Teen surgeon sparks an outrage in India

The 15-year-old son of two doctors performed a filmed Caesarean section birth under his parents' watch in southern India.

NEW DELHI — The 15-year-old son of two doctors successfully performed a filmed Caesarean section birth under his parents' watch in southern India in an apparent attempt to set a record as the youngest surgeon, officials said Thursday.

Instead, the boy's father could be stripped of his licenses and may face criminal charges.

Dr. K. Murugesan showed a recording of his son performing a Caesarean section to an Indian Medical Association (IMA) chapter in the southern state of Tamil Nadu last month, said Dr. Venkatesh Prasad, secretary of the association. The video showed Murugesan anesthetizing the patient.

Murugesan told the medical association that he wanted to see his son's name in the Guinness Book of World Records.

However, Amarilis Espinoza, a spokeswoman for the record book, said the organization doesn't monitor or endorse such feats because it would encourage the practice of "bad medicine."

The mother and baby were reported to have come through the surgery successfully.

Prasad said the IMA told Murugesan his act was an ethical and legal violation.

Murugesan owns and runs a maternity hospital in the city of Manaparai, Prasad said. The family could not be immediately reached for comment.

Murugesan, who could possibly be prevented from practicing and face criminal charges for allowing his son to perform the operation, expressed no regret and accused the Manaparai medical association of being "jealous" of his son's achievements, Prasad added.

"He said this was not the first surgery performed by his son and that he had been training him for the last three years," Prasad said.

Indonesia, Malaysia to revise labor agreement

Indonesia and Malaysia have agreed to revise the memorandum of understanding on alien workers after an Indonesian maid escaped from the 15th floor of her abusive employer last week, local press said Friday.

"Malaysia has agreed to review the MoU and honor us by arranging the meeting in Indonesia," Indonesian Minister for Manpower and Transmigration Erman Suparno was quoted by most influential newspaper Kompas as saying.

The two countries will appoint a committee to revise the articles aiming to ensure better working conditions for Indonesian workers in Malaysia, he said.

The minister pointed to an article that allows employer to hold passports of Indonesian workers in the informal sector, placing the workers in vulnerable position and at the risk of detention during anti-illegal immigrant raids.

"Malaysia also agrees to use the Ceriyati case as a momentum for changes," he said, referring to the 34-year-old maid who climbed down the Malaysian apartment using a makeshift rope before she was finally rescued by firemen.

According to the data from his office, Indonesia exported 3.9 million workers, with 1.2 million going to neighboring Malaysia.

China arrests 2 officials in slave scam

China has arrested two labor bureau officials for their alleged links to slave labor in brick kilns, amid reports Friday that kiln bosses were hiding child laborers and charging ransoms for their release.

The pair are the first officials arrested in connection with the enslaving of hundreds of children and adults at brick factories where they were forced to work long hours in grueling conditions without pay.

The head of the labor inspection team in Yongji district of Shanxi province has been charged with dereliction of duty, and one of his officers has been charged with abuse of power, the official Xinhua News Agency said Friday.

It said the two officials were responsible for abducting an underaged laborer who had been released from a kiln and was being transported home. They then sent the boy to another kiln where he was again forced into slavery, it said.

The victim wasn't identified, but The Associated Press interviewed a father in Henan Province who said his missing 17-year-old a experienced a similar situation.

The scandal that has brewed on the Internet and in state media prompted an extraordinary self-criticism this week from Shanxi Governor Yu Youjun, making him the first high-ranking official to perform a potentially career-damaging act of contrition in relation to the case.

That came during a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday presided over by Premier Wen Jiabao, who has built his public image on concern for the welfare of ordinary Chinese. Wen has ordered a thorough probe and punishment of kiln owners and officials who abetted their activities.

Since the scandal broke last month, more than 8,000 kilns and small coal mines in Shanxi and Henan provinces have been raided, with 591 workers freed, including 51 children, according to state media.

About 160 suspected kiln bosses have been detained in the two provinces, and at least one village-level Communist Party secretary expelled from the party after his son was found to be operating a kiln where 31 slaves were found laboring under extraordinarily cruel conditions.

Workers, including small children, were kidnapped or lured with false promises of well-paying jobs by recruiters at train and bus stations. Sold on to kiln owners for $65, they were beaten, starved and forced to haul bricks for up to 20 hours per day for no pay. Many of those rescued showed serious injuries from burns and beatings.

Investigations have been spearheaded largely by parents searching the mountains of southern Shanxi for missing sons. One group claiming to represent 400 fathers circulated an open letter online saying 1,000 children were being held and accusing officials of ignoring or obstructing their searches.

However, reports Friday said some parents had been contacted by their abducted sons who told them they would be released on payment of a ransom.

The official China Daily newspaper reported that a family surnamed Yuan said their son told them the kiln boss was demanding $4,600 for his release. It said other operators had been tipped off to raids and shifted their slave laborers to remote hiding places.

Sri Lankan troops kill 4 rebels in north; 15 decomposing bodies found

Sri Lankan soldiers killed four Tamil Tiger rebels in two separate clashes in the volatile north on Friday, the military said, while in the east, troops found the bodies of 15 rebels killed in battles during the week.

The insurgents attacked an army foot patrol near Muhamalai, a border post dividing government and rebel-held areas in Jaffna peninsula early Friday, said Lt. Col. Upali Rajapakse, a senior military official.

He said soldiers repulsed the attack by rebels who had infiltrated government-held areas and later found the bodies of two rebels.

Also Friday, troops fired at insurgents near Point Pedro town in Jaffna, triggering a pre-dawn clash, Rajapakse said. Two rebel bodies were found later. The army did not suffer casualties, he said.

There was no immediate comment from the rebels.

The military said soldiers found the bodies of 15 rebels and nearly a hundred anti-personnel mines when searching territory captured from the guerrillas this week.

That brings the estimated rebel death toll to 45 in Tuesday's clashes in the Thoppigala area between the army and the separatist Tamil Tigers, an official at the Defense Ministry information center said.

Sri Lankan soldiers have driven out the guerrillas from many of their eastern bases and Thoppigala is believed to be their last stronghold.

The violence comes amid a worsening separatist conflict in Sri Lanka that has killed more than 5,000 people since December 2005, rendering a five-year-old Norway-brokered cease-fire useless.

Even though the two sides have largely ignored the cease-fire as battles between the two escalate, neither side has officially withdrawn from the agreement.

Tamil Tiger rebels have fought the government since 1983 to carve out an independent homeland for the country's ethnic Tamil minority who have suffered decades of discrimination by successive ethnic Sinhalese-controlled governments.

More than 70,000 people have been killed in more than two-decades of violence.