■ Pakistan
Army rescues climber
Pakistan army helicopters yesterday plucked a Slovene climber from a Himalayan mountain where he had been trapped for three days. Mountaineer Tomaz Humar, 36, was "perfectly all right" after the ordeal, the army official said. Humar was reported to have been trapped in an icy shaft about 6,000m above sea level while climbing the Nanga Parbat mountain. He was reported to have been low on supplies and battling hypothermia. Around dawn yesterday, two Lama helicopters rescued Humar and moved him to Gilgit, a main town in the rugged Himalayan region, about 250km northeast of the capital Islamabad, an army statement said. Two other attempts to rescue Humar failed because of bad weather in the area, the army said.
■ South Korea
Computer gaming kills man
A 28-year-old South Korean man died of exhaustion in an Internet cafe after playing computer games non-stop for 49 hours, South Korean police said yesterday. Lee, a resident in the southern city of Taegu who was identified only by his last name, collapsed Friday after having eaten minimally and not sleeping, refusing to leave his keyboard while he played the battle simulation game Starcraft. Lee was quickly moved to a hospital but died after a few hours, due to what doctors are presuming was a heart attack, police said. Lee had been fired from his job last month because he kept missing work to play computer games, police said. Computer games are enormously popular in South Korea, home to professional gamers who earn big money through sponsorships and television stations devoted to broadcasting matches.
■ China
Graft buster busted
A Chinese official who said he had to wear a bulletproof vest for six years and hire bodyguards after receiving death threats during his fight against corruption has been charged with ... corruption. Huang Jingao, who in a letter to the Communist Party's mouthpiece newspaper a year ago styled himself as a graft-busting pit bull terrier, had been accused of taking bribes of nearly US$1 million in cash, gems, jewelry, a gold brick and a laptop computer, Xinhua news agency reported. The one-time party chief of Lianjiang County in southeastern Fujian Province also kept four mistresses and was fond of prostitutes, state media have said. Last August, when Huang posted his letter on the Web site of the People's Daily, he became a instant popular hero. But the party's provincial propaganda czars pulled the letter of the Web site and denounced him for fanning "social instability." Xinhua did not say when Huang would appear in court.
■ Australia
Plastic used to make steel
Australian scientists have developed a technique to use waste plastic in steel making, a process that could have implications for recycling scrap metal that accounts for 40 percent of steel production. Professor Veena Sahajwalla of the University of New South Wales has won a prestigious Australian science award for what she calls "the hottest research in town," which she hopes will turn an environmental headache into a valuable resource. Under the process, waste plastics are fed into electric steel-making furnaces as an alternative source of carbon and heated to 1,600?C. Sahajwalla said many waste plastics, from shopping bags to dishwashing-liquid containers and drink bottles, contain high enough levels of carbon to be useful in steelmaking. Carbon is used to add strength to steel.
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