■ Australia
Obesity affects fertility
Australia's staggeringly high obesity rate could slash fertility rates by half within a decade, specialists warned yesterday. Obesity researcher Robert David said an increasing number of women were suffering from the pre-diabetic condition of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), which affects many overweight women. Australia's fertility rate has been steadily falling over the past 40 years with women now having an average 1.7 babies while 28 percent of the female population will not have any children. Fertility specialist David Knight said women suffering from PCOS had irregular menstrual cycles and often did not ovulate.
■ New Zealand
Spies held on passport scam
The government is still waiting for Israel to explain why two alleged Israeli secret agents were in New Zealand illegally applying for a passport, Prime Minister Helen Clark said yesterday. The pair, Urie Zoshe Kelman, 30, and Eli Cara, 50, pleaded guilty on Friday to a charge of trying to obtain a false The Wellington government suspects they are spies attached to Israel's Mossad foreign intelligence service, and Clark has demanded that the Israeli government explain what they were doing in New Zealand.New Zealand passport. The pair are to be held in custody until their sentencing on July 15. The maximum sentence they face was not immediately clear. Clark said yesterday she had to receive a response from the Israeli government.
■ Japan
`Sararimen' to shed suits?
Japan's buttoned-up politicians and executives, often referred to as sararimen, are dressing down this summer in the latest bid to fight global warming. With temperatures topping 30?C and humidity edging towards unbearable, bureaucrats and businessmen have agreed to do the sensible thing by removing jackets at the office -- something of a revolution in Japan's ministries and corporations. The idea is to stay cool naturally rather than use energy by cranking up air conditioning. Ministers hailed the new dress code as a sign that they are serious about achieving Japan's pledge to cut carbon dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gases by 6 percent from 1990 levels before 2012.
■ Cambodia
Angkor Wat gets upgrade
Cambodia's celebrated Angkor Wat temple complex, the country's most treasured landmark, has been removed from UNESCO's List of World Heritage in Danger after 12 years, the UN cultural body announced yesterday. The Angkor site was one of three taken off the list at the ongoing World Heritage Committee meeting of the UN's Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation in the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou.
■ Japan
Abductee to meet family
A Japanese woman abducted to North Korea decades ago and repatriated in 2002 will be reunited later this week with the family she left behind in the reclusive communist state, Japanese media said yesterday. Hitomi Soga will meet her daughters and husband Charles Jenkins, who Washington says deserted to North Korea 40 years ago while on patrol in the Demilitarized Zone, in Indonesia on Friday.. Jenkins, 64, who married Soga in North Korea, feared he would be handed to the US military for a court martial if he came to Japan. Indonesia and the US do not have an extradition treaty. The family will be reunited in Indonesia for an unspecified period.
■ United Kingdom
Abortion pioneer speaks
David Steel, the former Liberal party leader who introduced Britain's modern abortion laws, has called for a dramatic reduction in the legal limit for most terminations from 24 to 12 weeks. Steel called for Britain to follow the example of certain European nations in the light of medical advances that allow some premature babies to survive at 22 weeks. Steel's Abortion Act of 1967 legalized abortions until 28 weeks of pregnancy. The 1967 limit was cut to 24 weeks in 1990 amid concerns that a 28-week-old fetus could survive outside the womb.
■ United Kingdom
Free meals for Khan kin
Being able to prove descent from Genghis Khan, with the aid of a simple DNA test, will in future buy a free meal at London's two Mongolian restaurants, the Times reported yesterday. The restaurants, both called Shish, are located in newly trendy Hoxton in the East End and in Willesden Green to the northwest. The Mongol leader, who died in 1227, is thought to have around 17 million descendants worldwide. Relatively few of them, however, are thought to live within range of the restaurants. Among those who could claim a free meal are members of Britain's royal family, the deposed Iranian royals and the family of Count Dracula.
