■ Hong Kong
Candidate registration opens
Opening the way for a fierce battle between Hong Kong's pro-democracy and pro-Beijing politicians, electoral officials began accepting registrations yesterday from candidates in the September legislative races. Pro-democracy politicians are expected to be big winners as voters vent their anger at Hong Kong's unpopular leader, Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa (董建華), seen by many as a puppet of Beijing, which has held back on moving toward full democracy in the territory. After hundreds of thousands of people marched on July 1 to demand universal suffrage, the government's allies are bracing for an upset in the Sept. 12 elections.
■ Hong Kong
Kid's call busts randy dad
A five-year old's innocent call to his mother blew the whistle on his father's cheating ways, leading to a vicious cat fight between here and the man's young mistress, Hong Kong police and media reports said yesterday. "Mommy, daddy brought a woman home and they are on the bed," the boy told his mother in a phone call, according to an interview with the mother in Apple Daily. The mother, 32, sepa-rated from her husband, left her son in the father's care every morning when she left for work. After receiving the phone call, she rushed home to find her husband and his 20 year-old mistress canoodling on the sofa. The mother claimed that in the ensuing brawl her head was struck by a hairdryer and a remote control handset. The mistress' foot was hurt by broken glass.
■ Japan
Fischer fights deportation
Former world chess champion Bobby Fischer, wanted by Washington for defying sanctions by playing a match in Yugoslavia in 1992, is fighting deportation from Japan and wants asylum in a third country, a friend said yesterday. Fischer was detained at Narita airport last week when he tried to leave for the Philippines on an invalid passport. Miyoko Watai of the Japan Chess Association said Fischer, 61, was appealing the move to deport him. Fischer arrived in Japan in April, unaware that his passport, reissued in Switzerland in 1997, had been revoked last December, Watai said. "He took really good care of his passport and there were three years left," she said.
■ Thailand
Bird flu invades Bangkok
The resurgence in Thailand of the deadly bird flu that ravaged Asian flocks earlier this year has reached the outskirts of Bangkok, a senior Agriculture Ministry official said yesterday. Suspected cases of the H5N1 virus were being investigated in two southern provinces not affected by the bird flu epidemic earlier this year, Yukol Limlaemthong, head of the ministry's Livestock Department, said. Fifteen of Thailand's 76 provinces have been hit by the disease, which killed 16 people in Vietnam and eight Thais. "Bird flu is confirmed in three districts of Bangkok," Yukol said.
■ Japan
Knife-resistant children
They may not look cool, but knife-resistant kid's sweatshirts and coats are the latest products aimed at providing parental peace of mind in a Japan horrified by a series of gruesome attacks on children. The sweatshirts, and coats that look like plain waterproofs, are made from the same fibers used in police and military knife-proof and bullet-proof vests, according to the maker, Madre. "We created this product so children would be okay, even if they went off to play by themselves," said a spokesman for Madre.
■ Colombia
Counterfeiting plant raided
A clandestine money printing plant that mastered the art of converting former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein into US founding father Benjamin Franklin has been discovered and seized by police in a southern suburb of the Colombian capital, Bogota, authorities said on Wednesday. The house contained reams of old Iraqi banknotes bearing the picture of Saddam that counterfeiters used to convert into US$100 bills.
■ United Kingdom
Sick dog betrays smugglers
A British man and woman were found guilty Wednesday of attempting to smuggle over 1kg of cocaine from Colombia in the stomachs of two Labrador retrievers. The dogs had 21 canisters of the drug surgically implanted inside their abdominal cavities. One dog had to be put down after a vet found that the canisters had fused with vital organs. Gregory Graham, 27, and Kaye Chapman, 20, were convicted on Wednesday. The pair were arrested after a sting operation last September. British police were tipped off by vets at Amsterdam's airport worried about the sick animals.
■ United States
Dry food cooks in urine
US food technologists have invented dried rations that soldiers can rehydrate by using dirty water or even their own urine, the British weekly New Scientist reports. The ration is surrounded by a plastic membrane made of a nanofiber that, according to its inventors, can filter out 99.9 percent of microbes and the most harmful toxic compounds, allowing only clean water to get to the food. So far, only chicken and rice has been tested, but the menu could be expanded by the Combat Feeding Directorate, part of the US Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Massachusetts. Two years ago, the same agency came up with an "indestructible sandwich" that could stay fresh for three years. The goal behind the latest gastronomic breakthrough is to reduce the amount of water that soldiers have to carry.
