World Briefs

Burma’s government ordered more than 80 people at a shelter for patients with HIV and Aids to leave after a visit by newly-freed democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the centre’s organisers said yesterday.

Suu Kyi, released a week ago after seven years under house arrest, visited the shelter on the outskirts of Rangoon last Wednesday, promising to provide it with badly needed medicines. She also addressed a crowd of more than 600 who came to see her.

A day after her visit, government officials told patients they would have to leave by this week or face legal action because the centre’s permit was not being renewed, said Phyu Phyu Thin, a pro-democracy activist who founded the operation. (PA)

Remote-controlled bomb kills three

At least three people were killed and more than two dozen others injured when a remote-controlled bomb attached to a bicycle exploded at a checkpoint in eastern Afghanistan, police said yesterday.

Ghulam Aziz Ghranai, the police chief in Laghman province, said the blast happened as vehicles were waiting to be searched at a police checkpoint on a road leading into the provincial capital of Mehtarlam.

Deputy provincial governor Edayutullah Qalanderzai said a woman, a child and an elderly man were killed and 25 other people were wounded, including one Afghan policeman. (PA)

Talc sparks alert at television studios

An unknown substance which sparked an alert at the CBS Studios in Los Angeles was later determined to be talcum powder.

ABC spokeswoman Amy Astley confirmed that an envelope containing white powder was delivered to the Dancing With The Stars production office on the CBS Studios lot last Friday night.

The statement said ABC was later told by Los Angeles fire officials that the substance was talcum powder.

FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said hazardous materials officials from the city of Los Angeles, LAPD and FBI went to the scene after a report of a threatening letter containing white powder. (PA)

Suicide aid denial

A former Minnesota nurse has pleaded not guilty to encouraging an Englishman and a Canadian woman to kill themselves.

The Rice County Attorney’s office said William Melchert-Dinkel, of Faribault, requested a jury trial during his court appearance. He is charged with two counts of aiding suicide.

Prosecutors say he sought out depressed people in internet chatrooms and encouraged two of them to kill themselves. (PA)

Asylum seekers sew lips shut in protest

Ten asylum seekers at an Australian detention centre have sewn their lips together in a protest over the lengthy refugee application process.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen called the incident at the Christmas Island detention centre “distressing” but warned protests would not change the refugee process. “If you are a genuine refugee, you’ll be accepted. If your application is not recognised as being genuine, you’ll be rejected,” he said.

He said the asylum seekers had refused medical assistance but were taking water and sugar. Their actions are part of a larger protest by 160 detainees who have rallied for government action on their visa applications. (PA)

Artefacts returned

Peru’s president said Yale University has agreed to return thousands of artefacts taken from the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu nearly a century ago.

The artefacts have been at the centre of a bitter dispute for years, with Peru filing a lawsuit in the US against the school.

President Alan Garcia said his government had reached a deal with Yale for it to begin sending back more than 4,000 objects, including pottery, textiles and bones, early next year after an inventory of the pieces is completed. (PA)

Bishop ordained

China’s government-backed Catholic Church has ordained a bishop who did not have the Pope’s approval, despite objections from the Vatican and comments by a key papal adviser that the move was “illegitimate” and “shameful”.

Dozens of police surrounded the Pingquan Church in Chengde city, in north-eastern Hebei province, where the ordination ceremony was held for the Reverend Guo Jincai. He is the deputy secretary of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.

Police let reporters inside the church after the ceremony was over. “It went very smoothly,” the association’s vice chairman, Liu Bainian, said. (PA)