with a pillow in August last year, but said the woman had abused her, the Straits Times said. Lawyer Mohamed Muzammil Mohamed confirmed the sentence. Lestari had pleaded guilty to culpable homicide not amounting to murder, conviction for which carries a prison term but not the mandatory death penalty imposed for murder.

■ NETHERLANDS

Tobacco ban begins

Coffee shops, long considered synonymous with the country as tulips or attacking soccer, faced a new challenge starting yesterday when a ban on smoking tobacco in restaurants and cafes came into effect. The owners claim the law, which will allow customers to light up potent tobacco-free pure cannabis joints but ban milder spliffs in which tobacco is mixed with cannabis, threatens to put hundreds of them out of business. “It’s a bit like saying to someone you can go into a cafe and you can buy a beer, but you can’t drink it there — you’ll have to stick to whisky, rum and vodka,” said Paul Wilhelm, owner of De Tweede Kamer, a popular Amsterdam coffee shop.



■ NETHERLANDS

Circus animals escape

Amsterdam police said 15 camels, two zebras and an undetermined number of llamas and potbellied swine briefly escaped from a traveling circus after a giraffe kicked a hole in their cage. Police spokesman Arnout Aben says the animals wandered in a group through a nearby neighborhood for several hours after their 5:30am breakout. The animals were back at the circus later on Monday after being rounded up by police and circus workers with the assistance of dogs. Aben says neighbors fed some of the animals — which he said was a bad idea — but they were tame and nobody was hurt.



■ FRANCE

Church offers priest show

The love of reality programs encompasses the music talent show Star Academy, match-making for lonely rural farmers and a polite version of UK TV hit Wife Swap — On a echange nos mamans (“We traded our mothers”). But now the Catholic Church has jumped on the bandwagon with a show about priests that has become an Internet phenomenon. The diocese of Besancon has launched Pretre Academy — “Priest Academy” — to mark its first ordination of a new local priest for three years. In episodes available online, viewers can watch the new recruit, Franck Ruffiot, 30, demonstrate how he prays, pay a visit to trendy contemporary artist friend and explain his feelings in a diary room.



■ IRAN

Bodies pulled from rubble

The remains of 11 workers have been recovered from the rubble of a seven-story building that collapsed in northwest Tehran, media reported yesterday. About 20 construction workers were trapped under the debris of the building when it collapsed early on Monday, but it was not clear how many of them were still believed to be alive. The Fars and ISNA news agencies reported that fire department rescue teams at the scene had said that so far 11 corpses had been extracted from the rubble. No additional new information was given.



■ DENMARK

Drunk man steals boat

A heavily inebriated 78-year-old Swede, who did not have enough money to travel home on a ferry, stole a rowing boat and tried to row back home, police said yesterday. The sprightly pensioner stole a skiff at the weekend in the port city of Helsingor and started rowing the 5km stretch of the Oresund back to Helsingborg in Sweden. Police were alerted to a seemingly unmanned skiff drifting in the busy strait between the Scandinavian countries and found the elderly Swede asleep in the boat. The man said he thought the current would take him across to Helsingborg.

■ UNITED STATES

Producers make final offer

Hollywood producers said they made a final offer to the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) on Monday, hours before their current labor contract was to expire, but the guild responded by saying the offer fell short in some key areas. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers said the offer was worth more than US$250 million in additional compensation to members of the guild over the three years of the proposed contract. The alliance is meeting guild representatives today to explain the offer but will not entertain counterproposals, spokesman Jesse Hiestand said. The guild said it would prepare a formal response once it analyzes the 43-page offer.



■ UNITED STATES

Detainees sue contractors

Three Iraqis and a Jordanian filed federal lawsuits on Monday alleging they were tortured by US defense contractors while detained at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2003 and 2004. The lawsuits allege that those arrested and taken to the prison were subjected to forced nudity, electrical shocks, mock executions and other inhumane treatment. They seek payments high enough to compensate the detainees for their injuries and to deter contractors from such conduct in the future. The contractors named as defendants in the lawsuit are CACI International Inc of Arlington, Virginia, and New York-based L-3 Communications Corp, formerly Titan Corp.



■ UNITED STATES

Gun use in suicide high

The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on gun ownership last week focused on citizens’ ability to defend themselves from intruders in their homes. But research shows that surprisingly often, US gun owners use the weapons on themselves. Suicides accounted for 55 percent of the nation’s nearly 31,000 firearm deaths in 2005, the most recent year for which statistics are available from the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Gun-related suicides have outnumbered firearm homicides and accidents for 20 of the last 25 years. In 2005, homicides accounted for 40 percent of gun deaths. Accidents accounted for 3 percent. The remaining 2 percent included legal killings, such as when police do the shooting, and cases that involve undetermined intent.



■ CANADA

Crash stirs millions of bees

A truck containing 330 crates of bees, about 12 million of them altogether, overturned on a major highway near the town of St Leonard, New Brunswick, in eastern Canada on Monday, setting free thousands of irritated stinging insects. Police sealed off the vehicle and called for expert help with the millions that were left inside. “Trying to unload 12 million agitated bees out of the back of a truck would not be a good situation,” said Derek Strong, a local spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. A team of beekeepers arrived and poured smoke into the truck to calm down the bees, which were to be moved later in the day.



■ UNITED STATES

Archbishop’s home robbed

Burglars robbed the home of the leader of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St Paul and Minneapolis, getting away with gem and precious-metal-laden rings and crosses. “These things are historically and reverentially irreplaceable,” the archdiocese spokesman, Dennis McGrath, said on Monday. The thief or thieves climbed onto a first-floor roof early on Saturday and then broke into a second-story window of Archbishop John Nienstedt’s home, police spokesman Peter Panos said.
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