■ Hong Kong
Hip-hopper gets bopped
Hong Kong pop star Edison Chen (陳冠希) was punched in the face by two boys in a downtown district, newspapers reported yesterday. One of the boys taunted Chen with hip-hop dance moves and then both punched the 23-year-old star, knocking him to the ground in the Central financial district, the Apple Daily reported. But Chen, one of Hong Kong's top new singers, chased and caught the boys as they tried to board a bus, turning them into police, the report said. The boys were later freed because Chen decided not to press charges, the Ming Pao Daily News reported.
PHOTO: AP
■ China
Panda gets sex education
Chinese veterinarians have begun showing American-born panda Hua Mei sex-education videos featuring pandas mating to prepare her for "blind dates" with Chinese suitors, the official Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday. The 4-year-old animal, whose name means "China-America," arrived in China from San Diego in February. "We hope she can get pregnant by the end of March. But first of all, she should have some sexual education," said Wei Rongping, assistant director of the Wolong Giant Panda Protection Research Center. Officials have shown her videos of mating pandas and taken her to see other pandas copulating, the report says.
■ Hong Kong
Rangers track `tiger'
Park rangers in Hong Kong staged a two-day hunt after terrified campers said they had seen a tiger, a news report said on Tuesday. The hunt was mounted after the hikers said they heard a roar like a tiger and a large shadow passed their camp site in Hong Kong's Shing Mun Country Park on Saturday. Rangers said afterwards they believed the animal was a leopard cat, barking deer, wild pig or a stray cow -- all indigenous animals in Hong Kong's rural areas, the South China Morning Post reported. The last tiger seen in Hong Kong was in 1947.
■ Vietnam
Logger cuts off ranger's arm
A forest ranger in Vietnam had his arm cut off with a chain saw after an argument with illegal loggers, officials said yesterday. Truong Bao Hai was supposed to be working to protect forests in Chu Prong district in Gia Lai province, but had taken three liters of rice whisky to drink with two illegal loggers, said Tran Len Bao, director of the district's investigating police. During the argument between one of the loggers and the ranger, a chainsaw started and cut off Hai's left arm. Hoang Van Khoan, the logger suspected of cutting off the ranger's arm, fled the logging camp after the incident and is being sought by police, the police officer said.
■ China
Wuer Kaixi plans return
Exiled Chinese dissident Wuer Kaixi (吾爾開希) said yesterday in Taipei that he plans to return to China later this year to continue the pro-democracy movement he was involved in 15 years ago. Kaixi, one of the student leaders of the Tiananmen pro-democracy movement said he hopes to return when China's warrant for him expires on June 13. "I will try by every means to return to China, even if it means being arrested," he said.
■ Italy
Former Nazi, 94, on trial
A trial involving Johannes Karl Schiffmann, a 94-year-old former Nazi officer accused of executing Italian civilians in 1944, opened in front of a military tribunal in the city of La Spezia on Monday. Schiffmann, a former lieutenant under Adolf Hitler, is believed to be living in an old peoples' home in Germany and did not attend the hearing. Along with three other officers, now deceased, he is accused of rounding up, torturing and shooting 11 Italian civilians in the region of Emilia Romagna, a massacre that has become known as the "carnage of San Cesario." The opening hearing was suspended after lawyers asked judges to order a medical examination of the defendant, who they said suffers from Alzheimer's.
■ United Kingdom
Deadly TB spread by air
New forms of tuberculosis resistant to drugs used to treat the disease are proliferating around the world, especially in eastern Europe, doctors warned on Monday. Experts at the World Health Organization (WHO) estimate that there are 300,000 cases of multi drug-resistant TB worldwide. Almost 80 percent of these are resistant to at least three of the four main drugs used to treat the potentially lethal bacterial disease, according to a WHO report published yesterday. Tuberculosis can be spread by aircraft passengers who may not know that they have it, according to the WHO.
■ Israel
Boy didn't know about bomb
A 10-year-old Palestinian boy caught on Monday at an Israeli army checkpoint with a bomb in a bag knew neither that he was carrying explosives nor that he was intended to become a suicide bomber, Israeli security sources said on Monday night. The boy earned money carrying bags at the checkpoint in the northern West Bank, and the sources said militants in the nearby city of Nablus "took advantage of [his] innocent appearance." Intelligence information that an attack would come from Nablus led the soldiers to check the boy.
■ United States
Clergymen charged
Two Kingston, New York, ministers were charged with criminal offenses for marrying 13 gay couples -- apparently the first time in US history that clergy members have been prosecuted for performing same-sex ceremonies. District Attorney Donald Williams said gay marriage laws make no distinction between public officials and members of the clergy who preside over wedding ceremonies. Unitarian Universalist ministers Kay Greenleaf and Dawn Sangrey were charged with solemnizing a marriage without a license.
■ United States
Animals tested for BSE
The US Agriculture Department will expand its testing for mad cow disease to more than 221,000 animals, 10 times the number tested last year, officials said on Monday. The tests will include 201,000 animals considered to be at high risk of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, because they show symptoms of nervous system disorders such as twitching. Random tests also will be conducted on about 20,000 older animals sent to slaughter even though they appear healthy. Those tests are aimed at sampling cattle old enough to have eaten feed produced before 1997, when the Food and Drug Administration banned the use of cattle tissue in feed for other cattle.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the