Wed, Oct 18, 2006 page7

• World News Quick Take

  • AGENCIES
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  ■ China
  Ten die in mine fire

  Chinese authorities have detained the owners and managers of a mine where a fire killed 10 people and blamed faulty electric cable for the blaze, state media said yesterday. Sixty-three miners were working underground when the fire broke out Monday at the Longxin Coal Mine in Handan, a major coal-producing area in north China's Hebei Province. Rescuers managed to rescue 52 workers and recovered 10 bodies. One miner was still missing.

  ■ China

  ATM `monk' arrested

  Police have arrested a suspected embezzler dressed up as a monk, state media said. Chen Boshi, a manager in Jiangxi Province, was suspected of embezzling US$126,500 from his power company and fled to the temple in Hubei Province last October, Xinhua news agency said on Monday. After a tip-off, police searched several temples in the Henggang Mountain area and "noticed a monk in his 40s wearing a cassock and glasses, walking away on a mountain path with a string of beads in his hand," Xinhua said. He had eight ATM cards on him when he was caught.

  ■ Japan

  Struggling to meet Kyoto

  Greenhouse gas emissions rose 0.6 percent in the fiscal year that ended in March, reversing a modest decline in the previous year and taking it further from its Kyoto Protocol target to cut pollution. Japan's Environment Ministry said preliminary data showed that the country's emissions of greenhouse gases were 1.364 billion tonnes in the fiscal year. It said the figure was high because of increased heating fuel use at homes and offices in the winter, which was the coldest in two decades.

  ■ Afghanistan
  UK troops pull back

  British troops pulled out of a troubled southern district yesterday following an agreement with local elders and officials, a NATO spokesman said. The decision to withdraw from Helmand Province's Musa Qala district came after an agreement with tribal elders, the provincial governor and the support of President Hamid Karzai, said Mark Laity, a NATO spokesman. The troops left "because of the sustained period of calm," Laity said. "There has not been any contact with the Taliban." Musa Qala has been one of the most volatile regions of Helmand, where about 4,000 British troops who deployed to the province in the spring have been battling Taliban militants.

  ■ Malaysia

  Firm apologizes over slur

  A government-linked Islamic finance group has officially apologized after its religious chief advised Muslim staff not to give holiday greetings to Hindu colleagues for an upcoming celebration he described as blasphemous. The apology was posted on publicly traded Takaful Malaysia's Web site yesterday. The company, which is majority-owned by Malaysia's Bank Islam, has already distanced itself from an e-mail memo sent by its religious department chief, Mohamed Fauzi Mustaffa, that advised Muslim employees against wishing Hindus "Happy Diwali." ``We would like to apologize for any confusion and ill-feelings that may have arose from the e-mail,'' the company said on its the Web site.

  ■ Pakistan

  PM criticizes India

  India has provided no evidence of Pakistan's alleged involvement in the Mumbai train bombings in July, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said on Monday, urging New Delhi to desist from blaming Islamabad. "India has no right to accuse Pakistan without any proof," state media quoted Aziz as telling reporters. He said no evidence had yet been provided to Pakistan. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, during a visit to London, last week said that New Delhi would provide Islamabad with evidence of Pakistani involvement in the deadly Mumbai train bombings that killed 186 people.

  ■ Pakistan

  Suitor suicides in tragic error

  A Karachi man committed suicide after he thought he had accidentally killed his fiancee, police said on Saturday. The man, Ahmed Ashraf, was shooting a gun in the air outside his fiancee's home on Friday as part of his efforts to persuade her to get married quicker than originally planned when a stray bullet accidentally hit her, police said. "He was so eager to get married he stood in front of his fiancee's house and started firing shots in the air to catch her attention," said investigating officer Ghulam Hussain. "He thought he had killed her and within seconds shot himself. The girl is fine," Hussain said.

  ■ Turkmenistan

  President pardons 10,000

  The nation's president said yesterday that he had pardoned about 10,000 prisoners. President Saparmurat Niyazov said they will be released to mark the 15th anniversary of the ex-Soviet republic's independence. "We have never released 10,056 men at once. It proves how much the state cares about its people," Niyazov said in televised remarks. Eight of about 50 men convicted for a 2002 assassination attempt against Niyazov will be released since they "repented," he said. "The rest should be kept imprisoned, their guilt is excessive," he said.

  ■ Uganda
  Artillery round kills two

  Two people were killed and seven seriously wounded when an artillery round blew up as a man tried to melt it down for scrap metal, police said on Saturday. Police cordoned off the area where the shell was found, searching for other munitions after the incident, which happened on Thursday in Amuria, a remote part of the once war-ravaged eastern Teso region. "We understand this man picked up a shell and tried to melt it for scrap. He put it in the fire and it exploded," Francis Agwoka, acting police chief for the region, told Reuters by telephone.

  ■ France

  Conference offer made

  The government offered on Monday to hold an international donor conference on economic reconstruction in Lebanon in January. The offer was in response to a Lebanese government request, French President Jacques Chirac's office said in a statement. At a first conference in Stockholm, Sweden, in late August, the US, Europe and Gulf states pledged nearly US$1 billion to help Lebanon recover from a crippling war between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas. That money was earmarked for rebuilding infrastructure, clearing unexploded Israeli bombs and restoring social services.

  ■ France

  Journalist held in Yemen

  A journalist held in Yemen by immigration authorities for alleged illegal entry into the country is in good health, France's Foreign Ministry said on Monday. Daniel Grandclement-Chaffy, a freelance journalist, was taken into custody on Thursday after he entered Yemen on a boat filled with refugees from Somalia, Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said. Grandclement-Chaffy was working on a story about the refugees for France 3 television. "Our compatriot is in good health, though he was tired from the journey," said Mattei, adding that representatives of the French Embassy in Yemen visited the journalist on Monday.

  ■ France

  FLNC claims Corsica attacks

  A Corsican nationalist group claimed responsibility on Monday for 17 recent attacks on the French Mediterranean island. In a letter sent to a local radio station, the nationalist group -- known as the "FLNC of Oct. 22" -- said it was responsible for a series of bombings whose targets included local government buildings and vacation homes. The group said it dedicated the attacks to the memory of three militants who died earlier this year when a homemade bomb exploded. In the statement, the group lashed out at Corsican politicians, accusing them of "bowing to the orders of Paris."

  ■ Croatia

  Dental tourism booms

  The country, already a popular holiday destination for sunseekers, is now tempting tourists with the offer of dental services at less than half the prices paid in western Europe. Zeljko Popadic and his sister Jelena Nedeljkovic started a dental practice in the northern Adriatic town of Rovinj in 1997. They had only three employees and a few local patients. Less than a decade later, their reputation has reached foreign markets as Europeans take advantage of low prices in former communist countries. "Some 10 percent of our patients are foreigners and we're confident the number will grow," Nedeljkovic said.

  ■ United States
  Doctor pleads guilty

  Dean Faiello, an unlicensed Manhattan doctor, pleaded guilty on Monday to first degree assault for killing a young banker who died after he performed a botched laser surgery on Maria Cruz, a 35-year-old Philippine native. She died at Faiello's clinic in April 2003 after undergoing treatment for a growth on her tongue. Faiello admitted in Manhattan Supreme Court that when she began convulsing under an anesthetic he had administered, he failed to get her emergency medical aid. He then stashed her body in a suitcase, sealed it in concrete in his home and fled to Costa Rica until he was extradited.

  ■ United States

  President not `deaf enough'

  Classes resumed on Monday at Gallaudet University, the country's premiere school for the deaf, as faculty members voted overwhelmingly in support of students calling for the resignation of incoming president Jane Fernandes. Fernandes has said some people do not consider her "deaf enough" to be president. She was born deaf but grew up speaking and did not learn American Sign Language, the preferred method of communicating at Gallaudet, until she was 23. The campus was closed for three days last week after protesters blocked all entrances. After 133 protesters were arrested Friday night, one gate reopened.

  ■ United States

  Singaporean PM visits US

  Singapore's elder statesman met on Monday with US President George W. Bush and other top leaders to discuss maintaining peace and stability in Asia, officials said. Lee Kuan Yew, the Southeast Asian city-state's founding prime minister, also met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and was scheduled to confer with Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "The [US] and Singapore have a very cordial, productive and mutually beneficial relationship, sharing similar interests in maintaining stability, peace and prosperity in the East Asia-Pacific region and the world,'' a State Department statement on Lee's visit mentioned.

  ■ United States

  Fried Coke all the rage

  Fried Coke has become the latest artery-clogging hit at US state fairs, local media reports. The gooey Coke-battered nuggets topped with cola syrup won the "most creative" title at the Texas state fair in Dallas last month. Since then, the deep-fried phenomenon has spread to North Carolina and Arizona. "We've been getting calls from everywhere since we introduced it," Elizabeth Martin, a spokeswoman for the North Carolina fair, told the Dallas Morning News. "Everyone wants to know where they can get it." Fried Coke's inventor, concessionaire Abel Gonzales Jr, is a creative fryer whose experiments have proven popular. Last year he sold 20,000 fried peanut butter, jelly and banana sandwiches, the Morning News reported.

  ■ Paraguay

  Insect-repellent shirts touted

  Young entrepreneurs say they have a new weapon against pesky, and potentially dangerous, mosquitoes -- cotton shirts soaked in lemon-scented citronella oil. The woven, collared shirts typical of the country were launched this week by the surfer-inspired Pombero brand. Citronella oil comes from a perfumed grass and acts as an insect repellent. "This is a product aimed at people who enjoy being in the fresh air and in contact with nature, but who want to maintain a sophisticated style," company owner Rodrigo Jacks said,. adding that the shirts can be washed up to 40 times before losing their power to repel mosquitoes and other critters.
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