■ Australia
Not laughing now
One person died and three others suffered serious injuries when they apparently inhaled "laughing gas" in a car in Sydney, police said yesterday. Four people were found unconscious in the vehicle outside a home in the suburb of Toongabbie early on Sunday morning. The man who discovered the car ran to a nearby house for help, screaming that the car was full of gas. Police said a 38-year-old man died, a 23-year-old woman was in serious condition and two men were in stable condition. A gas cylinder found in the car was labeled "nitrous oxide." "People do some weird and wondrous things to try and get a bit of a buzz," police Inspector Damon Cox said.
■ Australia
Woman survives wild ride
A woman who interrupted a thief as he stole her car was in hospital yesterday after clinging to the bonnet of the vehicle for several kilometers as the robber tried to make his escape, police said. Police were alerted after residents of the town of Kununurra in Western Australia state reported seeing a screaming woman hanging on to the windscreen wipers of the moving car. The bizarre drive came to an end several kilometers later when the car crashed into a bridge, throwing the woman clear. The 31-year-old female teacher was in stable condition in hospital with serious injuries, while an 18-year-old man was facing six charges, police said.
■ Thailand
Stork killer faces jail time
A man faces up to eight years in prison on charges that he killed an endangered stork whose population is estimated at only 500 worldwide, police said yesterday. Boonchu Sukpong, 53, turned himself in to police in Buritam Province as they searched for him on suspicion he had killed a greater adjutant stork last week, police Lieutenant Major Thanom Phajantuek said. "He said he did not mean to kill the stork, but wanted to wound it and keep it as a pet," Thanom said.
■ Japan
Ex-lawmaker in drug bust
A former national lawmaker from Japan's top opposition party and two of his aides have been arrested and accused of possessing amphetamines following a six-month investigation, police said yesterday. Kenji Kobayashi, his private secretary Koshi Ando, and former secretary Masaharu Saeki were arrested on Sunday, an official with Aichi Prefectural Police said. Kobayashi was immediately expelled from the Democratic Party of Japan, according to the party's Web site. The three suspects have admitted taking the stimulants, and former employees have said that Kobayashi started using the drugs soon after he was first elected to office, Kyodo News agency said, citing police.
■ New Zealand
Bad call equals nude run
A Green Party lawmaker who pledged to run naked through the streets of an upscale suburb if a rival party leader was re-elected said yesterday that he would honor his word. Legislator Keith Locke, the Green Party's foreign affairs spokesman, said he didn't want to break an election promise. He said he would do the nude dash if rightist Act Party leader Rodney Hide won a parliamentary seat in the Auckland suburb of Epsom. Regarded as an outside chance, Hide romped home in the contest on Saturday with a 3,200-vote majority. A local business group is helping pave the way for the lawmaker's run down Broadway, which is "a straight and wide strip -- ideal for such exposure," the group's general manager said.
■ United Kingdom
Condoms used by police
Police in central England have found a seductive way to get the attention of students -- condoms. The message is not about sex, but theft, a police spokesman said. The condoms bear the slogan: "Size doesn't matter ... thieves will steal your phone, laptop, iPod or car, so protect your valuables." The contraceptive is only one of the items police in the West Midlands region are using to get across their message to watch out for thieves. The other less enticing items include computer screen cleaners and winter ice scrapers.
■ Austria
Beer baths open to public
Vacationers in Tirol can now visit the world's first beer baths at Starkenberg Castle near Imst. Of course, these pools are less about recreation and more about health. The seven pools have been filled with beer byproducts -- the yeast that settles at the bottom of the vats during cold storage -- to tackle a wide range of skin ailments. The beer baths are part of a new 4,000m2 exhibit called The Myth of Beer.
■ Finland
Cancer, aviation link studied
A survey of Finnish female flight cabin staff does not suggest they face an increased risk of breast cancer due to work factors such as exposure to cosmic radiation, a new study published in the Occupational and Environmental Medicine journal said. Earlier studies had suggested that flight attendants may have a higher risk of breast cancer due to occupational factors such as exposure to cosmic radiation and repeated jet lag. The new study co-authored by Katja Kojo of the School of Public Health, Tampere University, indicated that flight attendants face the same risks as other women.
■ Argentina
Falklands again at issue
Argentina's foreign minister, Rafael Bielsa, called on the British government on Sunday to renew talks on the disputed Falklands Islands, over which the two countries fought a brief war in 1982. Addressing the UN General Assembly, Bielsa said bilateral talks were needed to resolve the sovereignty of the disputed islands, which he described as a "colonial situation." "The return of sovereignty of the Malvinas Islands, South Georgia and South Sandwich islands and their maritime areas are part of the national interest, which is at the heart of my country's identity as a democratic nation," Bielsa said.
■ Zimbabwe
Get rid of `filth': minister
A leading Cabinet minister vowed at the weekend to rid the country of the "filth" of white farmers. Didymus Mutasa, the minister for state security and land reform, said all remaining white farmers must be "cleared out." Mutasa, one of Mugabe's closest advisers, referred to Operation Murambatsvina ("Clean out the trash") -- the campaign in which the government destroyed the homes of hundreds of thousands of urban poor. "Operation Murambatsvina should also be applied to the land reform program to clean the commercial farms that are still in the hands of white farmers. White farmers are dirty and should be cleared out. They are similar to the filth that was in the streets before Murambatsvina," said Mutasa. The government also announced it annulled more than 4,000 court challenges by farmers to the expropriation of their farms.
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
CARTEL ARRESTS: The president said that a US government operation to arrest two cartel members made it jointly responsible for the unrest in the state’s capital Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Thursday blamed the US in part for a surge in cartel violence in the northern state of Sinaloa that has left at least 30 people dead in the past week. Two warring factions of the Sinaloa cartel have clashed in the state capital of Culiacan in what appears to be a fight for power after two of its leaders were arrested in the US in late July. Teams of gunmen have shot at each other and the security forces. Meanwhile, dead bodies continued to be found across the city. On one busy street corner, cars drove
‘DISAPPEARED COMPLETELY’: The melting of thousands of glaciers is a major threat to people in the landlocked region that already suffers from a water shortage Near a wooden hut high up in the Kyrgyz mountains, scientist Gulbara Omorova walked to a pile of gray rocks, reminiscing how the same spot was a glacier just a few years ago. At an altitude of 4,000m, the 35-year-old researcher is surrounded by the giant peaks of the towering Tian Shan range that also stretches into China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The area is home to thousands of glaciers that are melting at an alarming rate in Central Asia, already hard-hit by climate change. A glaciologist, Omarova is recording that process — worried about the future. She hiked six hours to get to