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World News Quick Take

■JAPAN

Small quake rocks Tokyo

A moderate 4.8-magnitude earthquake rattled the Tokyo region yesterday, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. There were no immediate reports of damage. The tremor struck at 7:17am in Chiba Prefecture, east of Tokyo, at a depth of 80km, the agency said.



■MALAYSIA

Fruit fight leads to stabbing

A man allegedly stabbed his younger brother during an argument that broke out after they had interfered in a disagreement between their two other siblings over a preserved fruit, reports said yesterday. The 20-year-old stabbing victim, the sixth of eight siblings, had reprimanded his 14 year-old-sister for accusing their three-year-old brother of stealing a preserved fruit. Their 24-year-old brother interfered and sided his sister. In a fit of rage following a shoving match, the elder brother took out a knife and stabbed his sibling on the right side of his ribs outside their home, the Star reported.



■NEPAL

Lawyers go on strike

Lawyers across the country began a three-day strike yesterday by boycotting court proceedings in a sign of a worsening dispute between the country’s bar association and judges. The lawyers move was prompted by the Supreme Court barring Nepal Bar Association president Biswo Kant Mainali from taking part in court proceedings for six months after he accusd judges of corruption. Mainali alleged during a public meeting that becoming a judge amounted to “open license for corruption.” Judges of two appellate courts and three district courts in the Kathmandu valley stopped work on Friday to pressure the Supreme Court to take action.



■SRI LANKA

Fleeing Tamils register

Thousands who have fled the country’s war zones, nearly all Tamils, lined up on yesterday to register under what police say is an essential security measure to crack down on Tamil Tiger militants. From 8am, people lined up at schools, temples and other public buildings to give their details to police, who earlier this week ordered all those who had fled five war-affected districts in the past five years to come and be counted. The order, which affects those who came to the capital, Colombo, and the surrounding Western Province, came as the military is intensifying an offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels in the north.



■PHILIPPINES

Abductee released

A resort owner in the south was freed by his abductors after 10 days in captivity, a provincial police chief said yesterday. Senior Superintendent Esmail Ali said Jesus Perfecto Martinez, 49, was abandoned by his kidnappers before dawn on Saturday in the public market of Cotabato City, 930km south of Manila. Ali said the family of Martinez paid at least 300,000 pesos (US$6,451) in ransom to secure his safe release. “The victim was not harmed,” Ali said. “He was reunited with his family three hours after he was released.” Martinez was driving his motorcycle near his resort in Datu Odin Sinsuat town in nearby Shariff Kabunsuan Province, when he was seized by gunmen on Sept. 10.



■INDIA

Monsoon floods kill 16

Flooding has killed at least 16 people and left more than 220,000 marooned in villages in the east as incessant rains caused a river to breach its banks in several places, an official said. The government of Orissa state was using motorized boats to rescue people, Chief Secretary Ajit Kumar Tripathi told reporters. So far, 180,000 people have been evacuated to relief camps since heavy monsoon rains caused the Mahanadi river to overflow its banks, leaving 220,000 still marooned, he said on Saturday. Two air force helicopters were dropping packets of food to villagers in the flooded villages where people were stranded, Tripathi said, adding that the state has requested three more helicopters from the national government. The flooding has killed at least 16 people and affected huge swathes of 17 out of 30 districts in Orissa, he said. The new flooding comes just a month after the monsoon-swollen Kosi river, a Ganges tributary that flows from Nepal to India, burst its banks and submerged nearly 1,000 villages in the northern state of Bihar, killing at least 48 people and driving more than 1 million others from their homes.



■YEMEN

Embassy revamps security

The British embassy in Sanaa has been closed until security at the building has been improved in the wake of a rebel attack on the US mission that killed 16 people. “The embassy has closed its doors until further notice and has suspended all the services that it provides,” said a source who requested anonymity. A British Foreign Office spokeswoman in London said: “We have temporarily suspended operations at our embassy until additional security measures are put in place.”



■MAURITANIA

Twelve dead soldiers found

The army found the bodies of 12 soldiers who were attacked last week in an ambush purportedly claimed by a branch of al-Qaeda, a government spokesman said. The men were found on Saturday with their throats cut in the open desert about 30km north of Tourine — the site of Monday’s ambush — said spokesman Mohamed Ould Mohamed Abderahmane Ould Moine. The government had said the soldiers were shot dead in the attack, but then reclassified them as missing when it didn’t find the bodies. Several Web sites known to be close to extremist Islamic movements published a statement attributed to al-Qaeda’s North Africa branch on Wednesday in which the group claimed responsibility for the attack. “This jihadist operation targeted the allies of the Americans, the crusaders on Islamic Mauritanian territory occupied by infidels,” the statement said.



