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World News Quick Take

■PHILIPPINES

Governor shot in Manila

The governor of Batanes Province and his driver were shot and wounded in a pre-dawn attack in Manila yesterday, police said. Gunmen attacked Teleforo Castillejos while he was traveling in a car to the airport with his 21-year-old son, after first tailing them in another vehicle, police said. Castillejos was wounded in the neck and shoulders, while his driver was in a critical condition. The son was uninjured and drove the pair to hospital.



■CHINA

Poverty threshold could rise

Beijing may raise its poverty threshold to double the number of people eligible for government help as income gaps reach their widest level in three decades, the China Daily reported yesterday. A possible proposal to raise the income line will be discussed by the State Council by the end of the year, a Poverty Alleviation and Development Bureau spokeswoman said. The proposal would increase the poverty threshold from 1,067 yuan (US$152) a year to 1,300 yuan, following a decision by the World Bank to raise its poverty line from US$1 to US$1.25 a day, the paper reported. The change would double the number of people considered to be living in poverty to 80 million, the newspaper said.



■SOUTH KOREA

Defector allowed to travel

Seoul has decided to allow a highest-level North Korean ever to defect to travel abroad freely, the newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported yesterday. Hwang Jang-yop’s travel had been restricted out of concern that his criticism of Pyongyang could complicate efforts to reconcile with the North and that he could become a target for assassination. Seoul decided to lift the travel ban because it was a human rights violation, the paper said. Hwang, 85, has already been issued a passport and is planning to visit the US, the report said.



■HONG KONG

Monk admits having porn

A Buddhist monk has admitted in court to keeping child porn at his monastery after alerting Interpol by downloading photos from an illegal Web site, the South China Morning Post reported yesterday. Chow Yee-cheong, 41, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to possessing 413 minutes of child-porn video and 85 photographs. The judge said Chow, who was paid for providing counseling services in the monastery, had committed a “very serious” offense and must face prison, it said.



■AUSTRALIA

Ex-priest faces new charges

A former Roman Catholic priest already facing dozens of charges related to allegations of sexual abuse at an exclusive boarding school has been charged with an additional 60 child sex offenses, police said yesterday. Brian Spillane, 65, was arrested on Tuesday night and charged with 60 counts relating to alleged sexual assaults against eight people, New South Wales state police said. He was released on bail. Police also arrested two other men yesterday in connection with the investigation into alleged abuse in the 1980s at two religious schools.



■JAPAN

Police fooled by doll

Police don’t know whether they were the victim of a hoax after a “body” they found wrapped in a sleeping bag at a seaside resort turned out to be a life-sized doll. An anonymous caller reported seeing a what looked like a body in a forest near Izu City. Investigators took the bag back to their police station. A medical examiner unwrapped the bag and found a doll, dressed in a skirt, blouse and brown wig.



■ITALY

Houses for sale: one euro

How would you like a house for one euro? The house will be not just dilapidated but near collapse, and probably need at least 100,000 euros (US$145,000) in structural repairs. This offer comes from Salemi, a town south of Palermo. Its mayor Vittorio Sgarbi believes that selling off property at knockdown prices could be the way to save Salemi’s exquisite old quarter. Since an earthquake in 1968 Salemi’s ancient center has become depopulated.



■ITALY

Church loses bells battle

A court has ordered a parish to pay some 60,000 euros (US$87,800) to a woman who claims that the loud pealing of bells at her neighbourhood church caused her “moral” and “physical” damage over a 23-year-period, news reports said on Tuesday. The woman from Lavagna, near Genoa, began her legal battle against the Madonna del Carmine parish in 2003, the ANSA news agency reported. Judge Pasquale Grasso, ruling in the woman’s favor, also ordered the parish to lower the volume of the bells.



■ISRAEL

Rabbis back stripping wife

The country’s High Rabbinical court has ruled against a man who sought to avoid paying out a divorce settlement because his ex-wife stripped before his friends while still married, a newspaper reported. The court pointed out the man had not objected to his wife’s behavior at the time and that he photographed her as she took off her clothes in front of his friends, the Jerusalem Post said yesterday.



