World Briefs

South Korea is planning to stage robot taekwondo bouts, blending the country's ancient martial art with cutting edge technology, officials said yesterday.

The Taekwon Robots will face off at an international robot contest being staged by the Knowledge Economy Ministry and Gyeonggi province in October.

In bouts guaranteed to be bloodless, the robots will detect their opponents' movements with sensors and respond according to the data.

They will fight under the same rules as human contestants - three rounds each of three minutes, with three judges.

Taekwondo, a traditional Korean martial art, has gained worldwide popularity in recent years. It became an official Olympic event at the 2000 games.

The robots will be less proficient than human fighters but "will improve as time goes by", Roh Sung-Su, a researcher at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, was quoted by the Korea Times as saying. The institute will supply the robots, which will be programmed by university students.

Cash reward for missing torpedo

Taiwan's navy is offering a cash reward to any fisherman who finds a torpedo its sailors lost during a drill last week, the military said yesterday.

The offer follows four days of intensive but futile searching in the area around the Tsoying base in southern Taiwan, the navy said in a statement. Any fisherman who snares the German-built SUT torpedo will scoop 30,000 Taiwan (€755).

'Robin Hood' gang hit by burnout

Vandals dubbed the Robin Hood gang by Greek media had no truck with the poor following their latest supermarket heist on Monday, instead setting their loot on fire, police said.

A series of similar non-violent raids over the past years, which police blame on a group of anarchists, usually ended with the vandals distributing the goods to clients and passers-by.

However, police said they disturbed the party when 20 masked vandals raided a supermarket on a university campus in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki on Monday.

Instead the gang set fire to the money they had rifled from the cash registers, police said.

Dutch keeper Vorm happy to hold baby

Dutch reserve goalkeeper Michel Vorm returned to the Netherlands on Monday just minutes after his team's 2-0 World Cup win over Denmark after his wife gave birth on the eve of the game.

The 26-year-old Utrecht player, who was on the bench against the Danes, was surprised after the match when Dutch head coach Bert van Marwijk told him that he would be flown back home to be with his wife, Daisy, and baby son.

His wife gave birth on Sunday night and Vorm is expected back in training tomorrow with the Netherlands playing their next World Cup match against Japan in Durban on Saturday.

Factories asked to shut to save World Cup TV

Bangladeshi authorities have asked factories across the capital Dhaka to shut during World Cup games so that power blackouts do not interrupt football fans watching the television.

The two state-owned companies which supply electricity to the city made the request after power cuts during a match on Saturday triggered violent protests.

When blackouts hit the Argentina-Nigeria game, angry fans went on the rampage, damaging scores of vehicles and vandalising more than a dozen electricity supply centres.

"We have sent letters to all the factories operating in and around Dhaka to stop work between 5 p.m. and 11 p.m. - the peak hours - when the matches are usually held," said Faridul Haq, head of Dhaka Power Distribution Company.

"It is our humble submission to them that they close factories so that we can divert the power to people watching the World Cup. We don't want to see repeat of Saturday's violence," he told AFP.

Finns shed fat to boost literacy

Overweight Finns advanced more than their health by shedding weight to raise €1.44 million to improve literacy in Nepal, the national health institute said on Monday.

Some 14,000 Finns took part in a three-month "fat for literacy" campaign, supported by an anonymous donor who initially pledged to grant €15 for every kilogramme shed, but later doubled the donation to €30 per kilo.

The participating weight watchers shed a total of 48,074 kilos to raise €1,442,220, the National Institute for Health and Welfare, which coordinated the campaign, said in a statement.

The money will be used for the schooling of children and the training of teachers in Nepal, with Finland's Foreign Ministry overseeing the use of the funds.