■ Hong Kong
Fortune teller in court
A fortune teller was on trial in Hong Kong yesterday accused of tricking a lovesick 22-year-old woman into having sex with him. Keung Chi-wai, 46, allegedly got the woman to sleep with him first by telling her it would make her boyfriend love her then later by threatening to release a video of her undressing. After Keung had sex with her for the first time, he got her to place some of her hair in a red packet on a makeshift shrine as a spell to win her boyfriend's heart. They repeated the ritual and had sex five times more but when the woman said she wanted to stop the sessions, Keung threatened to make public video footage he shot in his flat of her undressing.
■ Australia
Toilet demand perplexes
Australians voiced amazement Tuesday over a demand from Washington that airline passengers flying to the US be barred from queuing to use onboard toilets. A spokesman for national airline Qantas confirmed the toilet queue ban, which is an anti-terrorism measure, but would not say how it would be enforced. "The US Transport Security Administration are now requiring that passengers on flights to the US are not to congregate in groups in any areas of the aircraft, especially around the lavatories," the Qantas spokesman said. Callers to talkback radio were upset at the directive and called on their government not to comply.
■ Hong Kong
Pilot dies ahead of takeoff
A pilot died at the controls of a passenger jet as he prepared to take off from Hong Kong International Airport with more than 100 people on board, a news report said yesterday. The Russian pilot reportedly collapsed with a suspected heart attack in the cockpit of the Russian Aeroflot plane on Sunday evening, 20 minutes before the plane was due to take off. An ambulance arrived within two minutes and rushed the 55-year-old pilot to hospital where he was declared dead, the newspaper said. The plane took off with a different pilot one hour later.
■ Niue
Emergency aid arrives
Emergency aid and medical teams arrived on tiny Niue yesterday after the remote South Pacific island state was devastated by the worst cyclone in memory. Packing wind gusts of almost 300kph, tropical cyclone Heta ripped through the island of about 2,100 people two days ago, flattening houses and crops, badly damaging the island's only hospital and cutting communications. One person was killed, a woman whose house was crushed by a giant wave that hit Alofi, the capital of the world's largest coral island. The woman's 19-month-old son was found lying next to her, clinging to life. The boy and another seriously injured person were evacuated to New Zealand by air ambulance.
■ Australia
Gay resort goes straight
One of the world's leading gay tourist destinations is going straight after the expected numbers of "pink-pound" holidaymakers failed to materialize. The Liberty resort, an exclusive rainforest retreat near Australia's scuba-diving capital, Cairns, is broadening its scope after failing to fill more than a third of its US$180-a-night rooms since opening in 2002. It offered a spa, cinema, twin pools linked by waterfalls, and even an on-call plastic surgeon to provide emergency liposuction and botox treatment. But after 15 months in the doldrums it is re-marketing itself to straight tourists.
■ Sudan
Wealth-sharing deal agreed
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