■ Vietnam
Bear mauls toddler
A two-year-old toddler has had both his legs bitten off below the knee by a caged bear in northern Vietnam, a local official said yesterday. Pham Van Hung was playing last weekend near the cage of a 200kg Malayan sun bear when the animal dragged him into the cage and mauled him, the local police officer said from Mong Cai, a town on Vietnam's northern border with China. The family kept the bear to harvest the animal's bile, considered a health-giving tonic in Vietnam and other countries where traditional eastern medicine is practised. "This should be a lesson for every family raising bears for gall, as the business is booming in many places now," the police officer said from Quang Ninh Province, 200km north of Hanoi.
■ Somalia
Tidal wave victims get food
The UN World Food Program (WFP) said on Tuesday it was sending 31 tonnes of food to assist some 2,000 people in Somalia's northern Hafuni island, which was battered by surging waves spawned by the mammoth earthquake off Indonesia. "The food is going by road -- the journey takes six hours in low tide [and] there is a land bridge to the island. They should be reaching any time," WFP said in a state-ment. At least 40 fishermen were confirmed dead and more than 60 others were still missing after their wooden fishing dhows capsized on Sunday in the wake of killer waves off the east-African coast.
■ Hong Kong
Activists slam church group
A Christian group in Hong Kong has come under fire for arranging a seminar yester-day aimed at "curing" gay people of their homo-sexuality. The evangelical Christian group that organized the event, the Society for Truth and Light, argued that gays have a choice and can switch to heterosexuality. Gay activist Roddy Shaw of Civil Rights for Sexual Diversities attacked the seminar and accused its organizers of offering false hope, saying "the whole tone of the workshops is that homo-sexuality is an illness that can be treated and converted," he told the South China Morning Post.
■ Japan
Tourists to get PDAs
Japan will start lending to foreign visitors personal digital assistants with travel information and translation services in a test program on ways to promote tourism. The pilot program is part of a government drive to find ways to make Japan more attractive to foreign tourists, who are often put off by the language barrier and the country's high prices. The mobile units with Chinese, Korean and English software will be lent to selected tourists who land at Narita Airport near Tokyo from February through March to test the response, the trans-port ministry said in a state-ment. "We will examine ways to build an environ-ment in Japan that will be easier for foreign tourists," the state-ment said.
■ China
Cadres to have sober parties
China has told party cadres and government officials they must "avoid extravagant activities and maintain social stability" during the upcoming Lunar New Year, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday. A notice issued by the Commu-nist Party's Central Commit-tee and the State Council, or China's Cabinet, said officials must ensure that "people throughout the country will enjoy merry, peaceful and stable holidays," Xinhua said. "It is of great importance to safeguard the overall situa-tion of reform, development and stability," it said.
■ United Kingdom
Armed thugs apologize
Armed intruders broke into a family's house in Swinton, Yorkshire, on Monday morning, only to apologize and leave again, having realized they intended to beat someone up next door instead, police said on Tuesday. The wife was upstairs with her children when two men armed with a knife and a plank of wood broke in through a back door. It became obvious the intruders had got the wrong address and they left, apologizing. The men then forced their way into a house next door and beat up a young man -- presumed to be their intended victim -- although he was not seriously hurt, the spokesman added.
■ Morocco
Beggars rent, drug children
Professional beggars prowling about the streets of Moroccan cities with "rented" and drugged children to attract charity may have their days num-bered. The government plans to crack down on the scam used by faux beggars in growing numbers for a kind of "emotional blackmail," a Cabinet minister was quoted as saying on Tuesday. Social Development, Family and Solidarity Minister Abder-rahim Harouchi quoted a report from a local NGO which said about 15 percent of children under 7 seen with beggars in the streets were "rented" for between US$6 and US$12 per week.
