■ MalaysiaKuala Lumpur left wheezing
Raging forest fires have driven the air quality of Malaysia's largest city Kuala Lumpur to unhealthy levels for the first time in eight years, news reports said yesterday. Around 8,600 hectares of forests and undergrowth are burning in Johor, Pahang, Selangor, Perak, Kedah and Kelantan states, media has reported. More than 2,000 firefighters have been deployed to douse the fires, which started during a heatwave in mid-February. While no lives or property have been lost in the fires, air quality has plummeted.
■ China
27 die in bus wreck
Twenty-seven people were killed and 49 injured in two bus accidents in China, state media reported yesterday. Sixteen died when a speeding, overloaded bus with 50 people on board plunged into an 8m-deep ditch on a road near Shaoguan city in southern Guangdong province early Friday, Xinhua news agency said. Half of the 30 injured passengers were in critical condition, it said. Another 11 people were killed and 19 injured in northwestern Gansu province Friday after a bus collided with a van, Xinhua said.
■ Hong Kong
Beetles for breakfast?
An upscale Hong Kong grocery store is being prosecuted after a customer allegedly discovered 575 beetles in a jar of cereal he bought, officials and media reports said yesterday. The customer, lawyer Philip Dykes, said the breakfast cereal was "too organic for my liking," according to the South China Morning Post. The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department has charged the Great grocer store with sale of "food not of the nature, substance or quality demanded by the purchaser," said Emily Mak, a department spokeswoman.
■ Kyrgyzstan
Falun Gong banned
A Kyrgyz court has banned the Falun Gong spiritual group under pressure from neighboring China, which banned the group six years ago, organization members said Friday. A district court revoked Falun Gong's registration after the Chinese Embassy asked the Justice Department to seek the ban, said lawyer Ivan Shkodyuk, who represented the group in court. Falun Gong was registered as an organization in Kyrgyzstan last July and has about a dozen active members. Justice Department and court officials could not be reached for comment late Friday.
■ Hong Kong
Old whisky to be auctioned
The last remaining bottle of the world's oldest single malt whisky left its distillery in Scotland on Friday bound for Hong Kong, where it will be the star attraction at an airport shop. The bottle of Glenfiddich Rare Collection 1937, left to mature in a cask for 64 years before being bottled, is heading for Hong Kong's Chep Lap Kok Airport, where it will be available for a well-heeled buyer, but only at a steep cost. Previous bottles sold direct by the family-owned Glenfiddich Distillery fetched £10,000 (US$19,000) each, but the price levied by the airport is expected to be higher still.
■ IranRussia, Iran to ink deal
Russia and Iran were yesterday due to sign a deal that will launch the Islamic republic's first nuclear power station, despite pressure from Washington for Moscow to abandon the project. Russia's top atomic energy official Alexander Rumyantsev was to sign off on a contract on supplying fuel for the Bushehr reactor in southern Iran after Tehran finally agreed to return spent fuel. Russia has defended its US$800 million Bushehr contract, but had refused to begin fuelling the plant unless used fuel -- which potentially could be reprocessed and upgraded to weapons use -- was returned. The Russian-built plant at was due to go on line last year, but had been held up by the fuel issue.
RSS