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World News Quick Take

■SRI LANKA

Air force strikes rebel area

Air force planes pounded a Tamil separatists’ arms storage and command center deep in the northern jungles yesterday, the military said. The air attacks were part of the government’s offensive to crush the Tamil Tigers and seize their de facto state in the north. In the latest assault, air force jets pounded the arms storage in the rebel stronghold of Mullaitivu yesterday morning, military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said. An hour later jets also bombed a rebels’ command center near the front lines in the Jaffna Peninsula, he said. Nanayakkara said details of casualties and damage were not available immediately. With nearly all communications to the north severed, a rebel spokesman could not be contacted for comment.

■HONG KONG

Gold company boss arrested

Police have arrested the chairwoman of a listed company over the theft of US$23 million of gold bullion from the firm, a spokesman and reports said yesterday. Five employees of 3D-Gold Jewelery Holdings were arrested yesterday in connection with the theft from the company’s vault, a police spokesman said. One of the five was company chairwoman Jane Chan (陳吟揮), the 45-year-old widow of company founder Lam Sai-wing (林世榮), who died three weeks ago, the Standard newspaper reported. A company spokeswoman confirmed that five people had been arrested, but would not confirm that Chan was among them. Police said three men and two women had been arrested. “The five people, who were staff members of the company and aged from 45 to 68, were arrested for theft,” a police spokesman said.

■AUSTRALIA

Mormons stabbed in Sydney

Two Mormon missionaries were attacked and stabbed while returning to their apartment in a suburb of Sydney. In a statement, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said Chris Collinsworth, 19, and David Ferguson, 21, “suffered multiple non-life threatening stab wounds in an unprovoked attack.” Both were hospitalized. A state police spokeswoman, who spoke on the police policy condition of anonymity said that Collinsworth and Fergunson were attacked by three unknown men, who made no demands of the two missionaries. Alisa Collinsworth said her son was stabbed in the back near his kidney. She said Ferguson had the tendons cut in his hand and needed surgery. Chris Collinsworth said he fought back, but told his parents that several men jumped on top of him. He got stabbed at some point during the “dog pile,” his mother said.

■NEW ZEALAND

Police find body

Police investigating the choking and beheading of a South Korean tourist five years ago have found a body, officers said yesterday. Jae Hyeon-kim was 25 when he disappeared while hitchhiking on the isolated west coast of South Island. Detective Inspector John Winter told reporters the body had been in a grave in scrub near the small settlement of Charleston on the scenic west coast, an area popular with tourists. He said the body would be taken to the South Island city of Christchurch for positive identification. Winter refused to reveal how detectives were able to locate the body after such a long time, but the development came after one of three men arrested in connection with the murder admitted the charge during a court appearance this week. Prosecutors alleged Kim was beheaded with a spade after being throttled in October 2003.

■FRANCE

Seven detained in Taser row

A postman-turned-politician who has campaigned against the use of Tasers claims he has been targeted by a shady spy ring — allegedly made up of crooked cops, private eyes and the head of a French company that sells the stun guns. The bizarre tale unfolding this week is the latest chapter of a global controversy over the use of Tasers, which are used by many police departments around the world. The weapon was designed as a non-lethal means to immobilize suspects, but it has been blamed for some deaths. Police this week detained 11 people in a probe into the spying allegations by Olivier Besancenot, a mail carrier who heads the Communist Revolutionary League. He says he and his family were trailed and spied on because of his campaign against Tasers. By Wednesday night, seven people remained in custody, including two officials of a private detective firm, a customs agent, current and former police officers and the president of SMP Technologies, which markets Tasers domestically. SMP Technologies has filed a suit charging Besancenot with defamation over his anti-Taser comments. Police searched the company’s offices and found a copy of what was described as an incriminating report of an investigation, a police official close to the probe said.