■ Switzerland
Club rescues St. Bernards
They haven't saved anyone from death on the snowy slopes of a Swiss mountain in 50 years and are prohibitively expensive to keep, but a Swiss foundation has bounded to the rescue of the famed St. Bernard Hospice dogs. The Swiss St. Bernard Club and other sponsors plan to establish a foundation to take over care and breeding of the big, friendly dogs from hospice monks who say they can no longer afford to carry on the 300-year-old tradition of keeping and training the dogs for rescue work. "There are so many legends connecting St. Bernards to Switzerland -- and we want to preserve them and their history here," said Rudolf Thomann, president of the Swiss St. Bernard Club and future president of the planned foundation.
■ France
Luxury jewelers robbed
Armed robbers made off with jewelry of an undisclosed value early on Tuesday from three top-flight stores in a luxury five-star Parisian hotel after smashing the glass display shelves, police said. Three robbers wearing gloves and ski masks got into the plush Plaza Athenee hotel near the Champs-Elysees just before 6am, they said. While two of them got round staff on the premises using a tear bomb and pistol, the third used a sledgehammer to break the display cases of Boucheron, Bulgari and Harry Winston. An accomplice waiting outside in a BMW four-by-four enabled the robbers to get away.
■ Croatia
Drinker drives in wrong lane
A drunken Croat caused a car crash after driving more than 30km the wrong way down a freeway, police said on Tuesday. They said the accident happened near the eastern town of Slavonski Brod. The man drove on, still in the wrong direction, after hitting an oncoming BMW car with German licence plates. No one was injured. When police finally caught the motorist, he had 1.5mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood. Police said the man faces criminal charges, a fine of at least US$500 and confiscation of his driving licence.
■ United States
Christmas rift spawns arson
A man angry that he got no presents for Christmas burned down his parents' house early the next morning, police said. Steven Murray, 21, was charged with arson and risking a catastrophe in the blaze that broke out early on Sunday. No one was injured. Police said Murray had himself committed to a hospital on Christmas Day, but then signed himself out and walked 13km home. Later he told police he saw the flames in the distance. But officers said his jacket smelled of smoke and they found a lighter in his pocket and a gas can near the front door. "He was irritated that his family gave him no presents for Christmas," Lower Southampton police officer Peter Liese said.
■ United States
Woman has own grandkids
A 55-year-old woman acting as a surrogate for her daughter gave birth to triplets on Tuesday. The two boys and one girl were delivered a month and a half prematurely by Caesarean section. Surrogate mother Tina Cade experienced "mild complications," which the hospital said is not uncommon for such surgery. Cade carried her own grandchildren for her oldest daughter, Camille Hammond, who suffers from endome-triosis, a condition that affects the lining of the uterus and makes it difficult to become pregnant. Hammond and her husband, Jason, both doctors at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, had tried for four years to become pregnant.
■ United States
Officer sues after sex change
A police officer who had surgery to become a woman in 2002 has filed a lawsuit charging the Oklahoma City Police Department with sexual harassment, her lawyers said on Tuesday. Paula Schonauer, 38, said she has been the subject of constant harassment, which has only gotten worse since she completed surgery to change her sex. Schonauer, who stands 191cm tall and weighs 91kg, said the harassment interferes with her ability to do her job. Schonauer joined the Oklahoma City Police Department in 1992 as a male named Paul after serving in the US Army. Schonauer said she just wants to be treated normally and professionally by her colleagues.
■ Macedonia
Men get `hotel detention'
An investigative judge in western Macedonian town of Tetovo placed two Albanians arrested during Saturday's shootout with police into "hotel detention," in a move so far unseen in the troubled country's judiciary system, local media reported. Valon Azemi and Florent Sahiti, alleged members of Albanian underground group which clashed with the police on Saturday, were captured after the shooting and sent to local prison. Police action was aimed against a rebel group which held a village in Skopje suburbs under a siege for almost a month, threatening to attack government institutions in the capital and US embassy.
■ Mexico
Freezing temperatures kill
A deep freeze in northern Mexico has caused more than 40 deaths, most commonly from carbon-monoxide poising as a result of faulty heating devices, authorities said on Tuesday. The onset of wintery temperatures in the region has been earlier and more severe than usual, according to press reports. The hardest hit Mexican provinces have been mountainous Chihuahua and Zacatecas, where temperatures at higher elevations have dropped as low as minus 14 degrees centigrade.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
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RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in