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World News Quick Take

■INDIA

Reality program goes wrong

A 22-year-old man was seriously ill in hospital after taking part in a competition linked to a reality TV program that went wrong, reports said yesterday. Anjar Khan took part in the stunt on Sunday, in which participants were asked to get into a water tank and hold their breath underwater for as long as possible at a shopping mall in Indore, the Hindustan Times reported. Khan stayed in the tank for between three and five minutes before organizers realized something was wrong and he was pulled out of the water. Police were interviewing organizers of the stunt, which was a local take on the US show Fear Factor.



■AUSTRALIA

Tasmanian devils precocious

The iconic Tasmanian devils have started having sex at a younger age since the advent of a deadly disease, which threatens to wipe out the species, researchers said yesterday. Data collected before and after the cancer-causing disease appeared showed a 16-fold increase in early sexual behavior, research published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences showed. Scientists fear the disease, which causes facial tumors, could lead to the marsupial carnivore’s extinction within 20 to 25 years, even with the increased reproduction rate. “We have found that devils are compensating for the disease by breeding early,” said zoologist Menna Jones of the University of Tasmania.



■NEW ZEALAND

Police recruit hacker

A teenager who confessed to a central role in a global cyber-crime ring that caused millions of dollars in losses walked free from court yesterday with police wanting to secure his skills. Owen Thor Walker, 18, was discharged without conviction after earlier admitting six cyber-crime charges. Both the prosecution and defense lawyers told the High Court in Hamilton, south of Auckland, that police were interested in using Walker’s skills on the right side of the law. Judge Judith Potter ordered Walker to pay NZ$14,526 (US$11,000) as his share of damage. Walker’s software allowed access to user names and passwords, as well as credit card details, and was used by other criminals to commit crimes.



■MYANMAR

Drug traffickers busted

Authorities arrested 329 drug traffickers last month in a crackdown following warnings by the UN that opium production was soaring again, state media reported yesterday. In 192 cases last month, authorities also seized more than 119kg of opium and heroin, the New Light of Myanmar said. Other drugs including 2.39kg of marijuana and 16,082 stimulant tablets were also seized, the paper said. Authorities have declared the country will be drug-free by 2014.



■SINGAPORE

HIV-positive man sentenced

An HIV-positive man was sentenced to a year-long jail term for keeping quiet about carrying the AIDS virus when having oral sex with a teenager, news reports said on yesterday. Chan Mun Chiong, 43, subsequently followed the boy who went to a security officer for help last September. The 16-year-old youth escaped infection. The former chef is the first HIV-infected person in the country to be punished for engaging in sexual activity without first telling his partner of the risk of catching the infection, the Straits Times said. Chan performed oral sex on the boy in the men’s toilet at a shopping center, the report said.

■ TURKEY


Four Kurdish rebels killed

Four Kurdish guerrillas were killed in clashes with Turkish security forces in the southeastern province of Sirnak, the military said on Monday. Two Turkish soldiers were also killed in other clashes in an area close to the Cudi mountains, security sources said. The Kurdish guerrillas were killed after security forces identified a group of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels during search operations. A separate operation against the PKK was also launched on Monday after the military said a second group of rebels had entered Turkey from northern Iraq, state-run news agency Anatolian reported.



■ITALY

Actor questioned in murder

Irish film actor Paudge Behan was caught up in a murder hunt on Monday night. Police investigating the violent death of an elderly woman at her Tuscan villa said Behan was the only formal suspect. The actor denied any involvement in the crime. Silvana Abate, a 72-year-old retired furrier, was stabbed 13 times. She was buried on Monday in the picturesque village of Arcidosso, on the slopes of Mount Amiata in southern Tuscany. Behan, who played alongside Cate Blanchett in the movie Veronica Guerin, was taken for questioning after seeking treatment at a nearby hospital for a cut on his thigh. In an interview afterwards with the Web site of the newspaper Corriere della Sera, the actor said: “I don’t know what’s happening or the reasons, because no one has explained anything to me. The situation gets ridiculous.” The judge overseeing the inquiry yesterday released Behan’s car and all of his house, except the cellar.



