Tue, Dec 01, 2009 page5

• World News Quick Take

  • AGENCIES
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  ■BANGLADESH

  Ferry death toll rises

  The death toll from the capsizing of a ferry over the weekend off the south rose yesterday to 72 after rescuers recovered an additional 14 bodies. Rescuers plucked 10 bloated bodies yesterday from River Tetulia, where the overcrowded triple-deck ferry capsized late on Friday, police official Mohammad Bayezid said. An additional four bodies were found overnight in the river, he said. Bayezid said the bloated bodies were found within 1km of the site of the accident. Rescuers were using boats to go further downstream because some bodies may have been washed away during high tide.

  ■THAILAND

  King to appear in public

  King Bhumibol Adulyadej will appear in public on Saturday at Bangkok’s Grand Palace on his 82nd birthday, but his traditional birthday eve address has been postponed indefinitely, palace officials said. King Bhumibol, the world’s longest-reigning monarch, has been hospitalized since Sept. 19, causing concern in financial markets because he is seen as the sole unifying figure in a politically polarized country. Uncertainty about his health sparked a steep fall in stock prices and the baht currency on Oct. 14 and Oct. 15.

  ■NEW ZEALAND

  Church fined for jamming

  A church has been fined for using a jamming device to stop its parishioners’ cellphone calls from interrupting services, a newspaper reported yesterday. The Ministry of Economic Development, which banned the manufacture and sale of jamming devices in August, acted because of a significant risk of blocking emergency calls in the vicinity of the church in suburban Mount Albert, Auckland, the Dominion Post reported. A ministry spokesman told the paper that while jamming may have ensured that prayers and ceremonies were not disturbed by the ringing of phones, it put the wider community potentially at risk.

  ■HONG KONG

  Children overschooled

  Pushy parents are enrolling three-year-old children in two kindergartens at a time, schooling them for up to 10 hours a day, a news report said yesterday. Children signed up to two kindergartens typically start classes at 8am and finish at 6pm, then have homework to complete overnight, the South China Morning Post said. The trend among middle-class families in the notoriously workaholic territory of 7 million has been triggered by a government scheme in 2007 giving vouchers for Chinese-language kindergartens. Better-off parents now put their children in a Chinese-language kindergarten for free and enroll them separately in a private English-language kindergarten at the same time, the newspaper said.

  ■NEW ZEALAND

  Rocket blasts to space

  A 6m rocket launched into space from an island yesterday, fulfilling a long-held dream for two local men, one so passionate about the venture that he changed his name to Rocket. Mark Rocket, 39, and Peter Beck, 32, said their Rocket Lab was the first privately owned company in the southern hemisphere to make a successful space launch. Their rocket, named Atea-1 and carrying a 2kg payload of nearly 23,000 messages to dead people from family members around the world, was expected to reach an altitude of 120km before falling into the Pacific Ocean.

  ■MAURITANIA

  Three Spaniards kidnapped

  Three Spanish humanitarian workers were kidnapped on Sunday on the road linking the capital Nouakchott to the city of Nouadhibou, officials and aid workers said. The three Spanish nationals, “two men and a woman, were traveling in a car, the last vehicle of a convoy that was heading from Nouadhibou to Nouakchott” when they were attacked on Sunday afternoon, a Spanish diplomat said. The convoy had earlier delivered aid to Nouadhibou and was transporting donations that they intended to drop off in various towns along the route, the diplomat added. A Mauritanian security source confirmed the kidnapping, adding the kidnappers fired several shots to force the vehicle to stop and then took the Spaniards away in a 4x4 vehicle. A spokesman for the Spanish humanitarian group Barcelona-Accio Solidaria confirmed the three were members of their association and named them as Albert Vilalta, Alicia Gamez and Roque Pascual.

  ■NAMIBIA

  Poll results still awaited

  Frustration over a lack of results from the presidential and parliamentary elections mounted on Sunday night, with several opposition parties complaining of irregularities. Party representatives held a meeting with the head of the electoral commission late on Sunday to voice their concerns at the delay in announcing results, more than 24 hours after polls closed. None of their questions were answered, Republican Party president Henk Mudge said. He said ballot papers had allegedly been moved from polling hubs without being counted and results had not been published outside as prescribed by law. “We are moving into a direction that can have very serious consequences ... if it means that we will have to go to court, we will do that,” he told reporters.

  ■SOMALIA

  Pirates warn China’s navy

  Pirates warned yesterday that they would kill the crew of a Chinese bulk carrier if China’s navy attempted to wrest control of the vessel from them. In a statement read over the phone, one of the pirates holding the 25 crew members of the coal ship De Xin Hai, seized in mid-October, said they had heard the Chinese navy was planning a rescue mission. “We know they have arrayed their warships in Somalia waters to attack us,” pirate Nur said, reading the statement from the ship. “There have been negotiations between us and the Chinese to release the ship and we are not ignorant about their deception. We are telling them not to gamble with the lives of the Chinese teenagers in our hands. Honestly, we will kill if we are attacked.” Last month, one pirate said his gang and owners of the vessel were discussing a US$3.5 million ransom.

  ■SOUTH AFRICA

  Toddler suffers in mix-up

  Staff at a Johannesburg hospital unnecessarily amputated the legs of a two-year-old girl who had been admitted for treatment of burns on her hands, local authorities said on Sunday. “The toddler ... was admitted at Far East Rand Hospital and later transferred to Charlotte Maxeke Academic hospital to be treated for burns on her hands. Instead she ended up with her legs being amputated,” spokesman Mandla Sidu of the Gauteng Department of Health and Social Development said. He said that a meeting was scheduled for yesterday to begin determining negligence in the incident of medical error and said that those responsible would face disciplinary action “which may lead to dismissal,” South Africa’s SAPA news agency reported.
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