■ Hong Kong
Lady boys rivaling Mickey
The Lady Boyz of Thailand are proving a rival to Mickey Mouse and the US$3.5 billion Disneyland theme park, it was revealed yesterday. A cabaret show featuring a troupe of Thai transvestites and transsexuals is playing daily to packed audiences of up to 3,000 Chinese tourists, who pay US$160-US$200 per ticket, the Sunday Morning Post reported. The Sunday's sister paper earlier claimed Disneyland was failing to pull in the crowds and was on some days only one-third full. Disney has refused to disclose exact figures except to say it has welcomed 1 million in the first 100 days.
■ Japan
Old bomb found in Tokyo
Thousands of residents were evacuated in Tokyo yesterday while authorities dug up an unexploded 250kg bomb, believed to have been dropped by the US during World War II, a local official said. The bomb, about 36cm in diameter and 120cm long, was detected earlier this month in a residential area in Katsushika ward by Self-Defense Force investigators, said Katsushika spokesman Takanori Kato. About 3,900 residents within a 300m radius of the site were evacuated for one-and-a-half hours while troops removed the bomb, Kato said.
■ Hong Kong
Hu taps ally for Tibet post
Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) has appointed a political ally as acting Chinese Communist Party boss of Tibet, a move that further consolidates his power base. The party's elite Central Committee recently appointed Zhang Qingli (張慶黎), 54, vice governor of the predominantly Muslim region of Xinjiang, as acting party boss of the Himalayan region, the official Xinhua news agency said yesterday. It gave no further details. Zhang cut his teeth in the China Youth League -- Hu's power base -- from 1979 to 1986 when he served as section chief and later vice minister with a responsibility for young workers and farmers.
■ Philippines
Fugitive denies poll rigging
A fugitive former election official emerged briefly from hiding yesterday to deny charges he helped President Gloria Arroyo cheat to win last year's presidential elections. Virgilo Garcillano has been in hiding for almost six months after the opposition released audio tapes in June allegedly showing him and a woman who sounds like Arroyo conspiring to rig the elections. "I swear there was no such thing as rigging in the last elections," said Garcillano in an interview at an unknown location conducted by ABS-CBN television. Arroyo has apologized for a "lapse in judgment," in speaking to an unnamed elections official before the votes were tallied, but she has denied any cheating to win the May polls.
■ Hong Kong
Bruce Lee statue unveiled
The territory was expected to finally give recognition to one of its most famous stars when it unveiled a statue of the legendary martial arts star Bruce Lee yesterday. The 2.5m bronze statue was to be revealed on the 65th anniversary of Lee's birth, along the Avenue Of Stars attraction near the waterfront at Tsim Sha Tsui. But it would come 24 hours later than a similar life-size statue erected on Saturday in a park in Mostar, Bosnia. Lee was chosen for the Mostar park because of his appeal as a hero that all ethnic groups could relate to. The Hong Kong memorial showed Lee poised and ready to strike as in the movie Fist of Fury.
■ Iran
Earthquake levels villages
A 5.9-magnitude earthquake leveled four villages in southern Iran yesterday, killing 10 people and injuring dozens, provincial officials said. Heidar Alishvandi, the governor of Qeshm Island, was quoted by state-run television as saying that rescue teams were deployed to the affected areas. He said four villages were destroyed in the quake but people moved quickly to safety. Iran's seismologic center said the epicenter was in the waters of the Persian Gulf between the port city of Bandar Abbas and Qeshm Island. The quake was felt in nearby Oman and the United Arab Emirates. Tehran's seismologic center said the quake measured magnitude-5.9.
■ United Kingdom
Suspect held in cop-killing
Police said on Saturday they had arrested a teenager in connection with the murder of Bradford policewoman Sharon Beshenivsky, gunned down as she answered an emergency call about an armed robbery. They said they arrested the 19-year-old in Birmingham and had taken to him to a police station in West Yorkshire for questioning. "Enquiries are continuing," a West Yorkshire police spokesman said, adding that police still wanted to trace Muzzaker Imtiaz Shah, 24, and Mustaf Jama, 25, in connection with the shooting.
