■ Australia
More troops may go to Iraq
Prime Minister John Howard said yesterday he would consider increasing troop deployment to Afghanistan. Australia sent 150 special forces troops to Afghanistan as part of the US-led war that ousted the Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in late 2001, but now has only one soldier there helping land mine clearing operations. Earlier this week, Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah called on Australia to send more troops and help stem a rising tide of violence in his country. Afghanistan's ambassador to Australia, Mahmoud Saikal, also asked Canberra to send more troops and help bolster security ahead of Sept. 18 parliamentary elections there. Howard said the request would be considered by the Cabinet next week.
■ China
Mall attack injures 27
A bomb injured 47 people after a man threw it into a crowded shopping center in an apparent revenge attack. Police arrested Ma Yuanxi, who was also wanted for murder, after the blast at the two-story Zhengde shopping center on Wednesday. Ma had been on the run since he was suspected of murder at a mine he ran in Hebei Province. He returned to Liaoyang to take revenge on a man identified only by his surname, Bian. He threw the bomb when he spotted someone he believed to be Bian in the shopping center. The force of the blast blew out all the windows at the shopping center, and many of the injured were rushed to local hospitals.
■ China
Idiot's guide to sex needed
Chinese are more ignorant about sex than any other subject, a sex expert said yesterday. "In the survey we conducted, not only youngsters but many grown-ups are sex idiots, which is really dangerous and woeful," Xu Tianming, president of the China Sexology Society, told a seminar. "More Chinese are ignorant about sex than about other knowledge, even including those having received higher education and experts of other fields," he said. Xu demonstrated a unique understanding of the subject, saying people could only enjoy a normal sex life until the age of 25. "Parents and society should allow them to have normal contacts with the opposite sex, such as dancing, and to read some books with certain sex descriptions," Xu said.
■ Japan
Three fall in elevator shaft
Three people fell 1.5m when an elevator failed to appear on the ground floor of an apartment building in Nagoya. When the elevator doors opened the two men and one woman stepped forward and promptly fell. With only slight injuries the three climbed out and reported the malfunctioning elevator, which was stuck on the third floor of the five-story building.
■ China
Minister put on trial
A minister in an underground Protestant church was put on trial yesterday on charges of running an illegal business after being detained with 200,000 copies of unauthorized Christian publications. Cai Zhuohua, his wife and two relatives were detained last year in what activists said was a crackdown by Communist officials on independent religious activity. A trial for the four began yesterday morning and adjourned after four hours without a verdict. and it might resume in three or four days. The four denied illegally operating a business. "Mr. Cai has no business to run, so the charge of illegally running a business is unreasonable," lawyer Gao Chusheng said. "The books were not for sale. They were to be given away for free."
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