■ SOUTH KOREA
US to deploy F-16 squadron
A squadron of about 20 US fighter jets will arrive in South Korea next week for a four-month deployment aimed at evaluating US forces' readiness in the region, the US military said yesterday. The F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft, together with 300 airmen, will be arriving at the US air base in Gunsan, 270km south of Seoul, from Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, the US 8th Fighter Wing said in a statement. The deployment "signifies the United States' continued commitment to maintaining peace and stability in the region," the release said.
■ AUSTRALIA
Train rolls over napping man
A man had a miracle escape when a train rolled over him as he slept between railway tracks, police said yesterday. The 20-year-old was having a snooze on the sleepers between the tracks when the train approached him in the early hours of Thursday morning at Port Augusta, in South Australia State, police said. The driver spotted the man and tried to brake but the locomotive could not halt in time. Local reports said he was believed to be drunk and train operator Freightlink said he was lucky to be alive. "It was probably lucky he was lying in such a way that the train actually went over him, rather than across him," Freightlink general manager Tony Aldridge told the Australian newspaper, adding it was "not the best place" to take a nap.
■ CHINA
Hepatitis still widespread
Too many people are still not being inoculated against hepatitis B and the disease is having a devastating economic impact, the Health Ministry said yesterday. Though a vaccination campaign among new-born babies had brought infection rates down for children under five, there was an "urgent need" to expand that to the rest of the population, the ministry's official Health News said. "The hepatitis B rate nationally remains high and is not going down, which has brought with it enormous burdens," it said, citing a government meeting earlier in the week. "Hepatitis B vaccinations urgently need to be expanded to people apart from babies." China had almost 1 million cases of the disease, which cost the country an annual average of 915 billion yuan (US$125.8 billion), the report said.
■ CHINA
Mob beats up reporters
An unidentified mob beat up two TV journalists who were reporting on a rent dispute in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, destroying their camera in the attack, the Beijing Morning Post reported yesterday. A man wearing black attacked a female journalist from Sichuan TV, smashing her head against the ground, and her male colleague was kicked in the head in the 10-minute attack on Tuesday at the Golden Lotus Market, the Post said. The journalists were taken to a hospital and one was in serious condition, it said. Police caught two suspects but two others escaped, the Post said. The report did not explain why the journalists were attacked.
■ INDONESIA
Girl positive for bird flu
A 16-year-old girl from West Java has tested positive for bird flu, taking the nation's total confirmed human cases to 117, a health ministry official said yesterday. Joko Suyono, an official at the health ministry's bird flu center, said the girl fell sick at the end of last month and was being treated at a hospital in Jakarta. "A few days before falling sick, she ate three soft-boiled eggs. Some chickens also died in her neighborhood two months ago, but it is unclear whether she touched the carcasses or not," Suyono said. A hospital official said the teenager was in intensive care with a respiratory device.
■ MYANMAR
Woman killed in toilet blast
A bomb exploded in the toilet of the railway station serving Myanmar's new capital yesterday, killing a woman in the first such incident since the ruling junta moved there in November 2005, an official said. "A woman died in the explosion at about 4:30am inside the bathroom of Pyinmana Railway Station," a station official said. He gave no further information. Small bomb blasts at public places such as temples, markets and fairs are relatively common in Myanmar.
■ MALAYSIA
Palm oil group defends ads
A Malaysian palm oil group has defended advertisements claiming their plantations are environmentally sustainable after they were declared misleading and pulled from British TV. The Malaysian Palm Oil Council was "extremely disappointed" with Britain's Advertising Standards Authority for yanking the two commercials, it said in a statement on its Web site yesterday. "We do not feel that the advertisements mislead in any way, and we stand by our claim that Malaysian palm oil is produced sustainably," council CEO Yusof Basiron said. The British watchdog ordered British TV to stop showing the ads after it found there was no consensus on the benefit of the plantations to the environment as the ads claimed.
