■ China
Lonely mom gets 200 suitors
A lonely single mother in southeast China has been swamped with 200 suitors after putting up a 60m2 advert seeking a boyfriend, a news report said yesterday. The 34-year-old mother from Hefei, Anhui province, placed what is believed to be China's biggest lonely heart advert on a billboard in downtown Hefei. The advert caused such a stir that she even got a response from a Chinese-American man living in the US who read about her search for love on the Internet. The billboard shows a huge photograph of the woman along with love poems she has written, according to the Hong Kong edition of the China Daily newspaper.
■ Bangladesh
Storm kills hundreds
Bangladeshi authorities sent food and emergency supplies to the north on yesterday as the toll from a violent storm rose to 66 with bodies recovered from ponds, rice fields and ruined homes. Survivors buried the dead and tended injured, many lying in the open. In several villages, mass prayers were held for the victims. "Village after village is lying in ruins. People are still in trauma. Only the brave are trying to rebuild their lives," said Prasanta Kumar Das, a local official in Netrokona, a town in the north near areas that bore the brunt of the storm on Wednesday night.
■ Fiji
Flood forces evacuation
Fijian army troops evacuated thousands of people to high ground yesterday as the South Pacific island nation, its rivers already swollen by floods, braced for more torrential rains. Up to 10cm of rain an hour hit parts of the country during much of Thursday, triggering floods that inundated thousands of homes, wiped out crops, cut electricity and submerged roads linking many communities. Floodwaters forced at least 2,000 people to flee their homes Thursday and take shelter in more than 60 evacuation centers, the National Disaster Management Office said.
■ Indonesia
Jakarta wants tall tower
An Indonesian consortium has restarted construction of what it claims will be the world's tallest tower, despite worries that the site is sinking into the sea, media reports said yesterday. The tower is being built on an old airfield in the center of Jakarta and will reach 558m, The Jakarta Post said. The world's highest freestanding tower is the 550m CN Tower in Toronto, Canada.
■ United States
New baby survives crash
A woman gave birth in the back of a car on the way to
a hospital, but the vehicle
then left the road and struck
a utility pole, killing her husband. Both the newborn boy and the mother, 22-
year-old Atara Sasoon, were hospitalized late Thursday
in fair condition. The car crashed on Wednesday about 1.6km from the hospital in the New Jersey town of Brick. Binyhmin Sasoon, 22, was found slumped over
the steering wheel and
was pronounced dead at
the scene. His wife was apparently ejected from the car and was able to stop a passing motorist, who found the baby in the car under
a coat. The infant wasn't breathing, so the motorist, taking instructions from a 911 dispatcher, cleared the boy's mouth and nose.
■ United States
AIDS alert halts porn films
Adult movie producers agreed to shut down sets for weeks after two performers tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS. At least 45 men and women were under voluntary quarantine after having sex with the HIV-positive performers or their sex partners, said Sharon Mitchell, spokeswoman
for the nonprofit Adult
Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation, on Thursday.
A list of quarantined performers was placed
on the Web site of the foundation, which screens about 1,200 adult-movie performers a month for
HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
■ Russia
Heavy ballerina loses suit
A top Russian ballerina, sacked for being too heavy, lost a damages claim for US$1 million against the chief of Moscow's Bolshoi Theater on Thursday.
Prima ballerina Anastasia Volochkova, fired last September for being too bulky for her partners to
lift, sought the damages
from Anatoly Iksanov for
harming her personal and professional reputation.
The case at a Moscow court centered on a newspaper interview with Iksanov headlined "No one wants to dance with Volochkova."
■ Italy
Artist ropable over media
British performance artist Mark McGowan dragged a TV roped to his ear through Milan on Wednesday to protest against what he called excessive political control over the media in Italy and other countries. His head bandaged to hold the rope, he said he was heading for the headquarters of Fininvest, the holding company of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. McGowan said he had covered 1km and had another 3km to go. McGowan's other exploits have included pushing a
nut with his nose through London to 10 Downing Street in protest at education costs.
■ Italy
Chef unveils handy pizza
In the innermost recesses of an exclusive school for top chefs, Italians have been plotting a devastating counterstrike against the hot dog and the hamburger. US supremacy on a battlefield stretching from stadium terraces to railway platforms has been assured by the unique portability of its fare. Unique, that is, until the arrival of the hand-held pizza. Thanks to Rossano Boscolo, whose cone-shaped creation was unveiled on Thursday at an exhibition in Milan, slobs the world over can walk, talk and eat pizza at the same time without having to worry about dribbling mozzarella or slithery slices of tomato all over themselves. The pizza takes three minutes to cook in a special oven, which was also designed at Boscolo's school.
END OF AN ERA: The vote brings the curtain down on 20 years of socialist rule, which began in 2005 when Evo Morales, an indigenous coca farmer, was elected president A center-right senator and a right-wing former president are to advance to a run-off for Bolivia’s presidency after the first round of elections on Sunday, marking the end of two decades of leftist rule, preliminary official results showed. Bolivian Senator Rodrigo Paz was the surprise front-runner, with 32.15 percent of the vote cast in an election dominated by a deep economic crisis, results published by the electoral commission showed. He was followed by former Bolivian president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga in second with 26.87 percent, according to results based on 92 percent of votes cast. Millionaire businessman Samuel Doria Medina, who had been tipped
ELECTION DISTRACTION? When attention shifted away from the fight against the militants to politics, losses and setbacks in the battlefield increased, an analyst said Recent clashes in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Jubaland region are alarming experts, exposing cracks in the country’s federal system and creating an opening for militant group al-Shabaab to gain ground. Following years of conflict, Somalia is a loose federation of five semi-autonomous member states — Puntland, Jubaland, Galmudug, Hirshabelle and South West — that maintain often fractious relations with the central government in the capital, Mogadishu. However, ahead of elections next year, Somalia has sought to assert control over its member states, which security analysts said has created gaps for al-Shabaab infiltration. Last week, two Somalian soldiers were killed in clashes between pro-government forces and
Ten cheetah cubs held in captivity since birth and destined for international wildlife trade markets have been rescued in Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia. They were all in stable condition despite all of them having been undernourished and limping due to being tied in captivity for months, said Laurie Marker, founder of the Cheetah Conservation Fund, which is caring for the cubs. One eight-month-old cub was unable to walk after been tied up for six months, while a five-month-old was “very malnourished [a bag of bones], with sores all over her body and full of botfly maggots which are under the
BRUSHED OFF: An ambassador to Australia previously said that Beijing does not see a reason to apologize for its naval exercises and military maneuvers in international areas China set off alarm bells in New Zealand when it dispatched powerful warships on unprecedented missions in the South Pacific without explanation, military documents showed. Beijing has spent years expanding its reach in the southern Pacific Ocean, courting island nations with new hospitals, freshly paved roads and generous offers of climate aid. However, these diplomatic efforts have increasingly been accompanied by more overt displays of military power. Three Chinese warships sailed the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand in February, the first time such a task group had been sighted in those waters. “We have never seen vessels with this capability
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