■ United Kingdom
Films for MRI patients
In a move that brings new meaning to the term medical screening, patients having MRI scans may soon be able to watch films projected inside the chamber to take their minds off the experience. A method for bouncing images inside the tube used for the scans has been developed in an attempt to ease the stress of the process, which requires patients to be strapped motionless for up to an hour inside the bowels of a powerful magnet. Up to 20 percent of MRI scans have to be halted because the patient suffers severe claustrophobia or a panic attack. Headphones fitted into the earplugs patients wear to protect them from the deafening noise of the MRI machine complete the ultimate surround-sound cinema experience.
■ Austria
President in heart scare
Austrian President Thomas Klestil had to be resuscitated after his heart stopped yesterday, just days before he was due to step down from the largely ceremonial office after serving the maximum two terms. The Austrian rescue agency OeAMTC said Klestil was flown by emergency helicopter from his Vienna residence to a hospital in the capital, Vienna. "The heart failure and resuscitation took place in his villa. His bodyguard resuscitated him and called for emergency doctors," a spokesman for OeAMTC said.
■ Turkey
`Honor killings' banned
Turkey is poised to introduce mandatory life sentences for those who carry out "honor killings" in an effort to combat a crime which has marred its quest to join the EU. Wide-ranging changes to the penal code will end the practice of allowing murderers to plead family honor to justify murder. The reform comes amid widespread revulsion at the growth of honor crimes in the country. Girls as young as 12 have been stabbed, stoned or bludgeoned to death for talking with strangers or "dishonoring" relatives by being raped. Experts believe that, with many murders passed off as suicides, up to 300 take place every year.
■ Iraq
Saddam kin aids insurgents
A broad network of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's extended family is helping fund and arm the anti-US insurgency in Iraq, US government officials and a prominent Iraqi said. The network operates in part from Syria and Jordan and actively smuggles weapons, fighters and money into Iraq for the cause, according to the Times. One of the leaders is Saddam's cousin Fatiq Suleiman al-Majid, described as a former officer in Iraq's Special Security Organization who fled to Syria after the US-led invasion of Iraq, the Times reported. At least two other Saddam cousins from the Majid family who now live in Syria and in Europe are also involved in the operation, US officials told the Times.
■ United States
`Freedom tower' begun
A 18-tonne slab of granite, inscribed to honor ``the enduring spirit of freedom,'' was laid at the World Trade Center site as the cornerstone of the skyscraper that will replace the destroyed towers. The ceremony on Sunday marked the start of construction on the 533m Freedom Tower, designed as a twisting glass and steel tower that evokes the Statue of Liberty, including a 83m spire resembling her torch. Its height in feet is to symbolize the year the US gained independence from Britain. Organizers say it would be the world's largest skyscraper -- but it's not clear whether it would hold that title by the time it's scheduled to be completed in 2009. The current largest skyscraper is Taipei 101 in Taiwan at 50m, which this year surpassed the 452m Petrona Towers in Malaysia, according to the Web site of The Skyscraper Museum in New York.
■ United States
Cheney doctor drug-addled
Vice President Dick Cheney's personal doctor, who four years ago declared Cheney "up to the task of the most sensitive public office" despite a history of heart disease, was battling an addiction to prescription drugs at the time and has recently been dropped from the vice president's medical team, according to officials at George Washington University Medical Center where he practiced. The doctor, Gary Malakoff had treated Cheney since 1995. Hospital officials said Sunday that they had known since 1999 of Malakoff's problem. But he was permitted to continue working, they said, while undergoing treatment and monitoring, including urine tests, by an independent board. But in May, when the board concluded Malakoff was too impaired to care for patients, he was relieved of his position as director of the medical center's general internal medicine division, they said.
■ United States
Pilot saved
A 25-year-old pilot was plucked safely from Rockaway Inlet off Brooklyn on Sunday after he was forced to ditch a single-engine plane he had flown over the holiday beach crowds of Staten Island and New Jersey with aerial advertising in tow, the authorities said. "This was a very fortunate young man," said Captain Martin Zweig of the US Park Police, which patrols the Gateway National Recreation Area and the section of the bay where the plane went down at 3:55pm. He said the pilot, whose identity was not disclosed, was pulled from the water almost immediately by the driver of a motorized water scooter and transferred to a park police boat. Zweig said the cause of the accident remained under investigation.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not