Vietnam says it will ask for international help to find out what's causing a skin infection that's already killed 19 people in the central province of Quang Ngai. More than 170 have been made ill. The disease is baffling health workers, as Viv Marsh of our Asia-Pacific desk reports.

The disease first emerged last year then

subsided

, but it's broken out again in an impoverished, mountainous part of Quang Ngai province. Frightened residents of Reu village have laid branches across the path to the houses of infected people to try to isolate the outbreak. It begins with a rash on the hands and feet. If it isn't treated early, it can result in liver problems and multiple organ failure. Dozens of people are being treated at a

leprosy

hospital in the neighbouring province of Binh Dinh. Vietnam's health ministry has carried out tests but says it can't yet

pinpoint

the cause.

Charles Colson, adviser to the American President Richard Nixon, has died aged 80. Mr Colson was jailed for his role in the Watergate scandal that led to President Nixon's resignation, but went on to become an influential evangelical Christian writer and broadcaster. He said prison life had humbled him, turning him from someone who looked down at life from the top into someone who saw life from the underside.

An armed man has failed in his attempt to steal a small plane from an airport in Los Angeles because he didn't realise that it had been chained to the ground. Employees at the LA county airport said the man had pulled out a gun and grabbed the keys, but the plane was locked to the