■ China
Teacher commemorated
Some 100,000 people in Nanjing turned out to commemorate a teacher who was killed by a speeding car after pushing her pupils out of its way, while thousands lined the streets to pay their respects as her hearse passed by. She was credited with pushing "six or seven students" out of the way of the speeding car that sent her flying 25 meters down the road. Yin, 52, was escorting several hundred pupils to cross a street on the way to a cinema. On Thursday, several hundred children from her school knelt down at the spot where she was killed and cried for her.
■ Papua New Guinea
PM demands an apology
Papua New Guinea has frozen a US$613 million dollar aid package it is receiving from Australia to protest the treatment of its prime minister by security staff at a Brisbane airport. Papua New Guinea has demanded Canberra apologize after security staff ordered Prime Minister Michael Somare to remove his shoes as he transited through Brisbane airport last month on his way home from New Zealand. Australian Prime Minister John Howard refused to apologize, saying his wife Janette always removed her shoes at Australian airports.
■ Australia
Man handles baggage badly
Qantas Airways yesterday suspended a baggage handler who was caught on video opening a passenger's bag which contained a camel costume, donning the head and wandering around the airport tarmac. The costume's owner, David Cox, said he was waiting inside the terminal at Sydney Airport when he glanced outside and saw the baggage handler wearing his camel head. "I obviously was flabbergasted, my jaw dropped to the ground," Cox said. Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon said a security camera had recorded the baggage handler, who had been suspended and could be fired pending further investigation.
■ China
Unlucky name causes strife
The husband of Su Danhong, the same Chinese name for the cancer-causing Sudan 1 red dye, came home one day and told his wife "Your name is unlucky and would bring disasters to our family. I heard the whole country is after people who are called Su Danhong." The couple had a heated argument after Su refused to go to the registry office to get a divorce. The couple's noisy row drew the attention of neighbors and local officials, who explained to them the news surrounding the food scare. Su Danhong's husband expressed his regret over his ignorance, hit himself on his ear and said he won't listen to hearsay anymore.
■ Hong Kong
Nose yields odd creature
A woman went to her doctor complaining of nose bleeds and an occasional sensation that something was blocking her left nostril. Her family doctor noticed a "brownish mass'' in her nostril but couldn't remove the 5cm creature because of heavy bleeding. In the emergency room, doctors identified the problem as a bloodsucking leech but had trouble pulling it out because it retracted into the nostril and disappeared in a passage of her nasal and sinus cavity. Doctors used a nasal spray to anesthetize it. After two minutes, the leech moved slowly out of the sinus and was retrieved with forceps. A month before, the woman swam and washed her face in a stream while hiking. The leech could have caused suffocation if it moved into the patients' larynx.
■ United States
Pope off the head table
Diners at Italian-themed US restaurant chain Buca di Beppo can no longer enjoy their meals in the presence of the late Pope John Paul II. The chain's parent company, BUCA Inc, has asked its restaurant managers to send decorative busts of the deceased pontiff back to the company's corporate headquarters. "We're very sensitive to offending anyone," said Buca spokesman Bob Kleiber. The plaster busts of John Paul were in most of the chain's 107 US restaurants, Kleiber said. The busts sat on the popular "Pope's Table," which is reserved for large groups, but were removed last Friday as the pontiff's health waned. The busts will likely be replaced with images of another recognizable pope from history and not with a bust of John Paul's successor.
■ United States
Lasers control fly behavior
Meet the Stepford flies. US scientists have created genetically modified flies they can remotely control with laser light. At the flick of a switch the researchers use the laser to make the flies jump, beat their wings and fly on command -- echoing the way the Stepford husbands use a handheld device to control their wives in last year's remake of the classic film. The scientists hope the freakish experiments will show them how nerve activity relates to behavior, perhaps one day helping to restore feelings and movement to people who have lost nerve cells through injury or disease.
■ United Nations
US also opposes reforms
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's sweeping plan for UN reform ran into new problems when the US joined Russia and China in opposing his call for adoption of the entire package at a summit of world leaders in September. The three veto-wielding members of the Security Council -- whose support for the UN overhaul is considered crucial -- said on Thursday that there should be no "artificial deadlines" and made it clear that it would be impossible to accept all of Annan's proposals. They also stressed the importance of getting broad agreement on the divisive issue of Security Council expansion.
■ Peru
Watch out for taxis, buses
Anyone climbing aboard a bus or taxi in Peru should think twice because many drivers have psychopathic tendencies, a university study said on Wednesday. Some 40 percent of the 640 taxi and bus drivers surveyed by Lima's San Marcos University suffered from psychological problems and showed psychopathic tendencies, such as aggressive, anxious and antisocial behavior, the study said. "Drivers showed they would not feel any guilt in injuring or running over a pedestrian," the study added. Hundreds of people die each year in bus and taxi crashes in Peru because of bad roads, poorly maintained vehicles and recklessness by drivers.
■ United States
Mammoth found at work site
The remarkably well-preserved remnants of an estimated half-million-year-old mammoth -- including both tusks -- were discovered at a new housing development in Moorpark, California. An on-site paleontologist found the remains, which include 50 percent to 70 percent of the Ice Age creature, as crews cleared away hillsides to prepare for building, Mayor Pro Tem Clint Harper said. Paleontologist Mark Roeder estimated the mammoth was about 3.7m tall, Harper said. Roeder believed it was not a pygmy or imperial mammoth, but he had not yet determined its exact type, Harper said.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion