Wed, Dec 13, 2006 page7

• World News Quick Take

  • AGENCIES
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  ■ China
  Hu's son wins hefty contract

  A company headed by the son of Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) has won a hefty government deal to supply airports throughout the country with scanners to detect liquid explosives, Nuctech Co and the civil aviation officials said yesterday. Nuctech's scanners outperformed competitors, using X-rays to detect whether a liquid is harmless or potentially volatile in five seconds, they said. Financial terms for the deal were not disclosed.

  ■ China

  Stone Age ruins discovered

  Archeologists have made a rare discovery of ruins dating back 20,000 years that contain thousands of stone implements, Xinhua news agency said yesterday. Experts say the find in Shaanxi Province represents one of the most important discoveries ever from the Paleolithic period in China, it said. The sites will provide clues to human life and stone technology at the time, it said, quoting officials at the Shaanxi Provincial Archeological Institute. Relatively few decorative Stone Age tools have been found in China compared with Europe, they said. One of the key finds was a shale shovel, believed to be the earliest polished stone implement ever found in the country, Xinhua said.

  ■ Malaysia

  Singaporeans freed

  Two Singaporean men were released unharmed on Sunday by kidnappers in southern Malaysia after a 2.5 million ringgit (US$704,900) ransom was paid, the Star reported yesterday. The men, a company managing director and his business consultant, both in their 50s, were abducted last Wednesday from the Senai Industrial Estate, it said. Their identity was not revealed in the report.

  ■ Australia
  Hangovers prove costly

  Australians have a reputation as big drinkers but a new report has found many cannot handle their hangovers, with drinkers claiming more than 2.6 million sick days a year as a result of a night on the booze. The study of 13,500 drinkers, published in this month's issue of the Medical Journal of Australia, found days lost due to alcohol sickness and injuries was costing A$437 million (US$344 million) a year. The study by Flinders University found heavy drinkers managed their hangovers better than light drinkers who claimed a higher number of sick days.

  ■ South Korea

  Culling at farms widens

  The scope of poultry culls around farms infected with the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu will be widened, the agriculture ministry said yesterday, as it battled its third outbreak in less than three weeks. Seoul confirmed on Monday a new case of the highly pathogenic bird flu at a quail farm in North Cholla Province, 170km south of Seoul. The latest case, some 18km from the original H5N1 outbreak in the same province, raised concerns that quarantine measures had failed despite a cull of 760,000 poultry near two infected farms.

  ■ Japan

  Support for PM drops

  Public support for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has fallen rapidly since he took office in September, newspaper polls released yesterday showed, underscoring voter disappointment over his waning leadership and reformist stance. A poll by the Mainichi Shimbun found 46 percent of respondents supported Abe's Cabinet, down 7 percentage points from a previous poll late last month. Those who disapproved of Abe rose 8 points to 30 percent.

  The Asahi Shimbun poll showed support for Abe falling to 47 percent from 53 percent, with disapproval rising from 21 percent to 32 percent.

  ■ Pakistan

  Hekmatyar predicts US defeat

  In a rare video message, Afghan insurgent leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar claimed that US troops will be forced out of Afghanistan like the Soviets before them. The leader of the Hezb-e-Islami militant group also touts the Republican Party defeat in last month's US midterm elections as a victory for militants fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. "It seems that every bullet that mujahedeen had fired toward the Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan has turned into a vote against Bush," Hekmatyar said in the undated video statement. "I am convinced that the fate Soviet Union faced is awaiting America as well," he said.

  ■ India

  Two-timers cause problems

  Police in Mumbai has so many two-timing officers that they have been asked to nominate which family should inherit their pension if they die in the line of duty, a report said on Sunday. "It has been observed that settlement of dues gets delayed due to policemen having multiple families," the Indian Express quoted a police department circular as saying. The police pension division estimates there are at least 144 policemen with two families in the city, including lower-ranking constables and senior inspectors, out of a force of nearly 40,000. The legal family is usually in the village they come from, while the illegal one is in Mumbai.

  ■ United States
  Group claims bomb attack

  An al-Qaeda-linked Algerian militant group claimed responsibility on Monday for a deadly bomb attack against vehicles carrying employees of a US company's affiliate. The Salafist Group for Call and Combat also warned Algerians to avoid places where Americans are located in Algeria, suggesting more attacks could follow. "Stay away from the infidels' interests to avoid any harm that could befall you from mixing with them at the time they are targeted," said the group, known by its acronym in French, GSPC. In Sunday's attack, assailants hurled a bomb and shot at two vehicles carrying employees of Brown & Root-Condor.

  ■ Madagascar

  Re-election contested

  Two opposition candidates said on Monday they would go to court to challenge President Marc Ravalomanana's re-election and try to force a second round of voting. The Interior Ministry said on Sunday that Ravalomanana got 54.8 percent of the vote. Ravalomanana, a dairy tycoon known as the "Milkman," needed 50 percent to avoid a runoff. Lahiniriko Jean, who finished second, and Roland Ratsiraka, who finished third, said on Monday they were filing complaints with the Constitutional High Court claiming that there were problems with the voters roll and seeking a new round of voting for all fourteen candidates.

