■ China
Stress taking toll on men
Men in Shanghai are aging quicker due to stress, pollution and unhealthy lifestyles -- a problem which is further driving down an already slowing birthrate, according to a recent survey. About 20 percent of Shanghai men under age 40 suffer symptoms of early aging, including fatigue, irritability, incontinence and sexual dysfunction, according to the study by the city's Renji Hospital. That's double the percentage during the 1980s. The study showed a drop in male fertility. Just 79 out of 1,360 men who visited a local sperm bank for checkups last year were found to be "fully qualified" sperm donors. Shanghai's severe crowding, polluted air and water and intense competition are blamed for many health problems.
■ Australia
Fetus mistakenly laundered
Health authorities ordered an inquiry into how a stillborn baby fetus was accidentally collected in hospital laundry and put through a washing machine. The Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne said the foetus was mistakenly taken away with the washing and discovered by shocked laundry workers four days later. "The small and hard to detect fetus was accidentally collected with the linen and has now been returned," she said. The fetus, which died in utero at 18 weeks, was delivered with its surviving twin 14 weeks later.
■ Pakistan
Two killed in pup's defense
A Pakistani woman opened fire with a shotgun to save her puppy from being attacked by a bigger dog but accidentally killed two children and wounded two others. The 19-year-old woman has been charged with the murders of a boy of 10 and a seven-year-old girl in Kabirwala. The woman was taking the puppy for a walk when a big dog pounced on it. As she cried out, local people gathered to watch the scene but none offered help. Instead, the spectators laughed at the puppy's plight. The woman rushed home, took her father's shotgun and returned to the scene where she shot at the big dog. Stray pellets from the gun hit the attacking dog but also injured four children. Two of them died in hospital. Both dogs were injured but survived.
■ Australia
Roaches overkilled
An overzealous attempt to rid a Thai restaurant of cockroaches sparked an explosion that blew the eatery apart. Three men were hospitalized with burns after they set off 36 cockroach fumigation devices known as bombs -- generally aerosol cans filled with chemicals -- which apparently exploded after their contents came into contact with an oven pilot light. John McMillan, manager of fire investigations, said the huge blast lifted the roof off the Tamarind restaurant. ``The restaurant owner has used the principle that if you use twice the soap, you get your hands twice as clean. He's just overdone it,'' McMillan said.
■ China
Buddhist dance sparks ire
A troupe of deaf female dancers, famous in China for a Buddhism-inspired performance, are slamming other dancers and an underwear maker for allegedly copying their art. The group, known as China Disabled Persons' Art Performing Troupe, decided on legal action to stop them. In the performance of "The Thousand-Hand Goddess of Mercy," dancers give the illusion of being one person with a large number of arms. Gracewell, a leading underwear maker, is applying for a patent for its stocking packaging design, with an Indian woman in a pose similar to that struck by the dancers. Wang Yuan, the troupe's artistic supervisor, accused the underwear maker of "trampling the culture of Guanyin [the Goddess of Mercy] and smirching the noble feelings of the Chinese."
■ Sweden
No more porn for officials
Swedish civil servants, soldiers and politicians will no longer be able to stay at hotels that offer pornographic TV programs after a government agency blacklisted accommodation with x-rated viewing, officials said on Wednesday. The move against blue movies came from the military, which in Sweden negotiates deals with hotels which then apply to all other public sector officials travelling on business. The Swedish military, which welcomes female recruits and seeks to convey an image of gender equality, wants to do its bit to protect women, both in the porn industry and in hotels, said Major General Aake Jansson, who heads the logistics unit that arranges the deals.
■ Israel
Man in divorce dilemma
A husband who wanted to divorce his wife was unable to receive rabbinical approval because he could not bring himself to say the name of his father-in-law, Israel's Yediot Aharonot daily reported on Wednesday. The Jewish divorce process obliges the husband to read out a short statement referring to his wife as "the daughter of ..." in a rabbinical court, but the paper reported that the unnamed spouse could not let his father-in-law's name pass his lips. Court officials have scheduled a new meeting with the couple and are studying religious texts to see if there is a solution.
