Thu, Mar 04, 2004 page7

• World News Quick Take

  • AGENCIES
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  ■ Vietnam

  Bird flu contained

  Vietnam has contained its bird flu outbreak that killed 15 people in addition to tens of millions of chickens and hopes to declare an end to the crisis by the end of March, the government said yesterday. No new cases of the disease in poultry have been reported in the country since last Thursday, said Bui Quang Anh, director of the Veterinary Department at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. Fifty-three of the country's 57 bird flu-affected provinces have been free of new cases for more than a week, he added.

  ■ Nepal

  Rebels kill 29 troops

  Maoist rebels attacked a telecommunications tower in Nepal's mountainous east yesterday, killing at least 29 government troops, officials said. Ten soldiers were missing and at least 10 rebels were killed in hours of fighting, they said. The rebels knocked down the tower, cutting communications to the area, and set fire to a bank and a government office before fleeing in their biggest attack since walking out of peace talks last August, the officials said. Twelve other soldiers guarding the tower were injured and 10 were reported missing in the fighting.

  ■ China

  Dissident shown mercy

  A jailed Uighur dissident had her eight-year sentence for "supplying state secrets to foreigners" reduced by one year in a rare move by China's hardline government, a US-based rights group said yesterday. Rebiya Kadeer, 57, is now due to be released from the Women's Prison of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region on August 12, 2006, John Kamm, director of the Dui Hua Foundation said in a statement. "According to sources in the Chinese government, if Rebiya Kadeer continues to demonstrate `genuine repentance and willingness to reform,' more sentence reductions or good behavior parole can be considered," he said.

  ■ India

  `AIDS' man kills family

  An Indian man said he killed his family and attempted suicide in despair after being wrongly told he had AIDS. "I found that my world had come crashing down" after receiving the faulty diagnosis by telephone, factory welder Madhava Rao, 35, told reporters on Monday in a hospital where he was recovering from swallowing poison. He wept over the killing of his wife, Shanta Kumari, 28, and sons, age 1 and 3. "I was worried that my family will have to suffer after my death and I did not want that to happen," Rao said, explaining why he killed them.

  ■ Australia

  Wool worth more than gold

  A flock of pampered Australian sheep have produced the world's finest bale of wool, expected to fetch more than a million Australian dollars (US$760,000) at auction. The Australian Wool Testing Authority last week certified it was the first ever measured at 11 microns thick. The bale's owner, pastoral company Elders, said it was too early to accurately gauge the value of the wool, which will most likely be used by a top fashion house for ultra-luxury garments. However, a bale of 13 micron wool was sold to a Japanese company for A$1.2 million dollars in 1997 and Elders' marketing manager Maurie McNeill said the latest bale could fetch even more. If so, it means the wool would be worth more than gold The Australian newspaper reported the owners called their flock's purpose-build shed the "Wooldorf Astoria" and said the animals enjoyed special food, a climate-controlled environment and listened to soothing piped music to reduce stress.

  ■ United States

  Meat recall no big issue

  The US Agriculture Department said on Tuesday its meat recall from the nation's first case of mad cow disease was nearly four times larger than previously disclosed, but dismissed the size as irrelevant. The government said the recall grew to 17,100kg from the 4,680kg it announced on Dec. 23, when the government reported that a slaughtered Holstein cow in Washington state had tested positive for the brain-wasting disease.

  ■ The Netherlands

  `War criminals' caught

  The Dutch police have arrested two former military officers, one from Rwanda and the other from Congo, on charges of war crimes in their home countries, the result of an effort to screen asylum seekers for possible human rights violations. The Rwandan is suspected of playing a key role in the Rwandan genocide of the 1990s and the Congolese of torture and rape in Congo. An official in the Dutch prosecution office said a special team was created several years ago because, he said, "we were getting clear indications that there were people who may have fled because they had committed atrocities and were seeking to hide here."

  ■ United States

  Roy says tiger helped him

  Magician and animal trainer Roy Horn, severely mauled on stage by a tiger five months ago, has recovered enough to tell Der Spiegel that he believes he suffered a stroke which prompted the big cat's actions. He has recovered the use of his voice enough to say that he now believes he suffered a stroke during the fateful stage show in Las Vegas on Oct. 3 -- his 59th birthday. Eyewitnesses recall seeing Horn stumble and fall, upon which the 270kg tiger lunged toward him. The cat's enormous jaws locked on his throat and the animal dragged him from the stage. Horn believes the Bengal tiger, called Montecore, sensed he was in distress and carried him off stage as a mother cat carries a kitten by the nape of its neck.

