Fri, Dec 14, 2007 page5

• World News Quick Take

  • AGENCIES
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  ■ INDIA

  Rail bomb kills five

  A bomb exploded under a packed passenger train in India's troubled northeast early yesterday, killing at least five people, officials said. Four people were injured in the blast that ripped through the luggage van of the Rajdhani Express traveling to New Delhi from Assam state, a railway official said. Police suspect the hand of the United Liberation Front of Asom, which is fighting for an independent homeland for the 26 million people in the tea-and oil-rich state.

  ■ CHINA

  Ancient trash to be cleared

  Officials running the huge Three Gorges Dam have vowed to clear the last of the "1,000-year-old" trash mountain fouling the reservoir, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday. The 300,000-tonne slope of garbage teetering on the shores of the Yangtze River dates back to the Song Dynasty (960-1279) and has been rising rapidly in recent years, Xinhua quoted an official at Luoqi Town in southwest China as saying. Residents of Luoqi have no where else to dump garbage and add more than 400kg to the rotting pile every day, the official said.

  ■ PAKISTAN

  Seven killed in two blasts

  At least seven people were killed and several others wounded yesterday in two suicide attacks at a military checkpost in the restive southwest, officials said. As people converged on the scene of the first bombing near the provincial capital of Quetta, a second suicide bomber blew himself up, provincial Police Chief Saud Gohar said. Three soldiers and four civilians were killed, military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said. A security official said the death toll was 11, but the army declined to confirm this.

  ■ GERMANY

  Trainspotter killed by train

  A man trying to photograph a train carrying an exhibition on Nazi deportations was hit and killed by a modern commuter train on Wednesday, police said. The 68-year-old was apparently inadvertently leaning into the path of a regional express train at the station of Hannoversch Muenden as he tried to take a picture of the "Train of Commemoration," police said. He was knocked to the side by the train and died of his injuries. The "Train of Commemoration" -- a rolling exhibition on Nazi deportations -- has been traveling across the country for several weeks.

  ■ UNITED KINGDOM

  Police under pressure

  Police officers in Belfast have been forced back into their flak jackets because of an increased threat from dissident republicans. Officers on duty in Greater Belfast have been told to put the body armor back on because several have been targeted over the last few weeks, according to Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) sources. The move is a setback for the programme to demilitarize policing. Until the recent upsurge in dissident republican activity, officers patrolled Belfast without flak jackets and travelled in cars without armour. Two officers were shot in Derry and Dungannon last month.

  ■ SPAIN

  Fury over bikini calendar

  The Institute for Women in Spain said on Wednesday that it would complain to Irish and EU authorities over a Ryanair charity calendar featuring female flight attendants wearing bikinis. The institute, part of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, said the photographs "represent the flight attendants as sexual objects." "It is significant that only women are used, in a sector in which there is a considerable percentage of men," it said in a statement. The 2008 calendar -- called the Girls of Ryanair -- shows 12 flight attendants posing inside and outside planes. April is represented by "Nicola from Stansted," who appears in a bikini bottom, covering her modesty with a lifejacket.

  ■ GERMANY

  Miser suffers poisoning

  A man nearly died from alcohol poisoning after quaffing 1 liter of vodka at an airport security check instead of handing it over to comply with new carry-on rules, police said on Wednesday. The incident occurred at the Nuremberg airport on Tuesday, where the 64-year-old man was switching planes on his way home to Dresden from a holiday in Egypt. New airport rules prohibit passengers from carrying larger quantities of liquid onto planes, and he was told at a security check he would have to either throw out the bottle of vodka or pay a fee to have his carryon bag checked as cargo. Instead, he chugged the bottle down -- and was quickly unable to stand or otherwise function, police said.

  ■ UNITED KINGDOM

  Pratchett has Alzheimer's

  Best-selling fantasy author Terry Pratchett has been diagnosed with a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer's disease, he said in a message posted to his illustrator's Web site. In a brief note to fans, Pratchett, 59, said he was taking the news "fairly philosophically" and "possibly with a mild optimism." "I would have liked to keep this one quiet for a little while, but because of upcoming conventions and of course the need to keep my publishers informed, it seems to me unfair to withhold the news," he wrote.

  ■ UNITED STATES

  Ex-barista sues Starbucks

  A former Starbucks barista is suing the company for US$4 million because she says noise levels in the Manhattan coffee shop where she worked were too high. According to court papers changes to the coffee shop, like removing the carpeting and draperies and installing "loud, buzzing" ovens, created a noise level that was too much to bear for Joyce Cohen. She was eventually diagnosed with hyperacusis -- a condition that makes people overly sensitive to everyday sounds -- and requested Starbucks reassign her and make what she called "reasonable accommodations," like playing music at a lower volume. Starbucks refused and Cohen said she was fired when she did not return to work from medical leave.

  ■ MEXICO

  `Cannibal' commits suicide

  A man dubbed the "Cannibal Poet" and charged with killing three women and eating their flesh, wrote messages for his mother before hanging himself, prison officials said on Wednesday. Jose Luis Calva was found hanging by his belt on Tuesday in his prison cell. He was arrested on Oct. 8 in his Mexico City apartment where police found an arm and a leg of his fiancee in his refrigerator. The rest of her remains were discovered in a cupboard. He was also a suspect in the murders of two other women. Calva called himself a writer and poet and sold his writing on the street.

  ■ MEXICO

  `Robin Hood' gets beer

  Jesus Malverde is considered a Mexican Robin Hood and the patron saint of drug lords. On Wednesday, he got his own beer. A Mexican brewery began selling the Malverde beer in the state of Sinaloa, long considered one of the country's drug strongholds. Malverde was hanged in 1909 and later developed a reputation as someone who stole from the rich and gave to the poor, although the details of his life remain unclear. He was adopted as the saint for drug traffickers although the Roman Catholic Church does not recognize Malverde. Minerva Brewery decided to use his name because it wanted a new beer to market in northwest Mexico, marketing director Juan Carlos Banda said.
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