■ Russia
Party booted off ballot
A Moscow court on Saturday ordered that a nationalist party be struck off the ballot paper for a local election next weekend because of a campaign advertisement that judges ruled incited racism. The 30-second television clip by the Rodina (Motherland) party shows a blonde woman walking in Moscow surrounded by dark-skinned immigrants from ex-Soviet republics. It ends with the slogan: "Let's clean the city of rubbish." Critics said the clip was a symptom of growing prejudice in Russia towards ethnic minorities that has also seen a spate of violent attacks on immigrants.
■ United Kingdom
Probe of Marines launched
The Ministry of Defense said it had launched an investigation into claims yesterday of violent bullying in the Royal Marines. It said it launched the probe as the News of the World newspaper published photographs of what it said were recruits at the Royal Marines being forced to fight each other naked in a bizarre initiation ceremony. The blurred photos, taken from a video sequence, show around a dozen men standing naked in a field. Two of them are seen fighting each other, first with large rubber mats wrapped around their arms and then with bare fists. The photos, published in yesterday's edition of the paper, then appear to show a man dressed in blue, who the paper says is more senior Marine, kicking one of the new recruits in the head.
■ Russia
Chechnya goes to the polls
Voters in war-ravaged Chechnya cast ballots yesterday in their first parliamentary elections in eight years, billed by the Kremlin as a milestone in restoring normal life but dismissed by rights groups as a fake. Officials say almost 600,000 people, including 34,000 Russian soldiers stationed in the volatile Caucasus province, are registered. Some 350 candidates are running for the 18-seat Republican Council and the 40-seat People's Assembly. Candidates include five officers with the Russian armed forces and numerous officials with the pro-Russian Chechen administration.
■ United States
Two escapees recaptured
Two jail escapees were captured after an anonymous tip led police to the attic of a relative's home, but two others were still at large after nine inmates broke out of a maximum security area of the Yakima County Jail in Washington. The men broke through the ceiling of the four-story jail and used a rope made of bed sheets to climb down on Friday evening, authorities said. Five were recaptured on the jail grounds, but four others got away. On Saturday morning, officers got a tip that led them to a Yakima home where a sister of escapee Santos Luera lives, Police Chief Sam Granato said.
■ United States
`Miracle' statue cries
Some carry rosary beads, others flowers and cameras. Dozens of the faithful are coming in a steady stream to a church on the outskirts of Sacramento, California, for a glimpse of what some are calling a miracle: A statue of the Virgin Mary that has begun "crying" a substance that looks like blood. The first sign of the tears came more than a week ago, when a priest at the Vietnamese Catholic Martyrs Church spotted a stain on the statue's face and wiped it away. Before Mass on Nov. 20, people again noticed a reddish substance streaming from the eyes of the white concrete statue outside the small church, said Ky Truong, 56, a parishioner who said he was one of the witnesses.
■ United States
Teen kills cyclist
A 17-year-old will likely face misdemeanor charges of careless driving resulting in death after allegedly losing control of his car while text messaging and hitting a cyclist in Colorado. The victim, Jim Price, a retired geologist, died on Friday, two days after the accident. Police did not release the teenager's name because he's a juvenile. "The investigation showed that he was text-messaging on his cellphone" at the time of the accident, said Lieutenant Alan Stanton, spokesman for Douglas County Sheriff's Office. "We do not believe it was an intentional act but it was inattentiveness to the roadway." It was the second time Price, an avid cyclist, had been hit by a car. He suffered a broken ankle two years ago when he was hit while riding on a bike path.
■ Colombia
Rebels cause blackout
The Pacific port city of Buenaventura was blacked out after a series of attacks by Marxist rebels, authorities said late on Saturday. A local government spokesman said late on Friday that it was expected to take at least five more days to restore power in the city of 350,000 people. Guerillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia were blamed for attacks on high-tension power transmission lines into Buenaventura. The rebels often plant land mines around sabotaged transmission lines to hamper repair work.
■ United Kingdom
Defense likely to be accepted
The police officers who shot and killed a Brazilian man in the London subway in the mistaken belief that he was a terrorist bomber are expected to escape prosecution, the Sunday Times reported. Quoting "sources close to the inquiry," it said senior Metropolitan Police officers and government officials are sure that prosecutors will accept the defense put forward by the two armed officers. Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, was shot and killed at Stockwell station in south London on July 22, a day after a failed attempt to repeat the July 7 suicide bombings in the British capital which left 56 dead.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
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
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