■ United States
Free facelifts for soldiers
The US Army has long lured recruits with the slogan "Be all you can be," and soldiers and their families can receive plastic surgery, including breast enlarge-ments, on the taxpayers' dime. The New Yorker magazine reports that members of all four branches of the US military also can get facelifts, liposuction and nose jobs for free something the military says helps surgeons practice their skills. Between 2000 and 2003, military doctors performed 496 breast enlargements and 1,361 liposuction surgeries on soldiers and their dependents, the magazine said. An Army spokeswoman as was quoted as saying, "the surgeons have to have someone to practice on."
■ Sweden
Soap swilled, not sudsed
Some people at a three-day music festival got more than just clean hands from the liquid soap in the portable toilets. Since the detergent was 62 percent alcohol, some users used it to spike their sodas. A 14-year-old girl was hospitalized with a stomach ache after she put too much soap into a carbonated beverage during the Baltic Sea Music Festival in Karlshamn. Most of the soap, although locked in dispensers, disappeared over night, said Anders Persson, whose company provided 65 portable latrines. "I suspected something was wrong because the soap went like hot cakes," he said on Wednesday.
■ Canada
Lesbians seek divorce
Two Toronto women who were among the first same-sex couples to marry in Canada are now seeking what may be the first Canadian same-sex divorce. The women were married on June 18 last year, a week after a landmark court decision legalized same-sex marriage in Ontario. They had been together for nearly 10 years, but separated after five days of marriage. The women are now seeking to change Canada's divorce law, which still applies only to marriages between a man and a woman.
■ United States
Alligator attacks landscaper
A 3.6m-long alligator attacked a landscaper behind an island home in Sanibel, Florida, dragging her into a pond before a neighbor and police officers yanked the woman from the animal's jaws. "It was kind of a tug-of-war," the neighbor, Jim Anholt, said. Part of Janie Melsek's right arm had to be amputated. She was also severely bitten on her buttocks and thighs, but doctors believe she will walk again, her family said. She remained in critical condition. Melsek, 54, was trimming a tree when the alligator attacked.
■ Israel
Sick monkey `evolves'
A young monkey at an Israeli zoo has started walking like a human following a near death experience, the zoo's veterinarian said on Wednesday. Natasha, a small five-year-old black macaque monkey at the Safari Park next to Tel Aviv, began walking exclusively upright on two legs after a stomach ailment nearly killed her, zookeepers said. Monkeys usually alternate between upright movement and walking on all fours. A picture in the Maariv daily on Wednesday showed Natasha standing ramrod straight like a human. Two weeks ago, Natasha and three other monkeys were diagnosed with severe stomach flu. After intensive treatment, Natasha's condition stabilized, but she exhibited strange behavior, and a day after was released from the clinic, she began walking erect like a human being.
■ Slovakia
Voter triggers anthrax scare
A voter who wore surgical gloves to show his disgust with the choice of candidates in presidential runoff elections -- but triggered an anthrax scare instead -- has been cleared of any wrong-doing, an official said Wednesday. The proceedings against the man were dropped because he had not broken any law, the general prosecutor's spokeswoman Svetlana Husarova said. The man identified only as Julius G. became well known in Slovakia for his symbolic protest during the April 17 presidential runoffs pitting former authoritarian prime minister Vladimir Meciar against and his one-time ally, Ivan Gasparovic. Along with his ballot, the man also put a message in an envelope detailing his displeasure with Slovak politics.
■ United Kingdom
Violent crime on the rise
Violent crime in the UK soared last year, official figures showed yesterday, a disappointment to Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has pledged repeatedly to be tough on law and order. While the total number of recorded crimes crept up by 1 percent, offences involving violence shot up by 12 percent, Home Office figures showed, while other serious offences were also on the increase, such as an 8 percent rise in rape. The figures were released just days after Blair launched a new crackdown on crime and anti-social behavior, saying in a speech that he wanted to see "the end of the 1960s liberal consensus" about crime.
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