<B>CHINA. From jail to Miss Tibet? A girl?s dream. </B> Three years ago, at the tender age of 17, Metok Lhazey sat in solitary confinement in a pitch dark, filthy and horribly cramped Chinese prison cell in the Tibetan capital Lhasa. This weekend, the nervous 20-year-old is dreaming about being crowned Miss Tibet in a small but controversial beauty pageant held by Tibetan refugees in northern India. ?My main motive is to push the Tibetan cause all over the world, because I know what is going on in Tibet,? she told Reuters in her hotel room as she prepared for the contest, plastic beads in her hair and blue bangles on her wrists. The Miss Tibet beauty pageant is in its fifth year, a budget contest in small town of McLeodganj that attracts only a handful of contestants but plenty of controversy. This year, a cosmeticist from Toronto in Canada, two students from India and one from Nepal make up the field. Not surprisingly, the contest has irritated the Chinese, whose troops entered Tibet in 1950 and abhor the refugees? ?splittist? agenda.

<B> INDIA. Jolie guard involved in scuffle. </B> An Indian security guard and a photographer were involved in a scuffle at the shooting of ?A Mighty Heart? starring Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie, an official said on Saturday, the latest incident involving the film.Local media said the guard threatened the photojournalist in the latest of several incidents over the security detail of Jolie and companion-actor Brad Pitt who are in the western city of Pune where the film is being shot. ?There was an incident in which the security guard and the photographer beat each other up,? Arti Surendranath of Kailash Picture Company, which is managing the shooting schedule in India, told Reuters. ?It was a mutual problem which they have sorted out,? she said, denying that a revolver was pulled out by the guard belonging to a private firm. Police said no charges had been filed in the incident.

<B> JAPAN. Woman gives birth to daughter?s baby. </B> A Japanese woman in her 50s gave birth to a child she had carried for her daughter, who was unable to conceive as she had her womb removed due to cancer, an obstetrician said yesterday. The case is likely to further stir debate in Japan about births by surrogate mothers, which both the government and a key medical association oppose. Yahiro Netsu, the head of a maternity clinic in the central prefecture of Nagano, told a news conference that the woman gave birth in the first half of 2005 using an egg from her daughter and sperm from the daughter?s husband, both in their 30s. Kyodo news agency said it was the first time in Japan that a woman has acted as a surrogate mother for the child of her daughter ? effectively delivering her grandchild. Netsu said the baby ? whose gender has not been revealed ? was first registered as a child of the surrogate mother and later adopted by the daughter and her husband. The Japanese Justice Ministry takes a position that the woman who gives birth, not the biological mother, is the mother of the child, which critics say is a stance that ignores the interest of the child.

<B>ITALIA. Statistics show flair for tax-dodging. </B>If Italians? tax returns are to be believed the average shoe salesman in the prosperous northern city of Bolzano earns 673 euros (453 pounds) per year, while jewellers around the country earn less than primary school teachers. Romano Prodi?s government has promised to make the battle against tax evasion a top priority and the latest data released by the economy ministry gives an idea of the task it faces. The data, referring to the 2005 tax returns by the self-employed, among whom evasion is considered particularly rife, made front page news in most of Saturday?s newspapers. ?Taxes, the big scam? headlined La Stampa. The data showed that on average the owners of car showrooms declare gross earnings of below 16,000 euros per year, less than the pay of the factory workers who make the cars. Tax evasion is a ?disease which exists in all countries, but in Italy it is an epidemic,? Economy Minister Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa said on Friday. A glance at the tax declarations of certain self-employed labour categories shows what he means.