■UNITED KINGDOM

Granny gives youths a fright

Youths who tried to snatch a grandmother’s purse got the fright of their lives when she turned out to be a former cross-country champion and chased after them, reports said on Wednesday. Janet Lane, 68, was waiting for a friend on a park bench in Torquay, Devon, when one of three young men grabbed her bag containing her pension payment in cash, the newspaper reports said. “I think those boys saw a little old lady and thought I was easy pickings, but there was no way I was going to sit there and let them get away with it,” she said. “Without thinking, I jumped up and ran after them as fast as I could. I was screaming at them too. I felt outraged.” She followed them to the grounds of a nearby hotel and caught one of them by the collar. “He was so afraid he dropped my bag, but then managed to wriggle free,” said Lane, who was a junior athlete for her county in the 1950s.

■UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Couple get jail sentence

A Dubai court yesterday sentenced two Britons found guilty of having sex on a beach to three months in jail and a 1,000 dirham (US$272) fine, followed by deportation. The man and woman, had pleaded not guilty to charges of having sex in public and committing an indecent act in public, but guilty to drinking alcohol without a license. Neither they nor their lawyer, Hassan Mattar, were in court when they were sentenced. Mattar said he would appeal against the sentence.

■IRAN

Drug traffickers executed

Three convicted drug traffickers have been hanged in a prison in the southeastern city of Zahedan, a newspaper reported on Wednesday. The men sent to the gallows on Monday were identified as Shahram Eyvani, Ramezan Rafei and Sasan Dogoshkani, the Kayhan newspaper said. They were convicted of possessing 322kg of heroin and 15g of opium. The latest hangings bring to at least 189 the number of executions this year. Amnesty International says Iran carried out more death sentences last year than any other country apart from China, executing 317 people.

■CHILE

Retired general sentenced

Retired army General Sergio Arellano, 88, was sentenced to six years in prison on Wednesday for the killing of five dissidents during the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. The killings occurred during the co-called “Caravan of Death” a few weeks after the 1973 military coup led by Pinochet. Arellano led the caravan, a military party that toured the country in October 1973 seeking dissidents. Official reports say it killed more than 90 political prisoners.

■UNITED STATES

Nancy Reagan hospitalized

Former first lady Nancy Reagan was in hospital on Wednesday with a broken pelvis after a fall at her home, CNN reported, quoting a Reagan family spokesman. Reagan, 87, suffered the fall last week after getting up in middle of the night and twisting her leg. She decided on Monday to get checked out at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, where doctors determined she had a fractured pelvis. She was reported to be in good spirits, although in pain, and surgery will not be required.

■UNITED STATES

Electricity bill challenged

The head of a computer networking company in Michigan got a shock when DTE Energy sent him a gas and electric bill for US$136,524.40. The utility says the bill sent to Dominant Systems was a mistake, and it’s rescinding a shut-off notice accompanying a separate bill for US$36,275. Company president Terry Weadock told the Ann Arbor News that the problem started when repeated power outages prompted him to move 40 computer systems out of his Ann Arbor facility last year. He said his electricity use dropped by two-thirds. DTE’s fraud department said it believed the meter was faulty and it was back-billing him US$7,193. He was disputing that charge when the US$136,524 bill arrived, followed by the shutoff notice. DTE spokesman John Austerberry says the utility would review his claims.

■UNITED STATES

Second virgin shark birth

Researchers confirmed on Tuesday the second known case in which a baby shark appears to have been conceived without the mother having mated with a male. The Journal of Fish Biology reports the study seems to indicate that female sharks can reproduce without fertilization of their eggs by a male. Dermian Chapman, a shark expert at the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, a lead author on the study, said DNA tests performed on the infant shark confirmed that there had been no father. The baby is the progeny of “Tidit,” a female blacktip shark that has lived for eight years in an aquarium in Virginia and never had contact with a male. Scientists said the birth is the second confirmed instance of a shark being conceived by parthenogensis — a process in which an unfertilized egg develops into a new individual. The process was generally believed, until now, to occur only among certain insects, spiders, centipedes and crustaceans.

■VENEZUELA

Six-hour workday planned

The government is planning to establish a six-hour workday. Labor Minister Roberto Hernandez said on Wednesday that he would propose a bill this year to reduce the workday, improve employee benefits and establish “more forceful” penalties for businesses that violate labor laws. The idea was proposed before, as part of a constitutional reform package that voters rejected last December.