■ Austria
Country stench hits Vienna
Vienna stank on Wednesday, after unusual weather patterns and the spread of fertilizer in nearby vineyards combined to make the city smell like a barnyard. Though cow manure is used on nearby fields every year, a lack of wind this spring has prompted the smell to hang over the city, said Peter Riess, an air quality management official. City officials say they've had dozens of complaints. "It's not dangerous -- no more than being anywhere out in the countryside. When the wind changes ... [the situation] will change immediately," he said.
■ United States
Sheriff tracks down critic
The sheriff of Orange County, Florida, used driver's license records to contact a woman who wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper criticizing his staff's use of Taser stun guns and describing him as fat. Some say sheriff Kevin Beary violated federal privacy law when he had his aides use the records to get the address of Alice Gawronski. He sent her a letter accusing her of slander. It is illegal to access a driver's license database to obtain personal information, except for clear law-enforcement purposes. Gawronski wrote in her March 10 letter in the Sentinel that Beary appeared overweight and suggested that if deputies were more fit, they might not need to resort to zapping suspects.
■ Bolivia
Robbers unfazed by guards
A gang robbed a jewelry shop on a La Paz square at midday on Wednesday within sight of guards at the presidential palace, prosecutors said. Between three and six men wearing police uniforms entered a building next door to JL jewelers, took out the doorman and made a hole in the wall that opened into the shop, witnesses said. The jeweler, one of the oldest in La Paz, is located 50m from the government offices in Palacio Quemado, 100m from both the legislature and municipal government offices and just steps from the cathedral of La Paz.
■ Serbia
No-confidence vote tabled
Hardline allies of former president Slobodan Milosevic began a parliamentary procedure Wednesday to oust the Serbian government over the handover of a top Serb war crimes suspect to a UN tribunal. The ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party said it submitted a 80 signatures by its lawmakers calling for Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's conservative government to face a no-confidence vote. It was not immediately clear when the vote would be held. The Radicals, who ruled Serbia along with Milosevic's Socialists in the 1990s, are furious that the government extradited retired police General Sreten Lukic to UN war crimes tribunal to face charges for atrocities allegedly committed by Serb troops in the 1998-1999 war in Kosovo.
■ Italy
EU constitution ratified
The Senate has ratified the EU constitution, giving final approval to the treaty meant to bolster the 25-nation bloc's role on the world stage and streamline its decision- making process. The Senate approved the treaty's ratification with a 217-16 vote Wednesday evening. The lower house of parliament had gave its green light in January. The constitution, which was signed in a solemn ceremony in Rome last October, foresees the creation of a president and a foreign minister for the EU. Before it comes into effect in 2007, all 25 members must ratify it by parliamentary vote or referendum.
■ United Kingdom
`Beckingham' house safe
Authorities have told David and Victoria Beckham that they don't have to tear down the giant playhouse that was being built on their property without planning permission. The soccer star and his former Spice Girl wife had been warned they might have to demolish the half-built 5m brick playhouse as well as a play castle -- complete with mock tower, drawbridge, slides and rope swings -- at their "Beckingham Palace" mansion north of London. But East Hertfordshire District Council said on Wednesday it had granted retrospective planning permission for the structures -- on condition that no one live in them.
■ United States
Girls suspected of bomb plot
Federal authorities arrested two teenage girls from Bangladesh and Guinea on charges of immigration violations after the FBI claimed that they planned to become suicide bombers and posed a threat to US security, a newspaper reported yesterday. The two girls, both 16 and living in New York City, were arrested on March 24 and were being held in a family detention center in Leesport, Pennsylvania, the New York Times reported yesterday, citing a government document provided by a federal agent. According to the document, the FBI found the girls posed "an imminent threat to the security of the United States based upon evidence that they plan to be suicide bombers," the Times said.
■ United States
Manure theft soils academic
A Harvard professor who specializes in environmental economics was arrested on suspicion of trying to steal a load of manure from a Massachusetts farm, a police officer said on Wednesday. Martin Weitzman was arrested near Rockport on April 1, a police officer said. The manager of a horse stable at the farm called police after finding Weitzman and his truck on the farm. Weitzman was charged with trespassing, larceny under US$250, and malicious destruction of property.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema