■China
One-child families rewarded
China's capital Beijing has decided to offer a reward of 1,000 yuan (US$120) to all couples who obey rules restricting them to one child, state media said yesterday. The reward rises to 3,000 yuan for couples who lose a child and refrain from having a second baby, the Beijing Legal Times reported. An official at the Beijing Family Planning Committee said that a couple will be punished if they take the money and later decide to have a child. The couple will have to hand the money back and will be fined by officials at their place of work, the official said.
■ India
Heatwave kills 592
A severe heatwave gripping various parts of India has killed at least 592 people, with weather officials yesterday holding out no immediate hope of respite. The southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh has born the brunt of the sun's fury with 576 deaths. The United News of India quoted state officials as saying the Nalgonda district was hardest hit with 115 deaths, followed by East Godavari with 85, West Godavari with 73, Prakash with 59, Karimnagar 52, Guntur 46, Krishna 44, Nellore 30, Warangal 16, and Chittoor 12. Forty more deaths were reported from other districts.
■ Singapore
Dengue cases surge
A sudden surge in cases of dengue fever has occurred in Singapore since temperatures starting soaring two weeks ago, health officials said yesterday. More than 100 cases a week have reported, bringing the total this year to 1,842, according to the National Environment Agency. A blood test can determine whether a person has dengue. The dengue outbreak comes as the city-state continues to battle SARS, with 31 deaths out of 206 cases. The dengue situation is not likely to improve within the next month, as the recent hot and dry spell favors the growth of the virus in Aedes mosquitoes, officials said.
■ South Korea
Northern poachers caught
Seven North Korean fishing boats crossed a disputed sea border into South Korean waters yesterday in the fourth such incursion this week, Seoul's defense ministry said. The boats were catching crabs, an economic prize for which the fleets of the divided peninsula compete each year. They retreated after warning broadcasts by South Korean naval vessels, a defense ministry spokesman said. Last June and in 1999 there were deadly naval gun battles in the same Yellow Sea area off the west coast -- prime fishing grounds especially during the June crab-catching season.
■ The Philippines
Envoy slammed by Arroyo
Japan's ambassador to the Philippines came under fire on yesterday for saying the country was a dangerous place and government policies were confusing. "The views expressed by the Japanese ambassador are exaggerated and unfair," President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said in a forum with local businessmen. "It is regrettable that the gains we have achieved so far have not been acknowledged," she added. Japanese Ambassador Kojiro Takano said Thursday that he has not had a decent sleep since arriving in the country last year because of security fears. "We are under constant danger," he told the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines, adding that the fear was "not a product of imagination."
■United Kingdom
Refugee sews up face
An Iranian poet and political dissident, who sewed up his lips, eyelids and ears to protest what he says are injustices in the way Britain treats asylum seekers, is to be granted refugee status and allowed to remain in Britain, the government said. But the poet, Abbas Amini, who says he was repeatedly tortured during six years in prison in Iran, vowed to leave the green stitches intact, and to continue his hunger strike on behalf of other asylum seekers. He has spent eight days without food and seven without water, and has refused to take medicine for infections that are developing in his eyes.
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