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World News Quick Take

■ CHINA

Radioactive material lost

Authorities have ordered an all-out search for a missing nuclear scale that contained a dangerous radioactive component, Xinhua news agency said yesterday. The scale, used to make precision measurements, was found to be missing on Monday after workers began dismantling a cement factory where it was used in Tongchuan City in Shaanxi Province, Xinhua said. A lead ball containing extremely dangerous Caesium-137 was a major component of the scale, it said. Local government offices in Shaanxi could not be immediately reached for comment on the issue.



■ MALAYSIA

Cleric blasts smoking

Muslims who smoke and try to portray themselves as pious are worse than cows that defecate in the street, a top Muslim cleric and politician said yesterday. “[Like] a cow which defecates in the middle of the road, [we] cannot take legal action against it because it has no brain and cannot think,” said Nik Aziz, who is the spiritual leader of the Pan-Islamic Party. “But human beings, who have brains, for them to do something which is wrong in religion ... when they are in an attire which symbolizes Islam, they can be regarded as being more despicable than cows,” state news agency Bernama quoted him as saying.



■ SINGAPORE

Newborn dumped at airport

The body of a newborn baby boy was discovered in a rubbish bin in the transit area of Changi Airport, the Straits Times reported yesterday. A cleaner made the sordid discovery just before 9pm on Wednesday. Closed-circuit television footage from the terminal was being reviewed to trace the person who dumped the fair-skinned baby, who had his umbilical cord still attached. It is believed that drops of blood were found in a toilet near one of the terminal’s gates. The airport management has also been asked to check if any of the staff had shown signs of pregnancy. It is the second case of a newborn being dumped in Singapore this month, the paper said.



■ BANGLADESH

Frogs ‘marry’ to bring rain

More than 250 people attended a wedding ceremony between two frogs as part of a ritual to bring rain to the parched region, the Bengali paper Jugantor said yesterday. The “bride” and “groom” came from two neighboring villages 110km north of the capital Dhaka, the paper said. Villagers organized the wedding ceremony because the region was suffering a water shortage as it waited for monsoon rains to arrive, said to schoolteacher Noor Mohammad Kalon, who was a guest on behalf of the groom. “The bride and groom were in special wedding dress. We blessed them in the ceremony and released them in a nearby pond afterwards,” he said. “Last night there was rain. I believe it was because of the wedding.”



■ CHINA

Police sent to calm unrest

More than 1,000 policemen have deployed to a rural area of Hainan Province where days of clashes between two feuding villages left one dead and nine others injured, Xinhua news agency said late on Thursday. A bridge connecting the villages is now under the control of the police to prevent further violence after one man was stabbed to death, Xinhua said. Citing Hainan police chief Jia Dongjun, Xinhua said the situation had improved after unrest erupted on Monday when a student from Gancheng Village was set upon, possibly by schoolchildren from neighboring Baoshang. More than 100 shops in Gancheng remained close.



■ UNITED KINGDOM

Cheesy book wins prize

The prize for the oddest book title last year was awarded to The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-milligram Containers of Fromage Frais, thanks to a late surge in popularity, The Bookseller magazine said yesterday. Philip Parker’s work beat out other titles such as Baboon Metaphysics, Curbside Consultation of the Colon and Strip and Knit with Style in the annual competition run by the British magazine. Web site Amazon.com says that Parker’s book costs a stunning US$795. The Web site gives no indication as to what it is about.



■ ISRAEL

Anti-rocket system tested

The Defense Ministry said it had successfully tested a high-tech system designed to intercept incoming rockets. A ministry statement said the Iron Dome system successfully intercepted rockets in tests carried out this week. The statement called the tests a “milestone” in the system’s development. Defense officials said yesterday that this was the first time the system had intercepted rockets in a test. The system fires missiles that home in on incoming short and medium-range rockets of the type fired by Palestinian and Lebanese militants. The country is spending more than US$200 million on the system, which is supposed to be operational next year



■ ISRAEL

Attack staged in Sudan

Warplanes attacked a convoy of trucks in Sudan in January to block a suspected arms delivery to the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Gaza, the New York Times reported yesterday. The newspaper’s Web site quoted unnamed US officials as saying Israel carried out the attack, in which at least 30 people were killed, to stop weapons being transported to Gaza during its offensive against Hamas. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Thursday that Israel acted “wherever we can” to strike at its enemies, but did not specifically mention Sudan. “The fact is, whoever needs to know, knows. Whoever needs to know, knows there is no place where the state of Israel cannot act,” he said. US officials who had access to classified information believed Iran was involved in the effort to smuggle weapons to Gaza.



