■ Hong Kong
Cruise passenger kills self
A passenger has jumped to his death from a luxury cruise ship sailing into Hong Kong, police said yesterday. The 54-year-old man left his shoes and a suicide note on the deck of the Star Pisces ship at 4am Tuesday before leaping overboard 40km southeast of Hong Kong. A crew member found the shoes and the note and alerted the captain. An air and sea search was mounted but no trace of the man was found, a police spokesman said.
■ Thailand
Sex tape fight ends in arrest
Thai police arrested a German national at Pattaya beach resort after the 53-year-old man refused to hand over a home-made sex tape to an irate bar hostess, media reports said yesterday. Pattaya bar hostess Ratchanok Sanehchan and her friend Samart Sanram on Tuesday attempted to get Friedrich Fischer to return a video he had taken of himself and Ratchanok having sex six months ago, but the German refused to hand over the tape, prompting a scuffle, said the Thai Rath newspaper. Police, who were called to the scene after Samart punched Fischer, arrested Samart for assault and Fischer for producing pornographic pictures for commercial purposes.
■ Indonesia
Refugees sew mouths shut
Afghan asylum seekers who are on hunger strike in Indonesia to protest their rejection as refugees continued to sew their mouths shut yesterday, with almost half of a group of 40 strikers having already stitched their lips together. Aid workers monitoring the condition of the would-be refugees, who were on strike at a camp in Bogor, some 20km south of Jakarta, said the number of strikers having sew their mouths had increased to 18.
■ Philippines
Wedding party goes bad
Filipino police have arrested four people for murdering a wedding guest, roasting and eating parts of the body and serving some of the remains at the reception, they said Wednesday. Narra town police chief Senior Superintendent Perla Bacuel said they were looking into the possibility that some of the suspects may have been involved in other disappearances. Farm laborer Eladio Baule, his son Gerard Baule and nephews Sabtuary Pequi and Johnny Buyot allegedly killed the victim, Benjie Ganay, on July 17 after Ganay accidentally touched Eladio Baule's daughter's bottom during her wedding party, Bacuel said. The four suspects, who were drunk at the time, then set fire to Ganay's body and Bacuel said the aroma of roasting flesh may have tempted the group to eat parts of the burnt body. The father and son then allegedly served some of the roasted flesh to other drinkers at the wedding party.
■ India
Baby sold to feed family
A starving Indian sari weaver sold his four-month-old son for 500 rupees (US$11) so the rest of his family could eat, it was reported yesterday. The Benarasi silk sari from the northern Indian city of Varanasi is famous all over the world for its intricate embroidery. But few know that many of the sari weavers are starving to death, unable to compete with the flood of cheaper Chinese silks. Bansaraj Ram, 45, has four sons between the ages of four and 10 from his first wife and a four-month-old baby from his second. The infant was constantly unwell and Ram could no longer afford medical care, a newspaper reported.
■ Italy
Faulty fax leaks Blair plans
A malfunctioning police fax machine in the Tuscan town of Siena was blamed on Tuesday for sending out the travel schedule of UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's family holiday in Italy to the media. Police said the leak occurred because the machine automatically circulated the fax to its usual mailing list of local Italian media organizations instead of a list of local police stations. The Siena police were quick to insist that the distribution of the five-page fax, confirming the changed dates and logistical and security details of the family's trips to Tuscany and Sardinia at the end of this week, did not jeopardize the Blairs' holiday plans.
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