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World News Quick Take

■KAZAKHSTAN

Global currency wanted

President Nursultan Nazarbayev on Tuesday called for the creation of a single world currency called the “acmetal” as a means of combating the worsening global financial crisis. “In our view, we must create a single world currency under the aegis of the United Nations,” Nazarbayev said, a day before a major economic conference opens in the country. “We must make a transition to an absolutely new global currency system based on legitimacy and, in view of all countries, one single monetary system,” he told a meeting of the Eurasian Association of Universities. It was the first time Nazarbayev had spoken publicly about the need for a single world currency although he had written about it.



■THAILAND

ATMs to be revamped

More than 30,000 automated teller machines (ATM) will be revamped to prevent criminal gangs from stealing bank account information amid a surge in thefts, news reports said yesterday. Phol Thanachote, chairman of the Automated Teller Machines’ Business Community, said that special stickers would be affixed to the revamped machines to show they are safe for use, the Nation newspaper said. The report did not say how the ATMs were being altered to make them less theft-prone. The community said it was struggling to keep pace with the new technology used by criminals to copy bank account information from ATM cards.



■TAJIKISTAN

Schools ban cellphones

The government on Tuesday banned mobile phones from all schools and universities in a bid to boost education. “This measure has been taken in order to improve the quality of teaching at schools,” deputy Dodikhudo Saimutdinov said after a vote in parliament. Offenders, including those who carry phones without using them, will be fined. Although Tajikistan is considered Central Asia’s poorest nation, 3.2 million out of 7 million Tajiks use mobiles. President Imomali Rakhmon had earlier introduced uniforms at schools and universities and barred students from going to schools in their own cars.



■CHINA

Police feed drivers chili

Police in the Chongqing region are spicing up drivers with raw chili in a bid to stop them falling asleep at the wheel, the Chongqing Evening News said yesterday. They have started serving drivers chili peppers at highway service stations, holding to the traditional belief that people often feel more sleepy in the spring, it said. Most of the drivers are from neighboring Sichuan, Yunnan and Hunan provinces, where chilis are a local favorite, it said. “It’s really good to have some hot peppers when you are tired from driving,” driver Chen Jun was quoted by the newspaper as saying. “They make you alert.”



■AUSTRALIA

Official turns rocker again

Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts Peter Garrett reunites with his rock band Midnight Oil today to warm-up for a bushfires benefit concert, vowing not to shy away from the politically charged songs of his activist era. Garrett, 55, was the lead singer of Midnight Oil for 26 years, swaying the hearts and minds of a generation as he jerkily danced and railed against US foreign policies and corporate greed and for indigenous rights and the environment. But Garrett quit music in 2002 for politics, winning a seat in the Australian parliament in 2004 for the center-left Labor Party. He was appointed minister when Labor won power in 2007.



■SWITZERLAND

Eurovision puts off ‘Put In’

The Eurovision Song Contest will not tolerate any puns at Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s expense. Georgia’s entry for this year’s contest was ruled unacceptable by organizers on Tuesday because its lyrics seem to poke fun at Putin. “No lyrics, speeches, gestures of a political or similar nature shall be permitted during the Eurovision Song Contest,” the European Broadcasting Union said. The rule appeared to be broken by the Georgian group Stephane and 3G with its teasing ditty titled We Don’t Wanna Put In. “We don’t want to put in/the negative mood/it’s killing the groove,” runs the chorus, rendered “poot een” — just like Russian leader — by the singers’ Georgian-accented pronunciation. Moscow will play host to this year’s contest from May 12 to May 16.



■GERMANY

Ancient sandal unearthed

Archeologists have uncovered an amazingly well preserved 5,000-year-old sandal in mud under Lake Constance, authorities said on Tuesday. The Stone Age footwear — European size 36 — was made of wood and dates back to around 2900BC, Stuttgart city council said. “Even in the Stone Age, Lake Constance was the best place to live,” said Johannes Schmalzl, head of Stuttgart’s city council, who presented the find.



■UNITED KINGDOM

Muslim protesters slammed

Defence Secretary John Hutton has condemned a Muslim protest against a parade in Luton for soldiers returning from Iraq as “insulting.” The protesters carried placards with slogans including “Anglian Soldiers: Butchers of Basra,” “Anglian Soldiers: cowards, killers, extremists” and “British government terrorist government.” “I am grateful to the thousands of people from all walks of life that turned out in Luton today to offer their support and gratitude for the incredible job they do,” Hutton said. “I can only condemn the tiny minority who used this opportunity to make, whatever their personal views, utterly ridiculous and insulting comments to these brave men and women.” Prime Minister Gordon Brown also voiced disappointment at the protest marring the rally to welcome home the 2nd Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, known as The Poachers. Two people were arrested over the protest.



