■ Japan
China's not a threat: Tokyo
China is not a military threat to Japan, but Beijing should be transparent about its rapidly growing defense budget, Japanese Defense Minister Yoshinori Ohno said yesterday. The US Defense Department said last week in a report that China's fast-growing military could pose a threat to the region. "I'm always saying I don't think China is a threat to us. China is a country with which we have to keep very good relations," Ohno said at an event honoring young US military personnel in Japan. "Yet we have to be very attentive to some movements," Ohno said, noting the rapid growth in China's defense budget. "Transparency is the most necessary thing for China's defense, I believe," he added.
■ India
Arms ship causes stir
Customs authorities in India are on the lookout for a North Korean ship that is carrying arms and ammunition and is heading towards the country, a newspaper report said yesterday. Commissioner of Customs KB Mishra was quoted by the Indian Express as saying that "security and vigil[ance] have been intensified," after naval intelligence sent a classified and specific alert to the customs office. The newspaper said the North Korean ship, MV Shangdok, may dock to drop the "consignment" at one of the minor ports on the coastline of the western states of Maharashtra or Gujarat. Customs officials are on alert to prevent a repeat of the 1993 bomb blasts in Mumbai (Bombay), with explosives that were smuggled in from ports along India's western coast. More than 250 people were killed in the series of bomb blasts in Mumbai that year.
■ New polio campaign set
A nationwide vaccination campaign will be launched next month in an attempt to halt a polio outbreak that has crippled more than 150 infants and toddlers, officials announced yesterday. Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari said she expected that up to 24.3 million children could be vaccinated throughout the country starting on Aug. 30, with the second round scheduled on Sept. 29." All children under the age of five would be vaccinated," Supari said. She estimated the nationwide immunization program would cost up to 230 billion rupiah (US$23.4 million). As of late last week, a total of 155 children have been confirmed with polio.
■ Hong Kong
Disney kills scores of dogs
Disney came under fire from animal welfare groups yesterday for having stray dogs on its theme park site rounded up and killed. Around 40 dogs, some of which were used as unofficial guard dogs by construction workers, are believed to have been given lethal injections after being caught by government dog catchers. Disney called in dog catchers to clear the site in the run-up to the opening of the US$3 billion park in September. It denies the dogs were used as guard dogs and says they were strays that wandered onto the site during construction work. They were now prowling in packs, a spokeswoman said. However, Hong Kong Dog Rescue, which found homes for three of the 45 dogs rounded up, said Disney should have made more effort to find homes for the dogs.
■ Pakistan
Journalist detained
Law enforcement officers picked up a senior journalist for writing reports on the poor performance of chief minister of southern Sindh Province and other officials, a news report said yesterday. The Daily Times said Rashid Channa, a reporter for the evening newspaper, Star, was whisked away on Sunday afternoon from his residence in Karachi by police and some plainclothes officials who did not cite any reasons. However, the paper said police and several intelligence officials denied his arrest and any knowledge of Channa's whereabouts.
■ Papua New Guinea
Secessionist leader dies
Francis Ona, the charismatic leader of a secessionist movement in Bougainville Province has died, a government official said yesterday. Ona, the self-proclaimed king of the island whose opposition to rule from the capital, Port Moresby, sparked a bloody 10-year conflict that left thousands dead, died on Sunday afternoon, probably of malaria, administrator Peter Tsiamalili said. "He's been ill for a few weeks and passed away peacefully at his home," Tsiamalili said. He said arrangements were being made to fly the body to the provincial capital where a state funeral would be held. Ona was believed to be in his 50s. His death will likely change the political balance on the island and there is no clear successor to lead his Meekamui Movement.
■ Bangladesh
Bogus Potter sells well
Pirated copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince are selling briskly on the streets of Dhaka, at about one-fifth the price of the original. Pavement vendors said hundreds of pirated copies are selling every day, each for 400 taka (US$6). The original price of J.K. Rowling's latest book is US$29. "I don't care if it is pirated or original. I wanted to read this book and now it's available at an affordable price," said Syed Mustakim Haider, a student.
■ United Kingdom
Overfishing warning issued
Stocks of a small, herring-like fish that provides omega-3 essential fatty acids for supplements taken by millions of people could be endangered because of the obsession with health foods, conservationists warn. At risk is the future of the menhaden fish, which breeds in Chesapeake Bay and lives along the US' eastern seaboard. Vast shoals at a time are being vacuumed up, threatening the ecosystem, it is claimed. The issue has set Greenpeace against the US billionaire Malcolm Glazer, whose family owns Omega Protein Corp, which fishes the bay. Greenpeace staged a protest outside one of Omega's Chesapeake Bay plants on Saturday, calling a moratorium for the entire fishery. The menhaden is also valued because it filters sea water for its food, cleaning up the pollution in the creeks and inshore bay areas.
■ Kuwait
Security ban on melons
The government has banned the importation of Iraqi watermelons over fears they could be used to smuggle explosives or drugs into the emirate, two newspapers reported yesterday. A memorandum issued by the border security department warned that watermelons should not be allowed to be brought in through northern checkpoints under any circumstances, said the al-Rai al-Aam and Kuwait Times. The memo was based on intelligence received by Kuwaiti security forces.
■ United Kingdom
Color `causes allergies'
The red in strawberries is responsible for the allergic reaction some people suffer when eating the fruit, Swedish researchers have found. "The allergen is in some way or other related to the red color, but it is not clear exactly how. We need to investigate more proteins," Rikard Alm of Lund University said. Alm was quoted in Chemistry World, the magazine of Britain's Royal Society of Chemistry. People who suffer an allergic reaction to red strawberries -- itching and swelling in the mouth and throat -- are often able to eat white strawberries. A particular protein is being held responsible. It resembles a known allergen in birch pollen.
■ United Kingdom
Cancer researcher dies
Sir Richard Doll, the scientist who first established a link between smoking and lung cancer, died on Sunday, aged 92. He died in hospital in Oxford where he worked at the hospital's Imperial Cancer Research Center. Doll's work alongside Austin Bradford Hill during the late 1940s and early 1950s, in which they linked the rise in lung cancer to smoking, shocked the medical establishment and came to be regarded as his seminal work. "Sir Richard's enormous contribution to medicine cannot be understated. His pioneering epidemiological work on the link between smoking and cancer, cardiovascular disease and many other disorders, has led to the dramatic reduction in smoking rates over the past 50 years," said John Hood, vice-chancellor of Oxford University.
■ Colombia
Bogota to pay for coca crops
The government has offered to buy illegal drug crops from peasants in an effort to break the cocaine trade's stranglehold on violent rural areas. "We are going to offer ... to pay peasants who have coca to bring in," President Alvaro Uribe said on Saturday. He did not say how much the government would pay farmers to get out of the coca business. Peasants currently can get about US$800 for 1kg of coca paste from Marxist guerrillas.
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
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