Tue, Feb 05, 2008 page4

• World News Quick Take

  • AGENCIES
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  ■ MALAYSIA

  Mouse panty sales booming

  Malaysian Chinese women are snapping up red panties with mouse motifs for good luck as they prepare to usher in the Year of the Rat, a report said on Sunday. Ethnic Chinese account for a quarter of the country's 27 million people. The Sunday Star said the rat or mouse design has appeared on all decorative items such as lanterns and even on underwear in anticipation of the good fortune the animal will bring.

  ■ MALAYSIA

  Would-be Goldilocks busted

  A man broke into an empty house in the northeastern state of Terengganu, helped himself to cookies in the kitchen and then went to sleep in a child's bedroom, where he was discovered when the family returned home after a shopping trip, police said yesterday. The man, who later tested positive for drugs, woke up only when roused by police, who were summoned by the family late Saturday. The man was arrested for trespassing. "I guess my wife's cookies were just too irresistible for him ... The rogue ate everything," the house owner said.

  ■ BANGLADESH

  Soccer balls anger Muslims

  Dhaka yesterday ordered a probe into how soccer balls inscribed with an Islamic oath were imported into the country following protests from Muslim groups. The government said it was acting on newspaper reports saying balls inscribed with the Kalima, the main declaration of Islam, were being sold in markets. "It has hurt the feelings of Muslims. Marketing such footballs is certainly a heinous and condemnable act," a statement said. Hundreds of supporters of hardline Islamic groups held angry protests over the issue in the capital during the weekend.

  ■ CHINA

  Tibetan abbot jailed

  The abbot of a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Sichuan Province has been jailed for three years on charges of endangering national security by inciting the masses, a group monitoring human rights in the Himalayan region said. Khenpo Jinpa, 37, abbot of Chogtsang Talung Monastery, was sentenced last July, but the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy only reported his imprisonment in a statement seen yesterday. Police detained Khenpo Jinpa in August 2006 on suspicion of distributing leaflets calling for Tibet's independence and the Dalai Lama's long life at a festival the previous year, the center said in a faxed statement.

  ■ CHINA

  Train derails, six buried

  A cargo train derailed in Yunnan Province early yesterday, destroying several houses and burying six people, state media reported. The accident was at 6:30am in Qujing, a mountainous area, Xinhua news agency reported. The 17-car train went out of control shortly after leaving Geyitou station, jumping off the track and plowing into a number of houses. The report did not say what happened to the six people who were buried. The nation's sprawling railway system is considered relatively safe, with major accidents rarely reported.

  ■ CHINA

  Respect rights for rats

  An animal rights group called yesterday for the country to treat rats with kindness and respect, as millions across the nation begin to celebrate the coming Year of the Rat. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), said it has asked the government to consider animal welfare laws for rats used in lab experiments. The group also recommended a series of guidelines for animals used in science. "Rats sing, they dream, and they express empathy for others," PETA's Coco Yu (余卓靈) said in a statement.

  ■ AUSTRALIA

  Study rates cancer risks

  Drinking coffee, using mobile phones or having breast implants is unlikely to cause cancer, according to a risk ranking system devised by a cancer specialist to debunk popular myths. The cancer risk assessment reaffirms smoking, alcohol and exposure to sunlight as leading risk factors, but allays concerns about coffee, mobile phones, deodorants, breast implants and water with added fluoride. The five-point system created by University of New South Wales professor Bernard Stewart lists the risk of cancer from proven and likely, to inferred, unknown or unlikely. "Our tool will help establish if the level of risk is high, say on a par with smoking, or unlikely such as using deodorants, artificial sweeteners, drinking coffee," Stewart said.

  ■ HONG KONG

  Naughty pics from star's PC

  Photos purportedly showing actor Edison Chen (陳冠希) partially nude with several starlets were copied from his computer when it was serviced last year and later distributed over the Internet, the Ming Pao reported yesterday. The newspaper reported that Chen, 27, had the images copied from his faulty personal computer when he took it for servicing last year. "A person in the shop found hidden inside [Chen's] computer, confidential nude pictures of naked female stars, which were then secretly copied," the paper reported, quoting an anonymous source. The shop was raided by police officers in their probe of the case, which has already led to eight arrests on obscene material charges.

  ■ ISRAEL

  Three die in suicide attack

  A suicide bomber killed one woman and wounded six others in a commercial center in the southern town of Dimona yesterday, the first such attack in a year, police and emergency services said. The Zaka emergency service said the body of a "terrorist" and an explosives belt were found at the scene in the desert town where Israel's top-secret nuclear reactor is located. Police said there were two attackers, although only one managed to detonate his explosives belt. The Haaretz daily reported that the second attacker was shot dead before he could explode himself.

