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World Business Quick Take

■MALAYSIA

Nutty idea proves painful

A welder had to have a nut removed from around his penis after an attempt to lengthen it before he gets engaged next week went embarrassingly wrong, a news report said yesterday. The nut got stuck on his penis following an erection, the Star newspaper said, forcing him to seek help at a hospital in southern Johor state. Staff from the Sultanah Aminah hospital had to drain some blood from the penis and cut away a top layer of skin before the object could be removed, the newspaper said. It said the fire and rescue department were also involved in trying to remove the nut from the unnamed welder, who is in his 20s and hoped the nut would weigh down his penis to make it longer.

■HONG KONG

Seven jump from high-rises

Five people died and two were injured in a day of suicide jumps from high-rise buildings in the territory. Police said yesterday four of those who jumped were suspected suicides while three were still being investigated. All the incidents took place between 2am and 7:30pm on Saturday and were unrelated. Of those believed to have jumped to their deaths, two men, aged 48 and 49, were known to have mental problems. The youngest to have died was a 16-year-old girl who was certified dead after jumping from the 22nd floor of a building, while the oldest was a 86-year-old man, who is also believed to have jumped. Three cases are still under investigation: an 81-year-old woman who died, a 17-year-old male and a 37-year-old woman, both of whom were taken to hospital when they were found unconscious after falling from high buildings.

■JAPAN

Tokyo holds quake drill

Hundreds of Tokyo firefighters and troops, joined by US forces and rescuers from South Korea and Taiwan, held an annual quake drill in the capital yesterday. More than 15,000 people joined the exercise, including 600 firefighters, 700 US Navy personnel and several rescuers from Seoul and Taipei, a Tokyo government official said. To commemorate the Great Kanto Earthquake, which killed an estimated 200,000 people on Sept. 1, 1923, the Tokyo government has conducted major quake drills around the anniversary day every year.

■BANGLADESH

Floods displace thousands

At least 72,000 people in the north have been cut off from the rest of the country after several rivers burst their banks, news reports said yesterday as a flood warning agency forecast the situation is “likely to deteriorate.” Crops on 10,000 hectares of land were under water in the northern districts of Lalmonirhat, Rangpur, Kurigram, Nilphamari and Gaibandha, the United News of Bangladesh agency reported. The Daily Star newspaper reported at least 60,000 day laborers lost their jobs because of the flooding.

■NEPAL

Woman to skydive Everest

A British woman plans to make a parachute jump over Mount Everest hoping to become the first woman ever to skydive over the world’s highest peak, organizers said yesterday. Holly Budge, 29, plans to throw herself out from 142m above Everest, hurtling past it, before landing in a mountain meadow at 3,764m above sea level. She plans to attempt her dive in next month after taking off from an airstrip in Syangboche in the Khumbhu region of northeast Nepal, home to Everest, the world’s highest peak at 8,850m.

■SPAIN

Spanair rebuts claims

Spanair denied on Saturday government claims that it considered transferring passengers to another plane after detecting a problem with the jet that crashed last month in Madrid, killing 154 people. “At no moment did [Spanair] indicate that it was its intention to substitute the plane,” it said in a statement, explaining that it had informed airport officials that another plane was available in case it was needed. In an address to a parliamentary panel on Friday, Transport Minister Magdalena Alvarez said Spanair “informed the airport of the possibility of replacing the aircraft.”

■AUSTRIA

Incest kids return to school

Three of the children born to a woman who was imprisoned and repeatedly raped by her father are to return to school, four months after the case was uncovered, a report said on Saturday. “The children are about to go back to school like thousands of others in Austria,” said the head of the family’s security, at the Amstetten-Mauer psychiatric clinic where they are being cared for. He said the children would receive extra protection to stop them being harassed by paparazzi, the daily Kurier newspaper said. The two boys and one girl, aged 12, 14 and 15, were adopted and brought up by their father Joseph Fritzl, 73, and his wife Rosemarie, 69.

■NIGERIA

Militants, army clash

The main militant group in the oil-producing Niger Delta said on Saturday it had launched a series of reprisal attacks against the army, with 29 soldiers and six of its own members killed in the fighting. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said close combat involving fast attack boats, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank missiles had taken place at three separate locations in the delta, a network of mangrove creeks. There was no immediate comment from the military.

