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World News Quick Take

■ NEW ZEALAND

Woman electrocuted

A young woman was electrocuted when she stepped out of her car after it crashed into a power pole, a newspaper reported on Sunday. Three young children in the car were taken to a hospital, with one them suffering from electrical shocks, the Sunday Star-Times said, quoting police at the scene of Saturday night’s accident near the South Island town of Blenheim. Police did not immediately release the woman’s name, the paper said.



■THAILAND

Militants wound teacher

Suspected separatist militants shot dead three people and seriously wounded a teacher in attacks throughout the insurgency-hit far south, police said yesterday. On Sunday a 28-year-old man was killed in Yala Province, a 42-year-old man shot dead in Pattani Province, while suspected militants also killed a 49-year-old village chief in a drive-by shooting in Narathiwat Province. A 29-year-old teacher was shot and seriously injured as he made his way to school in Pattani early yesterday, local police said. Schools and teachers are frequent targets of attack in the far south because militants see the education system as an effort by Bangkok to impose Buddhist culture on a region that is mainly Muslim and ethnic Malay. Tensions have simmered since the country annexed the mainly Malay sultanate in 1902.



■SRI LANKA

Tiger’s fight intense battle

Tamil Tiger rebels fought an intense battle with government forces advancing into their territory in the north and killed at least 43 soldiers, a pro-rebel Web site reported yesterday. Members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) resisted a military push at Nallur in the northern mainland on Sunday, the Tamilnet.com Web site said. They said the Tigers recovered the bodies of eight soldiers, but did not give their own casualties. However, the guerrillas for the first time admitted that security forces had taken the strategically important town of Pooneryn and that heavy fighting was taking place on the outskirts of their political capital Kilinochchi. There was no immediate comment from military authorities on casualties from the latest fighting, but the defense ministry on Sunday said that troops were marching on Kilinochchi from three directions. The government has vowed to take the Tiger political capital and dismantle the LTTE’s mini-state.



■THAILAND

Pedophile gets six years

Bangkok’s Criminal Court said yesterday a Canadian pedophile nabbed last year after German police “unswirled” his altered photograph on the Internet has been given an additional six years in jail. The court confirmed that Christopher Paul Neil, 33, had been sentenced to just under six years in jail earlier this month for molesting a Thai boy in 2003, after claiming his innocence. He was also ordered to pay 50,000 baht (US$1,415) compensation to the boy’s family. The verdict was given in an unscheduled hearing on Nov. 14 and not reported at the time. In a separate case, Neil had already been found guilty of abducting and molesting a minor in 2003 when he was teaching English in Bangkok and of distributing pornography. He was sentenced to three years and three months in jail. The sentence was commuted after Neil pleaded guilty. Neil was arrested on Oct. 19 in Nakorn Ratchasima Province, 210km northeast of Bangkok, ending an international manhunt sparked after Interpol released his picture with a red alert, its highest search signal.

■ UNITED KINGDOM

Jackson settles with sheikh

Lawyers for Michael Jackson have reached a settlement with a Bahraini sheik who claimed the singer owed him US$7 million after breaching a signed contract, the pop star’s spokeswoman said on Sunday. Celena Aponte said the out-of-court settlement means Jackson would not give evidence at London’s High Court as was scheduled. Scores of journalists and fans had been expected to cram the courtroom for the appearance by the King of Pop. Aponte said Jackson was informed of the deal as he was about to board a flight to London. A representative for the sheik could not immediately be reached for comment late on Sunday.



■VATICAN

Church forgives Lennon

The Vatican’s newspaper has finally forgiven John Lennon for declaring that the Beatles were more famous than Jesus Christ, calling the remark a “boast” by a young man grappling with sudden fame. The comment by Lennon to a London newspaper in 1966 infuriated Christians, particularly in the US, some of whom burned Beatles’ albums in huge pyres. But time apparently heals all wounds. “The remark by John Lennon, which triggered deep indignation mainly in the United States, after many years sounds only like a ‘boast’ by a young working-class Englishman faced with unexpected success, after growing up in the legend of Elvis and rock and roll,” the Vatican daily Osservatore Romano said.



■VENEZUELA

Warships arriving soon

President Hugo Chavez says Russian warships will soon reach his country’s waters for joint naval exercises in the Caribbean. Chavez said the Russian ships “will enter Venezuelan waters within a matter of hours.” He didn’t say exactly when, but the Russian warships are expected to hold Caribbean maneuvers later this week. It’s the first such deployment by Moscow since the Cold War. Russia is sending four ships, including the nuclear-powered cruiser Peter the Great. Chavez is also expecting a visit by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev tomorrow as part of a Latin American tour.



■CUBA

US using al-Qaeda: Castro

Former president Fidel Castro suggested on Sunday that Washington had promoted Americans’ fears about al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups to justify its plans for world domination. In an essay published on a government Web site, Castro wrote that al-Qaeda “was born from the empire’s own entrails,” using “the empire” to refer to the US, but failing to elaborate. He said the terrorist group was “a typical example of an enemy that the hegemonic power dangles in a place of its choosing where it needs to justify its actions, as it has done throughout its history, fabricating enemies and attacks destined to strengthen its plans of domination.” Castro has previously accused the US government of misleading the public about the Sept. 11 attacks.



■IRAQ

Sixteen killed in bombings

At least 16 people were killed in two separate bombings in Baghdad yesterday, security officials said. The attacks came days before parliament was to vote on a military accord that would allow US troops to remain in Iraq until 2011. In the first attack 11 people were killed when a roadside bomb exploded near a bus carrying trade ministry employees during the rush hour in Baghdad, security officials said. Less than an hour later a female suicide bomber blew up in a corridor leading into the Green Zone, where Iraqi employees were lining up to pass through security checkpoints, police said.