  ■ United Kingdom

  Churchill painting sold

  A Moroccan landscape by Winston Churchill was sold on Monday for ?612,800 (US$1.2 million), more than twice its highest pre-sale estimate. View of Tinherir was sold at Sotheby's auction house by the family of its original owner, US General George Marshall. The late British prime minister, a respected amateur artist, painted View of Tinherir in 1951 during one of his frequent trips to Marrakech in Morocco. In 1953 he gave it to Marshall as a symbol of Anglo-American solidarity.

  ■ Turkey

  Boiler explosion kills six

  A boiler explosion on Monday knocked down part of a five-story building housing military families in Diyarbakir, killing at least six people, local officials said. Rescuers were still trying to reach two people believed trapped under the rubble. General Ilker Basbug, commander of the Land Forces, said the search for the trapped would "continue throughout the night." Among the dead were four children, including a newborn, local officials said. Rescuers briefly heard at least two people respond to their calls earlier in the day, the media said. At least five apartments were affected by the explosion.

  ■ Israel

  Hawking shows funny side

  Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, in an upbeat interview on Israeli TV, showed off his sense of humor on Monday, saying that while his debilitating illness had not prevented him from living a full and satisfying life, "the only advantage of my disability is that I do not get put on a lot of boring committees." Hawking, 64, whose speech and mobility have been limited to a speech synthesizer and wheelchair by the progression of Lou Gehrig's disease, gave an interview to Israeli journalist Yair Lapid's popular talk show on Channel 2 TV. Hawking, a mathematics professor at the University of Cambridge, was visiting Israel for the fourth time.

  ■ United States
  `Harassed' soldier cuts deal

  The Army has reached a deal with a military police soldier who walked away from her post and refused to return to Iraq because she said she was sexually harassed by other officers. Army Specialist Suzanne Swift, 22, of Eugene, Oregon, had been scheduled for a special court-martial next month for missing movement and being absent without leave. In a deal reached on Dec. 7, Swift agreed to plead guilty to the charges, Fort Lewis officials said on Monday. Under the deal, Swift avoids the chance of a federal conviction on her record and will remain eligible for an honorable discharge once she completes her five years of service.

  ■ Brazil

  Rancher pleads innocence

  A powerful rancher pleaded not guilty on Monday to ordering the killings of eight squatters on his rain forest ranch 21 years ago. The case is unique in that it involves the trial of a rancher accused of ordering the killings in this state known for land-related violence, rather than just the gunmen. Jose Edmundo Ortiz Vergolino denied he ordered the killings of eight people who had settled on his ranch in the Amazon state of Para in 1985, said spokeswoman Gloria Lima. A hired gunman convicted in connection with the killings that took place on two separate days in June 1985 told prosecutors Vergolino had ordered them. The jury is expected to hand down a verdict today.

  ■ Mexico

  Worshippers mass in Mexico

  Hundreds of thousands of worshippers converged on Mexico City's Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe for Tuesday's 475th anniversary of the Virgin's appearance before Indian peasant Juan Diego in 1531. Arriving on foot, bicycles, trucks and buses, many of the Roman Catholic faithful carried portraits of the "dark-skinned Virgin" on their annual pilgrimage to the Basilica. In 2002, John Paul II canonized Juan Diego as the first Indian saint of the Americas, part of efforts by the church to counter Protestant gains in the traditionally Catholic region.

  ■ Colombia

  Border coca plants sprayed

  Colombia used crop-duster planes to spray herbicide on coca plantations along its border with Ecuador, part of its push to destroy thousands of hectares of the plant used to make cocaine before Ecuador's president-elect, who opposes US-backed fumigation, takes office next month. Escorted by US-supplied Black Hawk helicopters, three planes on Monday began spraying coca crops planted in the 586km of river-laced jungle that separates the two countries.

  ■ United States

  Blind hunting pushed

  A Texas lawmaker in this firearm-friendly state wants to help more people get the chance to shoot live animals -- even if those people cannot see. A bill filed for next year legislative session would permit legally blind hunters to use laser sights, or lighted pointing instruments. "This opens up the fun of hunting to additional people, and I think that's great," said Republican Representative Edmund Kuempel, the bill's sponsor. Visually impaired people are allowed to shoot now with the aid of a sighted person, he said, a requirement that would continue if the sights were legalized. "I've seen this on TV before, when they're taking target practice," Kuempel said. "When they aim the gun, the guide tells them, aim 5cm higher or lower and you're on the target, and you're off and running." Kuempel's bill would give the state until Jan. 1, 2008, to come up with a definition of legally blind so the law could be enforced.
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