■ Singapore
`Sex and the City' ban ends
Samantha, the provocative single who often puts the "sex" in the US sitcom Sex and the City, has been tamed by Singapore's strait-laced censors. Scenes of Samantha exposing her breasts or using sexually charged expletives to describe her cheating lover were among those deleted in the first legally screened episode to air in Singapore when a five-year ban on the award-winning series ended yesterday.
■ Japan
Subway station evacuated
Passengers were evacuated from a Tokyo subway station yesterday after a liquid-filled bottle was discovered on a platform, but it turned out to be a lighter. Magome Station was evacuated after a passenger found the bottle on a bench at 8:20am and reported it as a suspicious object, Kyodo news agency said. Service on the subway line was halted for around 25 minutes while the bottle was disposed of. Security on Tokyo's subway system was tightened in March after a letter purportedly from al-Qaeda mentioned Japan as a possible target and after bombs on trains in Madrid. In 1995, a sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway by the Aum Shinrikyo cult killed 12 people and made thousands ill.
■ New Zealand
Jewish cemetery desecrated
Swastikas and Nazi slogans were gouged around Jewish graves, a day after New Zealand imposed diplomatic sanctions on Israel over two suspected Israeli spies who tried to obtain a passport by fraud. Sixteen graves were attacked overnight in the Jewish part of a cemetery in Wellington, a city council spokesman said. "Someone's used some sort of stick or tool to gouge swastikas into the grass around the graves. Words like `Sieg Heil' have been scratched into the footpath," he said."I think there is a direct connection between the very strong expressions against Israel and people here feeling they can take it out on Jews," said David Zwartz, head of the New Zealand Jewish Council.
■ Japan
Test tube orphan gets father
Japan's Takamatsu High Court yesterday recognized a woman's demand that authorities acknowledge her dead husband as the father of her son, who was born via a test-tube fertilization using his frozen sperm after his death. Japan's Civil Code allows for legal recognition of children conceived through in vitro fertilization while the father is alive. But it has no laws or state guidelines addressing the handling of frozen sperm after the donor's death. Increasing debates on the subject are expected in Japan as medical treatment on reproduction aid improves, experts said.
■ Australia
Youths set girl on fire
Police on Friday hunted two youths who torched a 9-year-old girl in an unprovoked attack in a Sydney playground on Thursday afternoon. The girl was recovering in hospital with burns to 40 percent of her body. Sarah Allan was playing with her siblings, aged 7 and 5, in a park in Minto, southwestern Sydney, when the attack happened. Two youths wearing masks fled the area shortly after the attack. Detective Chief Inspector Matthew Appleton said police do not even know if the attackers were male or female.
■ Dr Congo
Farmers jeopardize gorillas
Farmers have overrun large areas of forest in Congo's oldest national park, the latest threat to more than half the world's 700 remaining mountain gorillas, conservationists and park workers say. Stacking lava rocks, 200 workers are building a wall at the Rwandan border of Virunga national park, a UN World Heritage Site, in a desperate effort to stop farmers, fighters and refugees from sweeping across the gorillas' volcano-peak refuges. The latest threat to Virunga's gorillas came in May and June, when between 5,000 to 6,000 Rwandan and Congolese farmers overran unarmed guards and leveled 15km2 of the 425km2 park for cattle ranching.
■ Germany
When acupuncturists forget
A German acupuncture patient was left pierced with needles in a clinic after a therapist forgot about her, locked up his practice and went home, police in Hanover said on Thursday. The 41-year-old woman had booked an afternoon session. The doctor left her in the treatment room for what she assumed would be a short while, especially since she still had needles embedded in her body. After 90 minutes the woman began to shout for attention. Getting no response, she realized she was alone and trapped in the building. She alerted police by phone and was later set free when the doctor returned.
■ Russia
Man learns he's dead
A Russian taxi driver received a rude shock when he discovered that his blind ex-wife, who thought he had died in an explosion, had him buried in a Moscow cemetery, a newspaper reported on Thursday. Oleg Lunkov learned of his apparent death when he applied for a passport and was told he died in a bomb blast on Moscow's metro on Feb. 6. His ex-wife thought he was on the train, but being blind, she got her mother to identify the remains. "I thought, `I hope they didn't bury me on my birthday,'" Lunkov told the Moscow Times after visiting his grave in southeastern Moscow. "But it turns out they did."
■ Romania
Man sues for love
Sandu Gurguiatu first sued for money. Then for love. The love-struck Romanian first took his company to court four years ago for what he said was unfair dismissal. But after setting eyes on Judge Elena Lala, he sued his employers and others dozens of times -- only to be able to see her. "I fell madly in love with her and when I found out she was married, I didn't know how I would manage to see her," he told the daily Libertatea on Thursday. "The only way was to see her in the courtroom, so I looked in the law book and came up with all kinds of excuses." Eventually, the infatuation subsided and Gurguiatu decided to go public with his story.
■ Iraq
Shiite militia evicted
Iraqi authorities have forcibly removed members of a hardline Shiite militia from a building they were illegally occupying, the US military said yesterday. Members of the militia linked to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr were given a deadline by the governor of Diwaniyah province to vacate the building in Najaf, about 160km from Baghdad. When they did not comply, the governor ordered the Iraqi National Guard and police forces to evict them, said Major Neal O'Brien of the 1st Infantry Division. Troops from the Task Force 1st Battalion 14th Infantry provided security for the area from the outside.
■ United States
Too much meat, fat in diet
Despite warnings from the government, health groups and doctors, more than 70 percent of Americans still eat too much meat and fat and too few vegetables, cancer researchers said on Thursday. They published a survey showing 72 percent of Americans still centered their meals around animal fats, leaving little room for the vegetables that prevent not only cancer but heart disease and perhaps a range of other diseases, too. The research surveyed 1,000 adults. They were asked what they had eaten the night before and how much.
■ United States
Gray wolf not under threat
The Interior Department is proposing to lift endangered species protection for the gray wolf across much of the country, although the animals will remain "threatened" and shielded by federal law in the west, officials said. Interior Secretary Gale Norton planned to make the announcement yesterday in Minnesota, which has the largest US wolf population outside Alaska. She will later visit a wildlife sanctuary in Wisconsin, where the wolves have been on the rebound as well. The proposal calls for taking the gray wolf, which was nearly extinct in the lower 48 states in the 1950s, out from under federal protection in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan and New England.
■ Colombia
Ex-senator pays ransom
A former Colombian senator defended his decision to pay a ransom to kidnappers holding his sons for three years, saying he could not bear to see them "slowly die in the jungle." Jaime Lozada said on Thursday that he felt humiliated for giving in to the Marxist rebels who abducted his two sons and their mother from their luxury apartment three years ago. He also denounced the government for failing to ensure his family's safety. Lozada's sons, Juan Sebastian, 19, and Jaime Felipe, 20, were freed on Tuesday at an undisclosed location in southern Colombia. His wife, Gloria Polanco, remains in captivity.
■ France
Launch delayed again
The launch of an Ariane-5 rocket carrying the world's largest telecommunications satellite, pushed back due to a technical problem, was postponed for a second time on Thursday by 24 hours, Arianespace said. An anomaly that appeared in the rocket during final checks prior to take-off on Monday had already forced the European Space Agency to postpone the launch of the Ariane-5, which will carry the nearly 6-tonne Anik-2F satellite. Weather conditions over the launch site at Kourou, French Guiana, were to blame for Thursday's cancelation, Arianespace said at its headquarters at Evry near Paris.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was