■UNITED KINGDOM

Prince accused of quackery

Prince Charles has been accused of quackery and exploitation over his Duchy Originals food company’s promotion of a “detox” tincture made from artichoke and dandelion. Edzard Ernst, professor of complementary medicine at Peninsula Medical School in Exeter, said Charles is exploiting a gullible public at a time of financial hardship. “Prince Charles contributes to the ill health of the nation by pretending we can all overindulge, then take his tincture and be fine again,” he said in a statement. “Under the banner of holistic and integrative healthcare, he thus promotes a ‘quick fix’ and outright quackery.” There is no evidence that detox products work, Ernst said.



■CYPRUS

Songbird death toll soaring

More than 1.1 million songbirds prized as culinary delicacies were illegally slaughtered by trappers on the island in the past year, a conservation group said on Tuesday. “The figure is an unacceptable toll which ever way you look at it,” said Martin Hellicar, executive manager for Birdlife Cyprus. Many of the birds are served up as expensive delicacies in restaurants, even though trapping and consumption is strictly banned, he said.



■UNITED STATES

Body delivered to pet store

Employees of a Pennsylvania pet store expecting a shipment of tropical fish and salt water got a dead body instead. Mark Arabia owns the Pets Plus store in northeast Philadelphia, where the mix-up was discovered on Tuesday. He says he learned the body was that of a 65-year-old San Diego-area man who died of early onset Alzheimer’s disease. The body was supposed to go to a research laboratory in Allentown, a 113km drive away. US Airways Inc released a statement saying the air cargo problem was caused by a “verbal miscommunication between a delivery driver and the cargo representative.”



■PERU

90-year-old burglar arrested

A 90-year-old woman was arrested in Lima for taking part in a burglary, police said on Tuesday. The woman, who looked like a sweet grandmother, arrived with two other women at a house that was for sale in the neighborhood of Los Olivos in the Peruvian capital. The elderly woman distracted the owner of the house with a pretend negotiation, while the other two stole valuable objects. When they were found out, the three women fled for a taxi that was waiting for them. The elderly woman, however, did not make it fast enough and had to run off. She was arrested just two blocks away.



■UNITED STATES

Crate trip was a hoax

A magician who posted videos online detailing a “trip” he made in a crate aboard a cargo plane from upstate New York to Las Vegas admitted on Tuesday that it was an elaborate hoax. “It was a publicity stunt right from the start,” Wade Whitcomb of North Syracuse said after federal officials declared the event a hoax. “The FBI spoke to Whitcomb. He did not ship himself anywhere. We have no further interest in this,” FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said on Tuesday. Whitcomb had claimed he folded himself into a cramped wooden crate for the 26-hour trip on a United Parcel Service truck and plane. He posted a series of videos online of the purported trip shot with tiny cameras pointed out of the crate and one inside focused on him.



■UNITED STATES

‘Cheers’ barman laid off

Eddie Doyle was the guy who really did know everybody’s name. But after tending bar for 35 years at the Boston tavern that inspired the television show Cheers, Doyle has been laid off, the Boston Globe and Boston Herald newspapers reported. The bar’s owner said the economy was to blame. Doyle was a fixture at the Bull and Finch pub long before his TV counterpart, Sam Malone, entered the mainstream. After the NBC show hit the airwaves in 1982, he started serving 5,000 people a day. Doyle used the bar’s fame to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for charity. The 66-year-old Doyle told the Globe he’s not bitter and may write a book about his experiences.



■UNITED STATES

Child star Boyd dies at 70

Jimmy Boyd, the child vocalist and actor best known for singing the original rendition of the Christmas novelty hit I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus in 1952, has died. He was 70. Boyd died of cancer on Saturday at a Santa Monica convalescent hospital, longtime friend Eleanor Pillsbury told the Los Angeles Times. I Saw Mommy shot to the top of the charts three weeks after it was released. Boyd, who was 13 when he recorded the song, told Time magazine soon after its release that he was surprised by its success. “I like it personally, but I didn’t think anyone would buy it,” he said.
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