  ■ Brazil

  Mayor promotes health

  After ordering carnival's "Fat King" to slim down in a crusade against obesity, Rio's mayor has now taken aim at soft drinks, cigarettes and alcohol. Mayor Cesar Maia issued a decree banning advertisements for those items in municipal buildings, the O Globo newspaper reported on Tuesday. The decree, which takes effect in May, also bans the ads within 200m of all schools and daycare centers. The ban could create problems for beer companies, which have traditionally advertised heavily at the city's annual carnival parade, held in a stadium owned by the city.

  ■ United Kingdom

  Prolific downloader jailed

  An accounts clerk who downloaded Britain's largest known child pornography collection off the Internet was jailed on Tuesday for five years after a trial in the city of Lincoln. Andrew Tatam, who denied being a pedophile, downloaded 495,524 indecent images of children on his office and home computers between December, 1997 and September, 2002, the court heard. Some pornographic material, which ranged from pictures of naked youngsters to adults performing sex acts on six-month-old children, was uncovered. Tatam's lawyer denied that he was a pedophile, saying children represented only one quarter of one percent of the 10 million to 20 million pornographic images found in total.

  ■ United States

  Pastor's sign angers Jews

  A pastor who outraged Jews and Christians with a sign reading "Jews Killed the Lord Jesus" said he hoped a new sign of apology would calm the fury, but a later comment on the Holocaust drew more criticism. The sign outside the Reverend Maurice Gordon's Lovingway United Pentecostal Church in Colorado now says, "I am deeply sorry for offending the Jewish people, whom I love. Brother Gordon." Gordon said the earlier message was inspired by the film The Passion of The Christ, which some say blamed Jews for the death of Christ. On Tuesday, Gordon then said that Jews needed to forgive Germans for the Holocaust.

  ■ United States

  My bloody Valentine

  A Bronx woman who turned down a Valentine's Day marriage proposal was found dead on Tuesday after her heart was cut out and left on the floor near her body, a police official said. Second-degree murder and weapons-possession charges against her boyfriend were being prepared yesterday, another police official said. Betzaida Eva Madera, 20, was last seen arguing with her boyfriend after they took their son to a babysitter on Tuesday. The police found Madera's body in the dining area of her home. Her throat was slashed and her chest had a gaping hole in it, the police said.

  ■ Canada

  Smoker extends jail term

  For a 73-year-old Canadian man, 20 months in a smoke-free jail seemed just too long, so instead he opted for a longer stretch in a prison where he could smoke cigarettes. Angelo Foti was sentenced to 20 months for shooting and wounding a man in his backyard who was trying to repossess a snowmobile sold to Foti's son, the Winnipeg Free Press reported on Tuesday. In court Monday, Angelo Foti was agitated when he realized the sentence put him in a provincial jail, where smoking is banned. Foti's lawyer pleaded for a 24-month sentence instead, which meant Foti would go to a federal prison, where smoking is permitted.

  ■ Germany

  Boar goes ape

  A German hunter stabbed a wild boar to death in a stairwell after the beast rammed through the bolted front door of an apartment building and stormed up to the sixth floor, a newspaper reported on Tuesday. The beast, from a nearby forest, sped past a group of children playing outside and into the building in a Berlin suburb, probably in search of food. Petrified neighbors peered through their spy holes fearing their doors would not hold, then called 36-year-old hunter Conrad Meyer. "I grabbed him around the neck and then stabbed him square in the heart with my hunting knife," Meyer said in the report, which showed him in traditional green hunter's hat and camouflage kit dragging the carcass away.

  ■ United Kingdom

  Alistair Cooke calls it a day

  Veteran BBC broadcaster Alistair Cooke, 95, has sent his final Letter from America and is retiring from the show, the world's longest-running talking radio program. "Throughout 58 years I have had much enjoyment in doing these talks and hope that some of it has passed over to the listeners, to all of whom I now say thank you for your loyalty and goodbye," Cooke said on the BBC Web site on Tuesday. The radio legend's 15-minute reflections have touched on everything from the assassination of Robert Kennedy to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
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