Wed, Jul 23, 2008 page5

• World News Quick Take

  • AGENCIES
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  ■ NEW ZEALAN

  Mortuary switches ashes

  Two families have swapped ashes after an apparent mix-up at a funeral parlor saw one family bid farewell to a male stranger instead of their mother, a hospital said on Monday. Mortuary staff at Waikato Hospital in Hamilton on North Island realized hours after the cremation that they still had the elderly woman’s body, said Melinda Ch’ng, an official with the Waikato District Health Board. Mortuary staff immediately contacted the families of both deceased to inform them of the situation, Ch’ng said.

  ■INDONESIA

  Police suspect serial killer

  Police were questioning a man yesterday on suspicion that he murdered his lover and at least four other people, a police detective said. Verry Henyanksyah was arrested last week after a dismembered male body was found in a suitcase in the capital, Jakarta, police Colonel Carlo Tewu said. He said Henyanksyah allegedly said the victim was his lover and confessed to the murder. He then led police to four other bodies buried outside his parents’ home in east Java, Tewu said. Henyanksyah told police all the victims were male and that one was a Dutch citizen, he said. The bodies, which were unearthed on Monday, were too decomposed to immediately identify them or establish their sex.

  ■BANGLADESH

  Twins to be separated

  Surgeons said yesterday they were preparing to separate three-month-old conjoined twins despite similar attempts in the past leading to the deaths of one or both children. Banya (“Flood”) and Barsha (“Rain”), born in the north on March 24, are joined at the stomach and chest but have separate heads and limbs. Their mother, a nurse, brought them to the capital, Dhaka, this week where doctors at the country’s most prestigious hospital examined them. Paediatric surgeon Shafiqul Haq, from Bangabandhu Medical College Hospital, said doctors were optimistic the twins would survive the surgery.

  ■SINGAPORE

  ASEAN cuts costume show

  Russia’s foreign minister came as Darth Vader in 2005. The next year the top Japanese diplomat hammed it up as Dick Tracy and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice offered up a classical number on piano. Lighthearted dinner skits by foreign ministers of 27 countries have been the highlight of the annual Asia-Pacific security dialogue, hosted by the ASEAN. But host Singapore has scratched the top-billing event at this year’s ASEAN Regional Forum without giving any reason. ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said yesterday it could be because some delegations were taking “the performances too seriously to the point where it felt uncomfortable to compete.”

  ■AUSTRALIA

  Frenchman dies in jail

  A French visitor to Sydney was found dead yesterday at a jail in the country’s largest city, a report said. The Department of Corrective Services for New South Wales, which manages the state’s prisons, confirmed that a man had been found dead in the morning at Silverwater jail, but would not give details. News Limited named the man on its Web site as Herve Youdem, 27. It said he had arrived on June 18 as a tourist and had been arrested during the Roman Catholic Church’s World Youth Day celebrations, which ended on Sunday. An official at the French consulate in Sydney could not confirm the man’s identity. The official, however, said the man was not a World Youth Day pilgrim.

  ■ DENMAR

  Santa Clauses gathering

  It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in an amusement park where Santa Clauses from around the world are gathering for their annual three-day congress. Now in its 51st year, the World Santa Claus Congress starting on Monday brings together 136 red-clad delegates, mostly from Scandinavia but also as far away as Russia, Japan and the US. The activities on the program include a bicycle parade, Hula Hoop dancing and a dip in the Copenhagen harbor. Delegates go by different names, such as St Nick, Papa Noel or Sinterklaas, but the Bakken amusement park north of Copenhagen claims “they are all real Santas.”

  ■UNITED KINGDOM

  Parrot saves family

  A British family said on Monday they owed their life to their pet parrot whose loud squawking woke them from their sleep and enabled them to flee from a house fire. Francis Hall, from Fair Oak, in the southwestern county of Hampshire, said he would reward Bob the parrot by finding him a mate. Hall and his two sons managed to escape from the property, suffering only minor smoke inhalation, and grabbing Bob’s cage as they fled. “I used to find Bob very annoying with his growling and squawking. But not now. He is a legend. He saved our lives,” 18-year-old Sam told the Southern Daily Echo newspaper.

