■ ChinaWorkers blamed for deaths
China blamed negligent gas well workers on Friday for an accident that spewed toxic fumes over mountain villages and killed 233 people -- an unusually swift finding that highlights the government's increasing public insistence on accountability. State television said in its national evening newscast that investigators had concluded their probe into the Dec. 23 disaster in southwestern China, and that those who were at fault would be punished. In China's worst recent industrial disaster, a poisonous mix of natural gas and hydrogen sulfide erupted from the well and left a 25km2 "death zone" northeast of the city of Chongqing strewn with bodies.
■ China
Boyfriend gets the chop
A lovelorn 21-year-old waiter chopped off three of his fingers outside his ex-girlfriend's house in western China to try to win her back, the South China Morning Post said yesterday. The waiter sliced the fingers off in front of a policeman to prove his love for Xiao Qian, after she called police to remove him from outside her home in Sichuan Province. However, the gesture failed to win her sympathy, and Xiao refused to visit her former lover in hospital afterwards. "Nothing can change my mind," she said.
■ India
Pets eat old lady's corpse
An 85-year-old woman who lived and died alone in a remote cabin surrounded by her pet dogs in the Indian Himalayas had her body half-eaten by her starving pets, police said Friday. Neighbors discovered Sharda Devi's body after they broke into her cabin on Thursday in the township of Nahan in Himachal Pradesh state after they heard only the sound of dogs barking inside the house and no human voice. "An autopsy report showed that Devi, who lived alone with her three dogs, died a few days ago from a massive asthma attack," a police officer said.
■ Japan
Peeling good for the brain
Eating an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but Japanese scientists have found that peeling one may be good for you too, a newspaper reported yesterday. Experiments by scientists at Japan's National Food Research Institute have shown that cutting the peel from an apple stimulates the most highly evolved section of the brain, the nationally circulated Mainichi newspaper said. According to the report, the team used near infrared spectroscopy analysis to measure changes of blood flow to the frontal brain lobes of 14 adults, ages 23 to 52, while they were peeling apples with a knife. They found blood flow increased "conspicuously" when the subjects actually peeled but did not when they only rubbed the apple with the knife -- leading to the conclusion that a complex task involving the use of a potentially dangerous tool was activating the frontal lobes.
■ Australia
Croc star apologizes
Australia's celebrity crocodile hunter Steve Irwin yesterday apologized for holding his one-month-old son Bob just meters from a feeding crocodile during a show at his zoo on Queensland's Sunshine Coast. "If I could have my time again I would probably do things a little differently," an embarrassed Irwin told reporters at a press conference at which he defended what was slammed as a stupid stunt. "I would be considered a bad parent if I didn't teach my children to be crocodile savvy because they live here, they live in crocodile territory," Irwin said.
■ ColombiaJailbird elected mayor
RSS