■SPAIN

Car bomb injures six

Six people were injured yesterday in a car bomb blast in Ondarroa suspected to be the work of the Basque separatist organization ETA, officials said. The blast which went off in front of a police station “injured six people, three policemen and three individuals,” a spokeswoman for the Basque interior ministry said. The 4:30am blast, which was not proceeded by a warning, was the second car bomb attack in the Basque country overnight. The earlier blast in Vitoria caused no injuries. A coded warning from ETA gave police time to clear the area. Since abandoning its “permanent ceasefire” in June last year, ETA has killed four people and carried out a series of bombings.



■UNITED KINGDOM

Lost medals found in river

Divers defied the murky waters of the River Thames on Saturday to recover medals for a British war hero who feared they were lost forever. World War II veteran Charles Brown, 93, was taking part in a Dunkirk veterans river cruise last weekend when his medals slipped out of his jacket pocket and into the water at Teddington as he boarded a boat. When the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) heard about the loss, it offered to recover the irreplaceable medals, which included an Order of the British Empire. Malcolm Miatt, lifeboat operations manager at RNLI Teddington, said: “I wasn’t sure that we’d find the medals because they [had] been down there all week and visibility from the silt was bad due to all the heavy rain recently. “However, our divers found them almost immediately, there was no drama.” When he heard the news, an overjoyed Brown took a taxi from his retirement home to the river to be reunited with his medals. “I do get a bit emotional because these medals meant so much to me,” he said. “I’m not going to be celebrating with cream cakes or anything like that, just having the medals back is enough for me.”



■UNITED STATES

Californians not grooving

Residents of northern Los Angeles County are not grooving to this music. Lancaster city officials said this week that they’re paving over a 400m strip of asphalt grooved to play the William Tell Overture when auto tires speed over it. The road was completed this month as part of an ad campaign for Honda. It’s engineered to play the overture — also known as the theme to The Lone Ranger — at perfect pitch for motorists driving Honda Civics at 88kph. But neighbors aren’t amused. One says the road music sounds like a high-pitched drone. Another says it keeps him and his wife up at night. Lancaster officials plan to pave over the grooves tomorrow.



■UNITED STATES

Nude bartender arrested

As it turns out, bartending nude can get you arrested. Sheriff’s deputies doing a routine check last week at a southern Illinois bar say they discovered a not-so-routine sight. Authorities allege that 33-year-old Janet Brannon was naked while serving bar patrons at the Cabin Tavern in Delhi. Brannon was arrested and charged with misdemeanor public indecency. She was freed on US$8,000 bond. As she was the only bar employee working at the time, the tavern was closed on Thursday. No telephone listing can be found for Brannon, and the local sheriff’s department doesn’t know whether she has an attorney.



■UNITED STATES

Tow trucks set record

Nearly 300 tow trucks rumbled through New York City on Saturday in an attempt to smash the world record for the largest parade of its kind. Organizers think they hit the mark, with 292 trucks participating. The procession included flatbeds, wreckers and 50-tonne rotators. The trucks departed from Shea Stadium in Queens and cruised down a couple of highways before finishing at an abandoned airport tarmac to spell out “New York.” The previous world record was a parade of 83 tow trucks in August 2004 in Washington state.



■UNITED STATES

Church plan unveiled

Architects and church leaders have unveiled a US$37 million plan to rebuild a landmark 1890 church on Chicago’s South Side that played a major role in the development of gospel music. The plan was unveiled on Saturday at Pilgrim Baptist Church. The church was destroyed in January 2006 in an accidental fire. The building was designed by the famous architectural firm headed by Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler. Plans include replicating the original church and adding two new buildings, a social services building and a cultural center. Organizers say construction of the new church depends on fundraising efforts. There is no finish date set for the new structures. Since the fire, the congregation has been meeting at a community center across the street.



■CANADA

Northern agency planned

The prime minister says if his Conservative party is re-elected, his government will establish a regional development agency devoted to northern Canada. Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the agency would help promote job growth in what is becoming an increasingly important region. The region’s oil, gas and minerals were once thought to be too difficult to recover, but as global warming has been shrinking the polar ice cap, numerous countries including Canada, Russia and the US have been trying to assert control in the area.


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