■ France
Women prefer cautious men
Young men who think that driving fast or doing a bungee jump will impress the girls would probably do better to talk about making a top-up to their pension scheme. Far from liking men who take pointless risks, girls prefer men who are cautious, according to new research. The findings knock the mainstream theory that, like animals in courting rituals, men who display strength and courage are showing off their genetic fitness to potential mates. That notion fits in nicely with the fact that men in their prime reproductive years, from the late teens to the late twenties, take more risks. However University of Maine researchers, who surveyed 48 young men and 52 young women on their attitude to risky scenarios, found women preferred cautious men.
■ Brazil
Brazil looks to biodiesel
Biodiesel can provide an environmentally safe solution to Brazil's energy needs in the remote Amazon region, a top energy expert said on Wednesday. Dr Luiz Pinguelli Rosa, a former president of the national electric company Eletrobras, said Brazil now spends some 3 billion reals (US$1.2 billion) to distribute diesel fuel in the Amazon, where it is used to run electric generators. But the government could save money, reduce oil imports and boost the Amazon economy by providing the technology and teaching local farmers to refine biodiesel, using oils from the abundant local palm trees. Biodiesel is a fuel derived from the oils from plants such as soybeans, corn or even palm fruits. "It's not difficult to make it. The big difficulty is organizing the agriculture and the collection," Pinguelli Rosa said."
■ Hong Kong
Driver tries to avert suicide
A taxi driver offered to sell his cab and give the money to a suicidal passenger in a vain attempt to stop him jumping from a bridge in Hong Kong, a news report said yesterday. The 53-year-old passenger brushed aside his offer and jumped to his death after telling the taxi driver to phone his wife and tell her how much he loved her. Driver Ng Chi-lung was forced to stop by the suicidal passenger on the Tsing Ma suspension bridge on the way to Hong Kong's airport on Wednesday. "I asked him what I could do to help him," Ng said."I told him I could lend him money or even sell the taxi to help him." The passenger refused, saying he had cancer. As he perched on the edge of the bridge, he threw a note addressed to "my beloved wife" along with her phone number, and asked the cab driver to ring her and tell her he loved her.
■ China
Police bust blood racket
Chinese police have arrested 15 people in connection with illegal blood-buying operations blamed for spreading the AIDS virus, a news report said yesterday. The arrests are linked to 106 cases of unsafe blood collection, illegal plasma sales and "serious malpractice" in the blood market. The report mentioned a scandal in the central province of Henan over unsanitary blood-buying practices that infected 25,000 people with the AIDS virus in the 1990s, but it didn't say whether the arrests were linked to those cases.
■ Bangladesh
125 workers still trapped
Soldiers searched yesterday for 125 people still trapped in the debris of a nine-story garment factory that collapsed after a boiler exploded, killing at least 32 people, but they held out little hope of finding any survivors.
"We are not seeing any movement or hearing any more cries for help," said a firefighter standing on a heap of rubble that was once Spectrum Garments Factory Ltd. "There is little hope of finding anyone alive."
■ India
Children buried in ritual
Twenty-eight children were buried in pits for a few minutes in a temple in southern India as part of a ritual to propitiate the gods. The medieval ritual was carried out Monday in Virudhnagar district, where 28 children, ages between 3 and 13, were made to squat in pits bowing their heads before the deity of the Mariamman temple in Ayyanapuram. The pits were covered with wooden planks and tin sheets and the children were made to sit in them for two to three minutes. Some of them joined in further rituals after they were taken out of the pits. Following the incident, a district official filed a complaint with the police for "burying" the children. But locals said the burying of children in pits was a 400 year-old ritual in the region observed during the Kuzhimatru (pits) festival.
■ ISrael
Defense freeze causes row
The US has barred Israel's defense industry from any involvement in a project to develop a combat aircraft amid a row over the upgrading of Chinese drones. The Americans have also recently frozen the transfer of sophisticated technological equipment to Israel, according to high-level sources traveling with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on his visit to the US this week. Washington recently pressured Israel to scrap a deal to upgrade a consignment of drones which it had sold to China, for fear that advanced US defense technology contained in Israeli equipment could be used against Taiwan.
■ United Kingdom
Black men do it most often
Among heterosexual British men, blacks have the most sexual partners, while among women it is whites. Asians, both men and women, are by contrast remarkably faithful, according to a new wide-ranging study of sexual habits by ethnic group. The study, published in The Lancet medical journal, assessed risk of exposure to sexually transmitted infections. It found that black men have an average of nine sex partners. White men have six, while men of Indian origin have two and Pakistanis just one. Among women, whites have an average of five sexual partners, black Caribbean women four, black African women three and Indian and Pakistani women only one sex partner.