■ GERMANY
Activists protect tree
Activists on Thursday prevented a 200-year-old beech tree from being cut down to widen a road for a controversial new bridge that will span the Elbe River. More than 350 protesters, along with 12 activists who climbed the tree and refused to come down, forced city officials to temporarily back off their plan to fell the 20m tree. It was the latest snag to bedevil plans for a new bridge that has drawn criticism from those who say it would mar the profile of Dresden -- a UNESCO World Heritage site -- and encroach on the habitat of a rare species of bat.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Untested blood transfused
Eighteen UK soldiers wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq have been warned that they received transfusions of blood from US military sources that might not have been adequately tested, the Ministry of Defense said on Thursday. Defense Minister Derek Twigg said the risk of infection was low but was being taken "extremely seriously." Press Association, the British news agency, quoted an unidentified US Department of Defense spokeswoman as saying that all donors whose blood was given to British soldiers had been tested after the transfusions were given, and all were found to be free of HIV and hepatitis.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Church motion labeled 666
Eyebrows were raised in the House of Commons on Thursday when a motion calling for the Church of England to be disestablished was listed with the number 666, a symbol of the Devil. The motion calls for an end to the formal link between Church and state in England -- embodied in the monarch Queen Elizabeth II, who is both head of state and head of the Church of England. "It is is incredible that a motion like this should have, by chance, acquired this significant number," said Bob Russell, a Liberal Democrat lawmaker among those proposing the motion.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Sorbitol linked to bowel ills
Consuming too much sorbitol, a sweetener widely used in "sugar-free" chewing gum and sweets, can cause serious bowel problems, German doctors said yesterday. The warning follows the cases of two patients who suffered chronic diarrhea, abdominal pain and severe weight loss after ingesting large amounts of sorbitol. Writing in the British Medical Journal, the doctors from Berlin said the patients -- a man and a woman -- had consumed some 15 to 20 sticks of chewing gum a day. When they kicked the habit, both regained normal bowel function.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Paisley refuses handshake
Northern Ireland leader Ian Paisley refused a reporter's suggestion on Thursday that he clasp hands with his longtime enemy and current power-sharing partner Martin McGuinness, saying such symbolic handshakes were usually insincere. "I'm sick of people shaking hands and then going out and cutting one another's throats," Paisley said at EU headquarters after the Irish reporter asked him to shake hands with McGuinness for the cameras. "It is far better for us to behave in decency among people, [offer] no outward signs of anything, and live and prove our sincerity." The two -- bitter political enemies over previous decades -- are joint leaders of Northern Ireland's power-sharing government after the historic decision of the Irish Republican Army to renounce violence and disarm.
■ UNITED STATES
Cuomo raises eyebrows
Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's staff spent much of Thursday explaining Cuomo's use of "shuck and jive," a term with racial overtones, during a radio interview on Wednesday about the presidential race. "It's not a TV-crazed race," Cuomo said on WCBI-AM. "Frankly, you can't buy your way into it. You can't shuck and jive at a press conference, you can't just put off reporters, because you have real people looking at you saying, `Answer the question.'" A review of the interview indicates that Cuomo was not referring to the black presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama, but was generally discussing how candidates should interact with voters.
■ UNITED STATES
Mars collision ruled out
The possibility of a collision between Mars and an approaching asteroid has been effectively ruled out, according to scientists watching the space rock as it nears the Red Planet. Tracking measurements of asteroid 2007 WD5 from four observatories have so greatly reduced uncertainties about its Jan. 30 close approach to Mars that the odds of an impact have dropped to 1 in 10,000, the Near-Earth Object Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a posting on its Web site on Thursday. Scientists said the best estimate was for the asteroid to pass at a distance of more than 25,750km from the surface of Mars, or at worst, no closer than 3,990km.
■ UNITED STATES
Volcano threatens homes
Lava from Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii crept toward a largely abandoned subdivision on the Big Island that was nearly wiped away by an eruption that began 25 years ago. The lava flow on Thursday was 1.3km from the upper reaches of Royal Gardens, posing an immediate threat to the subdivision, US Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said. Only two of the homes in the subdivision are occupied, said Jim Kauahikaua, scientist in charge at the observatory. Dale Scharpenberg, a pilot for Island Hoppers tour company, said the lava flow was 3m wide before fanning out across the landscape. "It spreads out all over, there's a lot of flow pumping out of there," Scharpenberg said.
■ UNITED STATES
FBI fails to pay phone bill
A telephone company cut off an FBI international wiretap after the agency failed to pay its bill on time, according to a US government audit released on Thursday. The Justice Department's inspector general faulted the FBI for poor handling of money used in undercover investigations. It cited the case in which a wiretap under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was disrupted due to an overdue bill. "Late payments have resulted in carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence," the audit said.
■ UNITED STATES
Rare snow falls in Baghdad
Snow fell on Baghdad yesterday for the first time in memory. Delighted residents declared it an omen of peace. "It is the first time we've seen snow in Baghdad," 60-year-old Hassan Zahar said. "A few minutes ago, I was covered with snowflakes. In my hair, on my shoulders. I invite all the people to enjoy peace, because the snow means peace." The streets of the capital were largely empty as big, thick, wet flakes fell yesterday morning. The temperature hovered around freezing and the snow mostly melted into grey puddles when it hit the ground.
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