■ AUSTRALIA
Voters want Howard clothed
PHOTO: REUTERS
More voters would like to see Labor opposition leader Kevin Rudd naked than Prime Minister John Howard, a poll showed on Sunday just two weeks out from a hard-fought general election. The question, published in Zoo magazine, found that 34 percent of respondents wanted to see Rudd, 50, with his gear off, more than double the 16 percent who said the same thing about Howard, 68. Even Howard's usually strong following among the over 50s slipped, with the poll showing just 16 percent wanted to see him naked compared with 27 percent for Rudd.
■ INDONESIA
Students poisoned by milk
Police are examining samples of free milk distributed as a part of a local government health program after more than 100 students fell ill, a hospital spokesman said yesterday. The 123 students aged between eight and 11 years old were admitted to a hospital in Sukabumi district in West Java province on Monday after drinking the free milk, said Kustanto, the hospital spokesman. He said that 43 had to be rehydrated intravenously. "We diagnosed [the students] with milk poisoning since they became nauseous and vomited after consuming the milk," Kustanto said, adding that police took samples of the milk for further investigation. All have been discharged, he said.
■ NEW ZEALAND
Plane quarantined
Health authorities briefly quarantined 223 people in a Korean Airlines plane at Auckland Airport yesterday after a South Korean passenger displayed possible bird flu symptoms, officials said. The woman was later deemed to be "no risk" and suffering from suspected gastroenteritis, airport police Inspector Richard Middleton said. The woman, whose name was not released, was briefly treated at a hospital in Auckland, Middleton said. Crew on the flight, from South Korea via Australia, alerted airport authorities when the woman began vomiting and showing other possible bird flu symptoms, sparking a lockdown on the tarmac as the plane landed, said Norman Upjohn, an ambulance duty manager.
■ SOMALIA
Groups slam radio closure
Media groups condemned yesterday the closure of a Somali radio station in the latest government crackdown on journalists during an Islamist-led insurgency that is rocking the nation. The government ordered independent local broadcaster Shabelle Radio off air on Monday and briefly detained two of its senior staff. The station has been periodically closed and frequently criticized by authorities throughout the year. Paris-based watchdog Reporters Without Borders said Somali authorities' "contempt" for independent media had reached a new level with Shabelle's closure.
■ netherlands
No reward for donors
Kidney donors should not be rewarded by having their health insurance fees waived for the rest of their life after donating their kidney, Legislator Pieter van Geel said yesterday. Van Geel, faction leader of the Christian Democrats in the Dutch parliament, was responding to a proposal by the Council for Public Health Care to grant kidney donors free health insurance. He said he objected to creating financial reasons for people to donate one of their organs. Health Minister Ab Klink, also of the Christian Democrats and who is preparing a plan to increase organ donation in the Netherlands, has not yet responded to the proposal.
■ finland
Gunman e-mailed Cossey
A gunman who killed eight people at a Finnish school last week had chatted online with a US teenager who recently admitted to plotting a similar attack on his school, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported on Monday. Dillon Cossey, 14, who pleaded guilty last month to plotting an armed rampage at his high school, shared an interest in a video game named Hitman with Finnish killer Pekka-Eric Auvinen, the report said. The newspaper quoted Cossey's lawyer as saying the two may also have shared an obsession with the 1999 Columbine high school massacre in Colorado. Police seized Cossey's computer last month and were expected to say today whether they had found any trace of contacts with the Finnish gunman.
■ united kingdom
Christmas gift for the rich
For someone who has it all, London store Fortnum & Mason is selling a Christmas hamper for US$42,000. The Tercenturian Hamper, only on sale this year to celebrate the luxury store's 300th anniversary, will be delivered by horse and cart anywhere within or near the London's main M25 orbital. The three-tiered hamper contains goodies including a tin of Beluga caviar, foie gras for 25 people, a bottle of Chateau d'Yquem and two pairs of cashmere socks.
■ israel
Museum recovers clocks
Jerusalem's L.A. Mayer Museum of Islamic Art has recovered dozens of European antique clocks stolen more than two decades ago, including a pocket-watch made for French Queen Marie Antoinette. The museum said thieves stole some 100 clocks and watches -- mostly from the 18th and 19th centuries -- from its 200-piece collection in 1983. Last year it received a call from a Tel Aviv watchmaker, who had recognized the stolen clocks in a 40-piece collection that a British woman had inherited from her husband and wanted valuing. After more than a year of negotiations, the woman agreed to hand back the clocks and watches to the museum in exchange for a nominal fee.
■ UNITED STATES
Pilots press for UFO probe
A group of retired pilots and officials demanded the federal government reopen a probe into unidentified flying objects. The 19 former pilots and government officials, who say they have seen UFOs themselves or been involved in probes of strange flying objects, said their questions can no longer be dismissed more than 30 years after the US case was closed. "We want the US government to stop perpetuating the myth that all UFOs can be explained away in down-to-earth, conventional terms," said Fife Symington, former governor of Arizona and air force pilot who says he saw a UFO in 1997. The group included a retired Air France pilot who said he saw an enormous flying disc during a flight from Nice to London in 1994, an Iranian pilot who tried in vain to fire on a UFO in 1976 and a former Federal Aviation Administration official who claims a probe into a UFO seen over Alaska in 1987 was squelched.
■ UNITED STATES
Man hits jackpot at car wash
A car wash change machine in New Castle, Indiana, paid off like a slot machine for one customer, but the man turned over his winnings to police. Eldon McCammack, 71, put a dollar in the change machine on Saturday at the Trojan Car Wash. In return, he got 1,042 quarters, or US$260.50. McCammack said he first grabbed a top from a trash can to catch the coins. Another customer found a plastic container for the overflow. McCammack took the money to the police station, where officers counted the quarters and called the car wash's owner. McCammack went back later and washed his car.
■ UNITED STATES
Pope to visit in April
Pope Benedict XVI will visit Washington and New York next April, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops said on Monday. Benedict plans to visit Ground Zero in lower Manhattan, celebrate Mass at Yankee Stadium and address the UN on April 18, officials said. He is also scheduled to meet with President George W. Bush on April 16 at the White House, meet with US bishops at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington and celebrate Mass at the Nationals Park stadium.
■ UNITED STATES
Winds pound northwest
Winds gusting at hurricane force in some places on Monday left more than 125,000 customers without electricity across the Pacific Northwest and blew the roof off an Oregon firehouse, authorities said. Winds higher than 113kph blew trees and branches onto power lines and cut electricity to roughly 85,000 Washington customers, mostly in the western part of the state. Puget Sound Energy had about 37,000 customers in the dark in nine counties in Washington, a spokeswoman said. In Oregon, more than 43,000 customers lost power, utilities reported.
■ UNITED STATES
Protesters clash at border
Border Patrol agents clashed with demonstrators at a boundary fence in California, resulting in three arrests. Agents fired tear gas and hit protesters with batons during the demonstration on Monday, said Rich Macgurn, of the No Borders Camp, a group that organized the demonstration. "They were indiscriminately firing pepper spray and charging the crowd," he said. "It's really outrageous the way they behaved." No Borders Camp posted a video of the clash on its Web site. The fence separates Calexico and Mexicali, Mexico. Border Patrol and Calexico police did not return phone messages on Monday.
Agencies
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