  ■ IRAN

  Space center inaugurated

  President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday inaugurated the country's first home-built space center which will serve as a base for the launch of research satellites, state media reported. The center includes a research satellite called Omid (Hope), an underground control station and space launchpad, the official news agency IRNA reported. IRNA said Omid would be launched in the next Iranian calendar year, which begins on March 20. The center was to be opened by shooting a probe rocket into space, state TV said.

  ■ GERMANY

  Nine die in house fire

  Nine people, including five children, were killed in a fire in a house in the city of Ludwigshafen, police said yesterday. Twenty-four people were taken to hospital -- two of whom were in a life-threatening condition, a spokesman for the police said, adding that it was possible more bodies would be found in the house, which was in danger of collapse. It was unclear what had caused the fire, the spokesman said. Fifty-two people, mostly Turkish citizens, were registered as living in the house. The number of fatalities could have been higher had a group of police, firemen and other emergency service personnel not been celebrating carnival nearby, the spokesman said.

  ■ UNITED KINGDOM

  Police bugged lawmaker

  The Metropolitan Police bugged a British Muslim lawmaker as he met with a constituent in prison, the Sunday Times reported, adding that Justice Secretary Jack Straw had ordered an inquiry. Police used a hidden electronic listening device to record two conversations that Member of Parliament Sadiq Khan had in 2005 and 2006 with Babar Ahmad, a jailed constituent who is facing deportation to the US under new extradition laws, it said. At the time, the two men were discussing personal and legal matters, it said. Khan, 37, a lawyer and rising star in the Labour Party, has tried to help the party win the support of Britain's Muslim minority. Straw said it would be "unacceptable" for such a bugging operation to take place, the paper said.

  ■ UNITED KINGDOM

  'Lolita' bed sales halted

  Woolworths stores in Britain have halted the sale of "Lolita" beds designed for children, after a parents' organization, Raisingkids, complained the name is synonymous with sexually active preteens. Woolworths said staff members who administered the chain's Web site that sold the beds had been unaware of the name's connection with Vladimir Nabokov's 1955 novel Lolita and two film adaptations. "There aren't many people in the company, in the whole world, who know about the Lolita book or films," Woolworths spokeswoman Lisa Lim said by telephone on Sunday.

  ■ BRAZIL

  Amazon shrinking: study

  Two research groups said the Amazon rain forest will shrink nearly 20 percent by 2030 as farming, road construction and poor government surveillance speeds deforestation, according to a study published on Sunday. As much as 670,000km2 of forest may be destroyed in the next 22 years, according to the University of Minas Gerais and the Amazon Institute of Environmental Research, whose findings were reported by Rio de Janeiro's O Globo newspaper. "The damage to the Amazon and to the planet will be irreparable," said researcher Britaldo Silveira Soares, predicting reductions in biodiversity and rainfall.

  ■ CANADA

  Snowmobiler dies

  A young man who died in an avalanche while he was out snowmobiling is the 12th western fatality in the country this year, a spokesman for the Canadian Avalanche Centre said. The 23-year-old man, whose name has not been released by police, was engaged on Friday in a popular snowmobile pursuit known as ``high marking,'' in Elk Valley, when the accident occurred. High marking is essentially climbing to the tops of hills and making it back down, said Cam Campbell, the center's avalanche forecaster in Revelstoke, British Columbia.

  ■ CHILE

  Lava, ash force evacuation

  Authorities evacuated 20 residents near the Llaima volcano on Sunday as it spilled lava and ash a month after a fiery eruption. "There are slight lava and ash emissions ... we evacuated 20 residents as a preventive measure," Miguel Munoz, a spokesman for the national emergency services agency, said. Llaima is one of the country's most active volcanoes and is in the Araucania region in the nation's south, about 700km south of the capital Santiago. The volcano erupted on New Year's Day, sending up a huge plume of smoke and coating the surrounding wilderness park with ash, forcing the evacuation of dozens of tourists.

  ■ MEXICO

  Mystery surrounds death

  A 78-year-old California man was found dead in the southern part of the country after his yacht ran aground, the US embassy said on Sunday. The body of a man believed to be John Long, of Alameda, California, was found floating on Saturday afternoon by his sailboat near the town of Puerto Madero embassy spokeswoman Judith Bryan said. It was unclear how Long died or why the boat grounded. Bryan said Long sent a distress signal from the boat, Culin. Meanwhile, authorities were investigating whether the boat was linked to organized crime or drug trafficking, after they discovered a false bottom, presumably for cargo, said an official with the country's navy.

  ■ UNITED STATES

  Police confiscate ads

  Police confiscated two display photos of scantily clad men and a woman from a national chain clothing store and cited the store's manager on a misdemeanor obscenity charge, authorities in Virginia said. The police issued the summons on Saturday after Abercrombie & Fitch management did not heed warnings to remove the images from the Lynnhaven Mall store in Virginia Beach after some customers complained, police spokesman Adam Bernstein said. One photograph showed three shirtless young men, with one man's upper buttocks showing. Attribute = (
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