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World News Quick Take

■ SOUTH KOREA

Groups urge end to probes

Civic groups yesterday urged police to stop investigating mothers who brought babies in strollers to this summer’s mass protests against US beef imports. The heads of 21 civic groups — including Christian priests, Buddhist monks and human rights lawyers — issued a statement denouncing what they called an “oppressive” crackdown by police. The street protests began in May after Seoul lifted a ban on US beef imposed in 2003 over mad cow disease fears. The rallies died down after Seoul negotiated extra safety conditions for the imports. Police have been looking into several groups accused of instigating the sometimes violent rallies, which took on an anti-government flavor and rocked the new administration of President Lee Myung-bak. Police said on Monday they were investigating three women for organizing and joining a “baby strollers’ unit” mobilized for the rallies.



■ CHINA

Third space mission planned

The nation’s third manned space mission, which will include the country’s first space walk, will blast off late today, a senior official confirmed. The Shenzhou VII spacecraft carrying three astronauts will lift off from the Jiuquan launch center in the northwest part of the country, Wang Zhaoyao (王兆耀), spokesman for the country’s manned space program, said in a televised press conference yesterday. The launch is expected to take place at some time between 9:07pm and 10:27pm, Wang said.



■ PHILIPPINES

Miner death toll rises

Rescuers struggled yesterday to save 13 miners trapped for two days in a flooded shaft in the northern part of the country as the nation’s death toll from Typhoon Hagupit rose to eight, officials said. The rescue operation was slowed down by floodwaters inside the mineshaft in Itogon town in Benguet Province, 225km north of Manila, said chief superintendent Eugene Martin, a regional police chief.



■ SOUTH KOREA

Police round up Thais

Police have rounded up 111 Thais for selling or consuming drugs. The Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency said three of the suspects had been formally arrested for allegedly consuming methamphetamine and other drugs and selling them to other Thai workers in the country since January. Yesterday’s police statement said the others are accused of consuming the narcotics and had been released pending further investigation. Four had been deported because they overstayed their visas. Police said it was one of the country’s biggest drug roundups involving foreigners.



■ UNITED KINGDOM

Theater tickets on offer

The government plans to distribute 1 million free theater tickets to people under age 26, the country’s culture ministry said on Tuesday. The plan, aimed at introducing new audiences to British theater, will go into effect in February next year. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport said the tickets would be made available to all people below the age limit, regardless of whether they are British or not. “It will be good for theaters who will see their audience broaden, and it will be good for actors who play at their best when performing to a full house,” Culture Secretary Andy Burnham said.



■ RUSSIA

Chinese toys pirate songs

A shipment of musical Chinese toys hit a sour note at the Russian border when officials seized them and accused their manufacturer of pirating popular songs from Soviet-era cartoons. Authorities charged the maker of the electronic toys with breaking copyright law for borrowing songs beloved by generations of Russian children without notifying the song writers, the daily Noviye Izvestia reported yesterday. Siberian customs officials uncovered the violation on Tuesday despite the low quality of the recordings, which made it hard to identify the songs, a customs spokeswoman said.



■ GAZA

Bodies recovered from blast

Security officials say five bodies have been pulled from a tunnel blown up by Egyptian authorities along the Gaza-Egypt border. The officials say the men are Palestinian smugglers who were bringing contraband goods from Egypt into Gaza. Two bodies were located shortly after the explosion on Tuesday and the rest were removed early yesterday.



■ ISRAEL

McCartney to perform

Pop star Paul McCartney, one of two surviving members of the Beatles, arrived in Israel yesterday ahead of his first-ever concert in the Jewish state. The gig, part of a series of one-off concerts in places the 66-year-old musician has never visited before, comes after two previous unsuccessful attempts by McCartney to perform in the Jewish state. The Beatles drew up plans to play in Israel at the height of Beatlemania in 1965, but they were canceled after sponsors failed to raise enough money and members of parliament voiced concern they might corrupt young Israeli minds.



