■ 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.
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
PRECARIOUS RELATIONS: Commentators in Saudi Arabia accuse the UAE of growing too bold, backing forces at odds with Saudi interests in various conflicts A Saudi Arabian media campaign targeting the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deepened the Gulf’s worst row in years, stoking fears of a damaging fall-out in the financial heart of the Middle East. Fiery accusations of rights abuses and betrayal have circulated for weeks in state-run and social media after a brief conflict in Yemen, where Saudi airstrikes quelled an offensive by UAE-backed separatists. The United Arab Emirates is “investing in chaos and supporting secessionists” from Libya to Yemen and the Horn of Africa, Saudi Arabia’s al-Ekhbariya TV charged in a report this week. Such invective has been unheard of
US President Donald Trump on Saturday warned Canada that if it concludes a trade deal with China, he would impose a 100 percent tariff on all goods coming over the border. Relations between the US and its northern neighbor have been rocky since Trump returned to the White House a year ago, with spats over trade and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney decrying a “rupture” in the US-led global order. During a visit to Beijing earlier this month, Carney hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China that resulted in a “preliminary, but landmark trade agreement” to reduce tariffs — but
SCAM CLAMPDOWN: About 130 South Korean scam suspects have been sent home since October last year, and 60 more are still waiting for repatriation Dozens of South Koreans allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia were yesterday returned to South Korea to face investigations in what was the largest group repatriation of Korean criminal suspects from abroad. The 73 South Korean suspects allegedly scammed fellow Koreans out of 48.6 billion won (US$33 million), South Korea said. Upon arrival in South Korea’s Incheon International Airport aboard a chartered plane, the suspects — 65 men and eight women — were sent to police stations. Local TV footage showed the suspects, in handcuffs and wearing masks, being escorted by police officers and boarding buses. They were among about 260 South
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