■GREECE

Quake in Rhodes kills one

One person was killed in an accident after a magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck off the island of Rhodes, officials said yesterday, but there were no other reports of casualties or damage. The quake occurred about 70km south of the island in the Aegean Sea, at a depth of about 13km, the Athens Geodynamic Institute said. “One woman was killed after she tripped and hit her head as she tried to leave her house in a panic when the earthquake struck,” Panagiotis Efstathiou, head of the National Health Operations Center, told reporters. The early morning quake awoke people in Rhodes and sent hundreds out into the streets, officials said.



■WEST BANK

Israel arrests 12 in Nablus

Israeli troops arrested 12 Hamas members in a dawn raid yesterday, a Palestinian security official said, as part of a widening crackdown on the movement. The troops rolled into the northern city of Nablus in about 40 jeeps and detained 12 members of the Islamist movement, including two women and two city council members, the official said on condition of anonymity. An Israeli army spokesman said four Palestinian men had been arrested during “routine searches” in the area.



■IRAN

Ahmadinejad hints at talks

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday he would welcome direct, bilateral talks with the US if both parties are on “equal footing.” He told state television such talks could happen “in the near future.” He did not elaborate nor say whether any definite plans were under way. “We will hold talks with the United States if they come to us on equal footing,” Ahmadinejad said in a live speech on state TV near midnight. “Dialog doesn’t make any sense if one side stands in a higher position and the other in a lower position,” he said.

■ GUATEMALA

Prosecutor shot dead in car

Gunmen shot dead a Guatemalan state prosecutor on Monday who was investigating the murder last year of three Salvadoran deputies from the Central American parliament, police said. Juan Carlos Martinez was shot while driving his car near his home southeast of Guatemala City, a spokesman for the national police said. The charred bodies of the representatives to the Central American parliament were found riddled with bullets on a back road in February last year. Four policemen traced to the crime scene by a global positioning device in their car were arrested but then killed days later in prison before they could testify.



■BOLIVIA

Bus flips, killing four

A small bus carrying eight foreign tourists flipped over while traveling over Bolivia’s famous salt flats, killing the driver and three of the passengers, police said on Monday. The accident happened on Sunday at the Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flats. The driver braked suddenly, causing the van to spin around three times and then flip over, area police commander Julio Cepcel said. Police are investigating several theories, including that the driver was speeding or that he came upon a sudden hole or other obstacle on the flats.



■MEXICO

Gang violence growing

At least 124 people have been killed in just one week in spiraling gang violence, media reports said on Monday. The most violent area was the northwestern state of Sinaloa, where 43 deaths were reported. In Chihuahua, 40 people were killed over the past week, the daily La Jornada reported. In Sinaloa’s capital, Culiacan, teachers, students and university employees, dressed in white, protested against the increasing violence on Sunday. They placed white carnations on a symbolic tomb and held 10 minutes’ silence for the more than 500 people who have been killed this year in the state.



■UNITED STATES

Stabber sentenced to life

A New York man was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Monday in the stabbing deaths of his Hong Kong-born ex-girlfriend and her brother. Twenty-seven-year-old Queens resident Jin Lin was found guilty by a jury of murder, burglary and attempted robbery in May in the 2005 deaths of 21-year-old Cho Man “Sharon” Ng and 19-year-old Queens College student Sek Man “Simon” Ng. The siblings were stabbed a combined 59 times in their Flushing apartment. Police arrested Lin after finding his name in Ng’s diary.



■UNITED STATES

Sharon Atkins seeks release

Releasing a dying member of the murderous Charles Manson family from prison would be an “affront” to justice and families of the slain victims, Los Angeles’ top prosecutor said on Monday. Susan Atkins, 60, convicted of eight murders, should not be granted compassionate release, Los Angeles Country District Attorney Steve Cooley said in a letter to the chairman of the California Board of Parole Hearings. Atkins was found guilty of taking part in the brutal murders of actress Sharon Tate and six others during a deranged 1969 killing spree. Atkins, who is reportedly dying from brain cancer, was scheduled to have her request for release heard in Sacramento yesterday. Her bid for freedom has already been approved by the prison where she is being held. Cooley said that Atkins could receive “appropriate, dignified and compassionate medical care” within the prison system.


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