■ SOMALIA

Mogadishu death toll hits 13

Six bodies were recovered overnight in the Somali capital, taking the death toll to 13 in clashes between African peacekeepers and Islamist rebels, witnesses said yesterday. At least seven civilians had already been killed since heavily armed insurgents attacked the peacekeepers’ base in southern Mogadishu late on Tuesday. “Six civilians, one of them a young girl, died near a school in Bakara overnight,” said local resident Abdiaziz Mohamed Dirie. Medical sources in the capital’s Madina hospital said at least 30 civilians were wounded.



■ ITALY

Troops sent to tackle Mafia

The government ordered the deployment of 500 soldiers on Tuesday to tackle violent crime in response to the Mafia killings of six African migrants near Naples last week. Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa said the majority of the troops would be sent to the area around Casal di Principe, home to the Casalesi clan, the most feared grouping within the Naples Camorra. Last week’s murders led to rioting by migrants in the area.



■ UNITED STATES

Filipino vets to be rewarded

The House of Representatives passed legislation on Tuesday to reward more than 18,000 Filipinos belatedly for their service with US forces in the Philippines during World War II. Amounts involved fall far short of what they were promised for their service. Filipinos made a major contribution to the US defense of its colony and its recovery from Japanese forces. As passed, the “Filipino Veterans Equity Act of 2008” would make one-time payments of US$15,000 to Filipinos who are US citizens and US$9,000 to non-US Filipino veterans. After President Franklin D. Roosevelt conscripted Filipino men and boys into the US Army Forces in the Far East in 1941, they were promised full benefits as veterans of the US Army.



■ UNITED STATES

KKK acquittal appealed

Prosecutors asked a federal appeals court on Tuesday to reconsider the acquittal of a reputed Ku Klux Klansman who was serving a life sentence for the abductions of two black teenagers slain in 1964. James Ford Seale, 73, was convicted in June last year on kidnapping and conspiracy charges related to the abduction of Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee. The 19-year-olds were hitchhiking in southwest Mississippi when they were abducted, beaten, weighted down and thrown, possibly still alive, into a Mississippi River backwater. Prosecutors say the KKK beat and killed the teens over rumors that black residents were arming themselves for an uprising during the violent struggle for racial equality.



■ UNITED STATES

Stay of execution filed

The Supreme Court issued a stay of execution on Tuesday for a Georgia inmate convicted of killing a police officer in 1989, two hours before his scheduled death by lethal injection. The inmate, Troy Davis, 39, was convicted of murdering Mark MacPhail, a Savannah police officer. The Supreme Court, which issued the stay without explanation, will decide on Monday whether to grant Davis’ appeal for a new trial. The case has drawn national and global attention, largely because seven of the nine witnesses at Davis’ trial later recanted their testimony, with two saying they felt pressured by the police to testify against Davis.



■ CANADA

Chicken-size dinosaur found

A researcher has discovered what is believed to be North America’s smallest dinosaur, a 70-million-year-old chicken-sized beast that was also unusual for its diet of insects. Called the Albertonykus borealis, the odd-looking creature had bird-like features including slender legs, jaws like pincers and stubby arms with big claws. Its bones were excavated near Red Deer, in fossil-rich Alberta, in 2002 among about 20 Albertosaurus remains, and went unnoticed.



■ CANADA

Student threatens pastor

An expelled 16-year-old student entered a Christian high school in Regina during chapel on Tuesday and put a pellet gun to the pastor’s head before the principal grabbed the gun and he was tackled and arrested, officials said. Principal Mark Anderson said they all thought the gun was real at first. He said he kept talking with the youth, who was forcing the pastor to read a three or four page letter, as he edged closer to them. Anderson said he got close enough to see the weapon was not a real firearm, then grappled with the teen and grabbed the gun before police tackled and arrested the youth.
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