■EGYPT

Ramadan starts today

Religious authorities in much of the Middle East declared that today will be start of the holy month of Ramadan, when observant Muslims fast from dawn to dusk. Official statements were issued late on Saturday in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and the Palestinian territories saying the holy month would start today. Religious authorities in Syria, Qatar and Kuwait agreed. Ramadan starts the day after the sighting of the crescent moon that marks the beginning of a new lunar month. Some countries use astronomical calculations and observatories, while others rely on the naked eye, leading sometimes to different starting times. In Shiite Iran, newspapers reported that Ramadan would likely to start tomorrow.

■SYRIA

Former VP found guilty

A self-exiled former vice president has been found guilty by a military court of lying to UN officials investigating the assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, a lawyer said on Saturday. Former vice president Abdul-Halim Khaddam, who left the country in 2005, has accused Syria’s president of having threatened Hariri before he was assassinated in a February 2005 bombing. The government has denied having any role in the killing, which is being investigated by a UN commission. From his home in France, Khaddam has also called for the Syrian government’s overthrow. The lawyer who brought the case against Khaddam said the First Military Criminal Court convicted him in absentia on Aug. 17. Khaddam was sentenced to life in prison and hard labor.

■CANADA

Greens gain federal seat

The Green Party made history on Saturday by gaining its first ever federal member of parliament. Independent Member of Parliament Blair Wilson, who resigned from the Liberal Party a year ago after questions were raised about his personal finances, has switched his affiliation to the Green Party, he and party leader Elizabeth May said at a news conference in Ottawa. Wilson was cleared this summer of any financial improprieties following an eight-month investigation. The switch boosts May’s chance at a spot in a possible fall election debate, which would offer the party nationwide exposure. “With a Green MP sitting in the House of Commons, it will now be impossible to exclude the Green party from the televised leaders’ debates in the next election,” May said.

■BRAZIL

Phone-tapping probe starts

The national intelligence agency, known by its Portuguese acronym Abin, will investigate accusations that its agents tapped the phones of top government officials including the president of the Supreme Court, officials said Saturday. Abin said in a statement it would also ask the Justice Ministry and other officials to independently look into the case. The news magazine Veja reported in its latest edition that Abin agents tapped the phones not only of Supreme Court justice Gilmar Mendes, but of close associates of the president and members of Congress. Veja reported it received a packet of information from an Abin agent it didn’t name that contained evidence the agency routinely carried out illegal wiretaps.

■CHILE

Coffin erected at protest

Environmentalists erected a 28-foot-tall coffin on Saturday to protest against plans to build a thermoelectric power plant they say will pollute the nation’s southern coastline. The 750MW plant to be built in Chile’s El Maule region by AES Gener, a unit of US power company AES Corp is aimed at helping reverse the country’s massive power deficit. But some 400 activists turned out in the fishing village of Caleta Loanco, 465km south of Santiago, to unveil a coffin they said was the world’s largest. The protesters say the plant, which will be fired by coal shipped from Australia, will foul the air, pollute artisan fishing waters and poison groundwater in an area of forests.

■UNITED STATES

Game fix leads to marriage

He reprogrammed her favorite video game so a ring and a marriage proposal would pop up when his girlfriend reached a certain score. And on Saturday, computer programmer Bernie Peng married Tammy Li in a New Jersey ceremony and reception replete with references to Li’s favorite game, Bejeweled. PopCap Games, the game’s creator, says the couple’s wedding cake was in the shape of a video game console. Guests were given free copies of the game as wedding favors.

■NORWAY

Kayaker heads for pole

British explorer Lewis Gordon Pugh has begun a kayak expedition to the North Pole aimed at drawing attention to the dramatic impact of melting polar ice in the Arctic, his blog said yesterday. “I want to bring home to world leaders ... the reality of what is now happening here in the Arctic. The rate of change is clearly faster than nearly all the models predict,” Pugh said in a message posted late on Saturday. The 38-year-old environmentalist, swimmer and maritime lawyer began his trek on Saturday from Virgohamna, in Norway’s far north about 1,000km from the North Pole.