■AUSTRALIA
Vet dies from rare virus
A veterinarian has died from a rare viral disease after treating an infected horse, becoming the fourth known fatality from the illness since it was discovered in 1994, a health official said yesterday. Queensland state Health Minister Paul Lucas said Alister Rodgers died overnight in a hospital after treating a foal in July that was infected with the virus. The foal originally was thought to have died from a snake bite but Hendra was later confirmed in horses at a Queensland nursery that was subsequently quarantined. Four other people who came into contact with the infected horses have tested negative for Hendra.
■CHINA
Dissent gets 13 years in jail
A dissident who tried to organize a national meeting of the banned China Democracy Party has been sentenced to 13 years in jail for subverting state power, his lawyer said yesterday. Xie Changfa (謝長發), 57, was tried in April and sentenced on Tuesday by the Changsha Municipal Intermediate Court in Hunan Province, his lawyer Ma Gangquan (馬綱權) said in a telephone interview. He plans to appeal, Ma said. The country allows a small number of officially recognized alternative parties, although they serve as advisers rather than competitors to the Chinese Communist Party.
■JAPAN
Teen pays teen for sex
A 14-year-old schoolboy is suspected of paying for sex with a schoolgirl aged 13 after meeting her through an online dating service, a police spokesman said yesterday. The Kanagawa Police Department sent the boy’s case to prosecutors on Tuesday on charges of violating the child prostitution law, the spokesman said, adding that it may be turned over to a family court handling juvenile crimes. The junior high school boy met the girl in March after he sent a message to a dating service Web site, saying: “I’m a man of 18 with a lot of money,” the police spokesman said. The boy then had sex with the girl at a public bathroom near a railway station in Kagamihara, Kanagawa prefecture, west of Tokyo, and paid her ¥60,000 (US$646), the spokesman said.
■INDIA
Bush crash kills 23
At least 23 people were killed and eight injured when a passenger bus plunged into a gorge in the northern mountainous state of Himachal Pradesh, police said yesterday. The bus carrying 31 passengers fell into a 91m-deep gorge near the Sundernagar area some 115km northwest of state capital Shimla on Tuesday night. “Most of the passengers were killed on the scene. The injured are being treated at a district hospital,” police officer Santosh Kumar said in a telephone interview. “The driver was unable to negotiate a bend which led to the vehicle falling into the gorge,” he said. The WHO says more people die in road crashes in this country than anywhere else in the world.
■INDIA
Militants killed in attack
At least five suspected Muslim militants were killed yesterday as Indian security forces foiled an infiltration attempt in the India-administered region, Indian officials said. A defense spokesman said combat erupted early yesterday after soldiers saw a group of militants in Gurez sector, 123km north of Srinagar. “The militants were trying to cross the Line of Control when they were challenged by the soldiers,” an Indian Army spokesman said late yesterday morning. “In the heavy exchange of fire, five militants were killed. The operation is under way in the remote area, and the firing is continuing.”
RSS