■ United Kingdom
Algerian guilty of murder
An Algerian accused of links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network has been convicted of murder, while eight others have been cleared of conspiracy charges in an alleged plot to spread the deadly toxin ricin in London. Details of the year-long case that sparked concerns of a chemical attack were released on Wednesday after a British judge lifted reporting restrictions on the trial. The jury deliberated for more than 83 hours over four weeks. Kamel Bourgass, 29, was sentenced last June to life in prison for stabbing a policeman to death during a raid in northwest England on Jan. 14, 2003.
■ Germany
Raids target Islamists
Police launched nationwide raids yesterday morning in pursuit of suspected support networks for Islamist extremists, a spokesman for the Bavarian interior ministry said. Some 30 buildings in Germany and neighboring countries were searched in an investigation targeting suspected money laundering and tax evasion. Germany has stepped up surveillance of suspected militants among its 3 million Muslims since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the US. Three of the suicide hijack pilots had been studying in the northern German city of Hamburg.
■ Niger
Fire engulfs market
A huge fire swept through a major market in Niger's capital Niamey on Wednesday, sending a plume of black smoke over the dusty city and drawing hundreds of traders desperate to grab what they could from the inferno. The market, which sells planks, paints and building materials, was closed when the fire broke out after nightfall. Katako market supplies hardware materials to all of Niger and is one of Niamey's biggest markets. Firemen roared up in trucks to battle the blaze but it quickly destroyed a quarter of the stalls, shops and hangars.
■ New Zealand
`Mercenary' death unclear
A man accused of being a mercenary didn't die of natural causes last week after being captured by rebels in the Ivory Coast, his family said yesterday. An autopsy on Hamish Sands was carried out by a pathologist in the commercial capital of Abidjan early this week after his captors -- a group known as the New Force -- released his body. Sands' sister, Catherine Sands-Wearing, said the family had received the autopsy report. "The report is inconclusive about whether his death was self-inflicted or caused by others. The family wishes that nothing further be said publicly about the circumstances of Hamish's death, or any other related matters," she said.
■ Canada
US hid mad cow: ex-official
A US former health inspector currently in Canada claims the US Department of Agriculture covered up cases of mad cow disease in American cattle herds in the late 1990s. The claim by Lester Friedlander, a former USDA inspector fired in 1995, came as the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) aired video on Wednesday of a cow stricken by the deadly illness that they say belonged to a US herd and was taken in 1997. US officials have denied all the charges. Friedlander testified in Parliament on Tuesday that USDA veterinarians sent samples of brain tissue of cattle suspected of being stricken with mad cow disease to private laboratories.
■ United States
Murder joke not appreciated
A police emergency hot line dispatcher was reprimanded for responding to a mother's plea for help with an unruly child by saying: "OK. Do you want us to come over to shoot her?" "I admit what I did. It was stupid, it was inexcusable and I'm sorry," said dispatcher Mike Forbess. The woman, identified only as Lori in Wednesday's <
■ Peru
Machu Picchu plan unveiled
The Peruvian government has come up with an emergency plan to preserve the mountain-top Inca citadel Machu Picchu and the surrounding national park from the ravages of too many tourists and possible landslides. The US$132.5 million plan is to be studied by UNESCO and the World Bank at a three-day meeting in Lima beginning tomorrow. Machu Picchu is the most visited archaeological site in Latin America. It has been a UNESCO world heritage site since 1983, but the UN's cultural organisation made it clear last year that if something were not done soon it would be put on the list of sites at risk.
■ United States
Suspect faces deportation
An anti-communist Cuban exile whom Venezuela wants extradited in connection with the bombing of a Cuban airliner 29 years ago has applied for political asylum in the US, his lawyer said on Wednesday. The case presents US authorities with a dilemma of how to reconcile traditional sympathy for Cuban exiles -- US law allows most Cubans who arrive on US shores to stay -- with Washington's firm stance against terrorism suspects following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
■ Mexico
Five likely killed in pipe leak
Workers cleaning and repairing a pipeline in the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz triggered a gas leak that left five people missing and feared dead and forced authorities to evacuate 6,000 residents from nearby homes, officials said. A maintenance team from a private company hired by government oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, was supposed to repair ducts along a pipeline containing propylene, an odorless and highly flammable gas, in the city of Nanchital in southern Veracruz state. Instead, workers triggered a leak along the incorrect duct around 4:30pm, releasing highly toxic ammonia, said Ranulfo Marquez, deputy secretary of civil protection for Veracruz state.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was