  ■SOMALIA

  Japanese vessel seized

  Pirates have seized a Japanese vessel and its 21 crew members off the Somali coast, maritime officials said yesterday. The Panama-flagged MV Stella Maris was seized on Sunday near Calula, a port in the breakaway northern region of Puntland, said Andrew Mwangura of the Seafarers Assistance Program, which monitors piracy in the region. He said the nationalities of the crew were not known. The seizure followed two attempted hijackings off the pirate-infested coast in the past week, said Noel Choong, head of the Malaysia-based International Maritime Bureau’s Piracy Reporting Center.

  ■CROATIA

  Official fired over remark

  The head of the state-run health insurance agency has fired his subordinate for saying “some patients must die” — a remark that caused an uproar. The agency head, Veceslav Bergman, said on Monday the comment by Tonci Buble — who headed the agency’s medicine department — was taken out of context but still harmed the agency’s reputation. Media quoted Buble as using that remark when asked about a young patient who could not afford to buy necessary medicine. The health agency was reportedly hesitating to cover her expenses. Buble insists he was never asked about a specific patient and was just explaining that modern medicine still has not discovered enough drugs to fight all terminal illnesses.

  ■SWITZERLAND

  WTO staff get T-shirts

  Ministers suffering from “negotiation fatigue” as the WTO tries yet again to break the deadlock on the Doha round can at least get a new outfit in the form of commemorative T-shirts. One such shirt distributed by the WTO, yours for a mere 35 Swiss francs (US$35), reads: “The right Doha deal at the right time.” Another bears the legend “Doha Round World Tour” on the front while the back included dates and location of previous ministerial meets — not perhaps the most auspicious roll-call given the WTO’s history of inconclusive and fractious meetings since the Doha round was launched in 2001.

  ■ GUAM

  Three killed in B-52 crash

  An Air Force B-52 bomber that crashed off Guam on Monday morning killed at least three airmen, leading to the search of a vast area of the Pacific Ocean for the remaining three crewmembers, the military said. Rescue teams have covered roughly 7,770km² of the Pacific Ocean, and the Coast Guard said aircraft from as far away as Japan were brought into assist in the search-and-rescue operation, Coast Guard spokesman Lieutenant John Titchen said. The Navy, Coast Guard, Air Force and local fire and police departments were involved. The B-52 bomber, based at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, was en route to conduct a flyover in a parade when it crashed about 48km northwest of Apra Harbor, the Air Force said.

  ■ECUADOR

  Rare tortoise may be father

  Lonesome George, the long-living Galapagos Islands giant tortoise thought to be the last of his kind, might soon be a father. The Galapagos National Park announced on Monday that a female tortoise that has accompanied George since 1993 laid three intact eggs that are being cared for in an artificial incubator. The eggs have appeared “after 36 years of multiple efforts ... when we thought it was impossible for the tortoise known as Lonesome George to reproduce,” the park said in a statement. The female belongs to the closest existing phenotype to that of George. Found in 1972 on Pinta island, George is estimated to be in his 70s — middle age for a giant tortoise. It will take another 120 days to learn if the eggs are viable.

  ■UNITED STATES

  Hurricane warning issued

  Forecasters issued a hurricane warning yesterday as Tropical Storm Dolly churned over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening to grow into a hurricane within 24 hours near the Mexico-Texas border. The warning means hurricane conditions are expected in the area in the next 24 hours. At 0600 GMT, the center of the storm was about 515km southeast of Brownsville, Texas, as it moved westward near 28kph, the warning said. It was packing maximum sustained winds near 85kph with higher gusts.

  ■UNITED STATES

  ‘Human smuggler’ arrested

  A Mexican citizen accused of driving more than 20 illegal immigrants in a vehicle that plunged into a canal, killing six of them, has been arrested on suspicion of smuggling, federal authorities said on Monday. The crash happened on Friday night shortly after the driver fled police in Westmorland, about 200km east of San Diego, spokeswoman for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Lauren Mack said. The California Highway Patrol said the GMC Suburban overturned into the canal and was submerged after the driver failed to maneuver a curve. An eight-year-old boy and his parents were among the dead; the boy’s 12-year-old sister survived.

  ■UNITED STATES

  Tobacco fights cancer

  A personalized vaccine made using tobacco plants — normally associated with causing cancer rather than helping cure it — could aid people with lymphoma in fighting the disease, US researchers said on Monday. The treatment, which would vaccinate cancer patients against their own tumor cells, is made using a new approach that turns genetically engineered tobacco plants into personalized vaccine factories.
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