■ ITALY

Fresh pizza in three minutes

A vending machine that bakes fresh pizza in minutes for a few euros has gotten chefs in a whirl before it hits the streets in the coming weeks. The bright-red “Let’s Pizza” machine uses infra-red rays and technology developed at the University of Bologna to knead flour and water into dough, spread it with tomato sauce and a choice of topping, and cook it — all in less than three minutes.



■ UNITED KINGDOM

UK artist fined over deaths

A London artist who created a huge inflatable sculpture that killed two women after it broke its moorings and flew across a park was fined £10,000 (US$14,400) on Thursday for breaking health and safety rules. Claire Furmedge, 38, from Chester-le-Street, County Durham, and Elizabeth Collings, 68, from Seaham, died when they fell from the artwork Dreamspace in July 2006. Maurice Agis, 77, was convicted of one charge of breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act at a hearing at Newcastle. The exhibition was half the size of a soccer field, 5m high, made out of plastic sheeting and had walls that changed color as visitors wandered through its maze of corridors. Up to 30 people were inside the walk-in sculpture when it took off. A gust of wind blew it 9m above the park in Chester-le-Street.



■ UNITED STATES

Aide turns 100

When Sally Gordon was born in 1909, workers hadn't even started building Nebraska’s Capitol where she still works. On Thursday, her 100th birthday, hundreds of people came to honor the woman who has served as an assistant sergeant-at-arms helping to maintain order in the Nebraska Legislature for 26 years. She was an aide to three governors before that. “When I don’t work, I just go crazy,” said Gordon, who has worked for more than 80 of her 100 years. “I’m a desperate housewife, and I’m allergic to housework.” Although she’s slowed down a little, Gordon still walks to work at the Capitol when the weather’s nice. Her son, Jim, calls her “the Energizer Bunny.” After the party, she headed upstairs and back to work, with no plans of retiring anytime soon.



■ UNITED STATES

Asians least hit by crime

Asian-Americans suffer less from violent crime than other racial groups in the US, Justice Department figures have shown. Some 11 out of 1,000 Asian-­Americans aged 12 or older are the victims of non-fatal violent crimes each year, compared with 24 out of every 1,000 non-Asian Americans, statistics released on Wednesday showed. In 2006, 360 Asian-Americans were murdered. They were victims of 2 percent of all US homicides, while accounting for about 4 percent of the population, the study found. In one of the more striking differences among racial groups, strangers were responsible for most crime against Asian-Americans. Seventy-seven percent of violent crimes against Asian-American men was committed by strangers, compared with 59 percent for non-Asians. Half of crimes against Asian-American women was by people they did not know, compared with 34 percent for other women.



■ UNITED STATES

Sebelius readies for hearing

Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius faces a confirmation hearing next week in Washington on her nomination as US secretary of health and human services. Sebelius will testify on Thursday before the Senate Finance Committee, which will then decide whether to send the nomination to the full Senate. She is expected to face little opposition.



■ MEXICO

Court upholds ruling

A federal court has upheld a ruling that dismissed charges against former Mexican president Luis Echeverria in a 1968 student massacre. Echeverria was the country’s interior secretary on Oct. 2, 1968, when soldiers opened fire on a student demonstration in Mexico City’s Tlatelolco Plaza before the capital hosted the Olympics. A lower court previously ruled the massacre constituted genocide but dismissed charges of involvement against Echeverria. Echeverria was president from 1970 to 1976.



■ UNITED STATES

Freedom Tower is out

The signature skyscraper replacing the towers destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001, will be known as One World Trade Center, the agency that owns the site said on Thursday. The building under construction at the site was named the Freedom Tower in the first master plan to demonstrate the country’s triumph over terrorism. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Chairman Anthony Coscia said the agency now refers to the building as One World Trade Center because it is the building’s legal name and it is “the easiest for people to identify with.”


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