■DENMARK

Suspect escapes for job

A man on trial for bank robbery escaped from court during a recess only to be apprehended hours later at a company where he was applying for a job, police said on Tuesday. The 21-year-old, who was not named, escaped from two police escorts as he took a break on the steps of the Nykoebing Falster court house, 100km south of Copenhagen, a local police duty officer said. A local radio station sounded the alert and a listener contacted police after spotting the man at the company where he worked, Hald said. He told police officers he made off because he was eager to get back onto the straight and narrow by finding a job.



■UNITED KINGDOM

Museum buys Jagger’s lips

London’s Victoria and Albert Museum announced on Tuesday that it has bought the original artwork for The Rolling Stones’ famous “lips” logo, inspired by singer Mick Jagger’s mouth. The museum said it bought the work at an auction in the US for US$92,500. The lips-and-tongue logo was designed by London art student John Pasche in 1970. Pasche said that the idea for the logo came “when I met Jagger for the first time ... face to face with him, the first thing you were aware of was the size of his lips and his mouth.”



■SWITZERLAND

Qaddafi charges dropped

Two servants who accused the son of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi of mistreating them have dropped their legal complaints against him and his wife, their lawyer said on Tuesday. Hannibal Qaddafi was arrested in July along with his wife Aline at a hotel in Geneva after the servants — a Moroccan and a Tunisian — alleged they had been abused by the couple. The Qaddafis denied the allegations and Libya demanded a Swiss apology. In a statement the servants’ lawyer Francois Membrez said they had been “properly compensated ... They have been recognized as victims and their sufferings have been taken into account.”



■BRAZIL

Official denies wiretapping

The nation’s security chief told a congressional panel on Tuesday that the intelligence agency was not behind the alleged wiretapping of several top officials, but that rogue elements within the organization may be to blame. General Jorge Felix, head of the Institutional Security Ministry, was summoned to testify about illegal monitoring of the phones of top officials — including Gilmar Mendes, the president of the Supreme Court, senators and close advisers to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.



■COLOMBIA

Rebel on strike for reward

Former rebel Pablo Montoya, who killed a member of the leftist FARC leadership, said on Tuesday in Bogota he had been on hunger strike for nine days because the government had not kept its promises. Montoya killed Ivan Rios — part of FARC’s seven-member leadership — and his partner on March 3. He cut off the late boss’s right hand and turned it in to the Colombian Army as proof of the killing. Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said at the time that the government would give Montoya the promised reward — not for the killing, but for the information he provided about FARC.



■CANADA

Atomic veterans to get paid

The government said on Tuesday it would spend up to C$24 million (US$22.4 million) compensating veterans forced to be exposed to Cold War-era nuclear blasts but never recognized for their sacrifices. The recognition of the so-called atomic veterans, which comes days before an expected election call, also extends to military personnel who decontaminated an Ontario nuclear plant in the 1950s after two reactor accidents. Canadian Defence Minister Peter MacKay said as many as 1,000 veterans, or their estates, could be entitled to payments.



■MEXICO

Policeman, suspects killed

A police officer and four suspected kidnappers died in a shootout on Tuesday during an operation to rescue two kidnap victims in central Mexico, the ministry for public security said. The shootout in Mexico State began on Tuesday after police surrounded a house where a woman and her son had been held for eight days, news reports said. Police also arrested 20 suspects, including the leader of the kidnapping gang, the ministry said.



■UNITED STATES

‘Preppie killer’ sentenced

The man known as New York’s “preppie killer” for his looks and private school background has been sentenced to 19 years in prison after pleading guilty to a drug charge. Robert Chambers, 41, was previously imprisoned for 15 years for strangling a young woman in New York City during what he called rough sex. The slaying made headlines as a story of a handsome, privileged youth gone bad. Chambers was sentenced Tuesday after reaching a plea agreement on charges of selling drugs and assaulting a police officer.



■UNITED STATES

Old trail rediscovered

A wildfire that damaged or destroyed nearly 20 homes in Idaho last month also revealed remnants of the Oregon Trail, a famous path left more than 100 years ago by pioneers as the US expanded west. Members of the Idaho Chapter of the Oregon-California Trails Association plan to mark portions of the Oregon Trail now visible after the Aug. 25 fire. Before the blaze, two parallel paths totaling about a kilometer had been covered by sagebrush and cheatgrass.


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