■ Singapore
Officials permit Sex Expo
Singapore will host its first-ever Sex Expo in November after receiving in-principle approval from the tightly controlled city-state's authorities, a local newspaper reported yesterday. The Singapore police have already imposed certain conditions on organizers -- no obscene acts can be put on display and all exhibits and promotions will face government scrutineers, the Straits Times reported. The exhibition will feature furniture "designed to enhance lovemaking" and an erotic toy section, the paper said. An exhibition on the history of condoms is also scheduled for show.
■ Hong Kong
Landslides kill one
Hong Kong battled landslides and road closures yesterday as torrential rain caused chaos in the territory and buried one man alive in mud and rubble. The 42-year-old man died on Saturday night after being buried in a landslide on a slope beside his home in Tsuen Wan district, the first victim of a landslide in Hong Kong in 10 years. His death came after two days of continuous heavy rain which has caused 98 landslides since Friday night. Four families had to be evacuated from their homes in rural Pat Heung yesterday morning when rocks and mud poured down on their homes from a hillside.
■ Philippines
Aussie teen kidnapped
An Australian teenager was among three people kidnapped by armed men in Manila at the weekend, police said yesterday. Men who identified themselves as government agents and armed with handguns barged into a home in suburban Quezon city on Saturday and seized Jayson Rea, 21, Alfred Batolio, 30 and Charles Sajor, a 15-year-old Australian, police said. A housemaid told police that the five suspects identified themselves as members of a special anti-crime group. They "forcibly abducted the victims" and sped away in a blue car. The Philippines is facing a resurgence of kidnapping for ransom, just months after the government said it had neutralized major crime gangs operating in the capital and nearby suburbs.
■ China
PRC `Apprentice' fires up
US property tycoon Donald Trump is planning a Chinese edition of his US hit reality television show The Apprentice. "There have been 11 copies of The Apprentice and every one of them has failed," Trump said in a seeming swipe at his Hong Kong business partner Vincent Lo (羅康瑞), whose show Wise Man Takes All features Chinese contestants pitching business plans to win 1 million yuan (US$123,000) as start-up capital. The Chinese version of The Apprentice is set to further sour relations with Lo, whom Trump is suing for US$1.76 billion for allegedly underselling a plot of prime land in New York's Manhattan. Trump said the show would be fronted by 41-year-old Beijing real-estate mogul Pan Shiyi (潘石屹).
■ Malaysia
Sultan weds again
Brunei's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah has married a 26-year-old former Malaysian TV journalist who has become his second wife, reports said yesterday. The 58-year-old ruler of the oil-rich state married Azrinaz Mazhar Hakim at a private ceremony in the Malaysian capital on Friday night, the New Straits Times said. Azrinaz was educated in Malaysia and spent several years as a broadcast journalist and later as a newscaster with private station TV3. Polygamy is legal in the Muslim nation.
■ Indonesia
Fires mostly extinguished
Yesterday firefighters had extinguished all the fires from land clearance on Sumatra island blamed for causing a choking haze which smothered the region. Forestry Minister Malem Sambat Kaban said the peat could continue burning underground. He also said the blazes were caused by small farmers and plantations clearing non-forest land for planting, rather than forest fires. While the government banned the practice of using fire to clear land for farming or plantations, he said, "the environmental awareness and commitment of entrepreneurs are still low."
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