■ Hong Kong
Public wants tax cuts
Nearly seven out of 10 people want tax cuts in the government's budget in February to reflect the city's rising prosperity, according to a survey published yesterday. Sixty-eight percent of people said the government should trim salary tax or give a one-off rebate as a way of sharing the city's growing prosperity with taxpayers. More than half also believe that tax concessions withdrawn during a recent economic slump should be reinstated, the survey by the Democratic Party found. Growth has soared in the past two and a half years while unemployment has fallen, property prices have rebounded and the Hang Seng Index has climbed to a five-year high.
■ Hong Kong
Barrister calls for reform
The leader of barristers has called for an overhaul of colonial-era English laws that are so densely worded that few people can understand them, a news report said yesterday. Bar Association chairman Philip Dykes, quoted by the South China Morning Post, cited a passage of the Evidence Ordinance that is a single sentence of 351 words with only one colon, one semicolon and a sprinkling of commas to break it up. Another passage in the Magistrates Act contains one passage of 195 words with only two semicolons, eight commas and one period, he said in a speech at a legal function. "I have long marveled at the capacity of Victorian draftsmen to manage to write clauses of bills without, so to speak, drawing breath for punctuation," Dykes said. He said many written laws "make demands on the reader's powers of concentration which we, in the 21st century, are simply not up to."
■ Australia
No `Burning Love' for Elvis
An Australian woman faced charges in court yesterday for repeatedly stabbing her partner because he played an Elvis Presley song over and over again, police said. The 30-year-old woman was charged with unlawful wounding after her 35-year-old partner was stabbed with a pair of scissors in the back, shoulder and thigh at Northam, about 100km east of Perth in Western Australia state on Monday, police said. The man, whose injuries were described as "non-life threatening," had been repeatedly playing the song Burning Love, a police spokesman said.
■ Australia
Memory coach finds pi easy
For Melbourne resident Chris Lyons, reciting a 4,400 digit number was as easy as pi. Lyons, 36, recited the first 4,400 digits of pi -- a mathematical value that has an infinite number of decimal places -- without a single error at the 2006 Mindsports Australia Festival on Monday, organizer David Cordover said yesterday. The memory coach took two-and-a-half hours to complete the feat, Cordover said. Lyons said he spent just one week memorizing the digits before reciting them for judges at the festival. "With the right techniques and a bit of practice you can remember what ever you want," he said.
■ Australia
Man rescued from washer
An Australian man had to be rescued after becoming wedged in a washing machine while playing with his children, Sydney's The Daily Telegraph reported yesterday. Robin Toom, 38, had to be pulled from the 8kg capacity machine by a local fire officer after he became trapped while playing hide-and-seek with his children. "I just hopped in there and couldn't even get the lid down and the kids came in and said, `Ha, ha! We found you,'" Toom told the newspaper. Toom, who lives in the northern Queensland city of Townsville, waited for an hour with his knees pressed to his chest before being rescued by local fire squad member Dave Dillon, the newspaper said.
■ Malaysia
Manna from the ocean
When shipping containers loaded with cigarettes, shrimps and other goodies washed ashore in eastern Malaysia, villagers didn't take long to get over their astonishment. By the time police arrived a few hours later, six of seven containers that had floated ashore along a 1km stretch of beach in Terengganu state had been completely cleaned out, the New Straits Times paper reported yesterday. They had apparently fallen off a freighter into the South China Sea. Surprised villagers "decided to help themselves to the goods" after prying open the containers, the paper said. "I don't know if these goods were a gift from God," Razak Hussin, 35, a villager, said. "One thing is sure. The people loved it and it was like a festival here."
■ Japan
Firemen's party ends in fire
Firemen in a small Japanese town were left red-faced after a party to mark the end of a fire awareness promotional event ended in a blaze that badly damaged their station. The two-story, wooden fire station in Shimohetsugi, southern Japan, was extensively damaged by the Sunday blaze, a spokesman for the Oita prefectural fire department said. No one was injured in the fire, which is thought to have been started either by a gas canister used for the firemen's barbecue or by a kerosene heater. "It's very embarrassing that this should happen to people whose job it is to go and put out fires," the spokesman said.
■ United Kingdom
Blind feeding the blind
For Londoners it will be the ultimate blind date. A French entrepreneur is opening a new restaurant where diners are served by blind waiters and eat their meal in pitch darkness. Chefs used to creating flamboyant dishes that are a feast for the eye may mock and indeed some already have. But Edouard de Broglie is convinced he is on to a winner with Dans Le Noir (In The Dark) which opens in London next month. He is hiring 10 blind people as waiters who will lead diners into the darkened room for a blind tasting with a difference.
■ United Kingdom
Twins guilty of killing
Twin brothers who sneaked out of their 18th birthday party to steal from their widowed step-grandmother were found guilty of her manslaughter on Monday after the 74-year-old was killed during the robbery. Robert and James Maskell, who were cleared of Anjelica Hallwood's murder, were also found guilty of robbery, along with their accomplice, 19-year-old Dwane Johnston. A London court heard how the Maskells believed she had thousands of pounds in savings and wanted the cash to spend on mobile phones. As they ransacked her house, Johnston, who had just been released from prison, confronted the pensioner before beating and strangling her on Jan. 28, 2004.
■ Ukraine
Cabinet fired over gas deal
Ukraine's parliament voted yesterday to sack Prime Minister Yuri Yekhanurov's government over a gas deal with Russia. A no-confidence motion was backed by 250 deputies in the 450-seat parliament, angry over the deal with Moscow which will force Ukraine to pay nearly twice as much for its gas imports this year. Yekhanurov will remain as acting prime minister until President Viktor Yushchenko names a new premier. Ukraine is due to hold a parliamentary election in March. Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, sacked by Yushchenko last September, was the driving force behind the no-confidence vote.
■ Germany
Man guilty over sex video
In the first such case in Germany, a man was handed a suspended jail term on Monday for spitefully releasing onto the Internet a sex video of his former girlfriend along with her phone number. He was sentenced to 18 months' prison and ordered to pay her 35,000 euros (US$42,000) in damages. Convicting him of criminal insult and trafficking in pornography, the judge said, "It's now technically impossible to delete these files off the Internet." The film of the couple was available on free porn sites. "She was pasted up on an electronic hoarding and fed to voyeurs," the judge said.
■ Uganda
Rwandan killed tourists
A former Rwandan soldier was convicted on Monday of killing a group of Western tourists who were on a gorilla-spotting trip in the jungles of southern Uganda. Jean-Paul Bizimana, also known as Xavier van Dame, was a member of a gang that hacked and bludgeoned the tourists to death in a remote rainforest near Uganda's border with Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the court in Kampala was told. They had been in a group of about 30 tourists visiting the Bwindi Impenetrable national park, home to a population of endangered mountain gorillas. Three other men were arrested in March 2003 in connection with the killings, and have been sent to the US to stand trial over the deaths of the two US citizens.
■ United States
`Bomb' left in Starbucks
Police in San Francisco on Monday defused a homemade "bomb" left in a Starbucks coffee shop. "Someone left a flashlight case with an M-1000 in it -- it was basically [a] big, giant firecracker in a tube," a police spokesman said. A so-called M-1000 has the explosive capacity of a quarter of a stick of dynamite, according to media reports. Police were called to the scene and the area was sealed off to allow explosives experts to defuse the homemade bomb. Officers are investigating the incident and searching for suspects, police said.
■ United states
Alleged spies in court
A college professor and his wife, who worked at the same university, appeared in federal court on charges that for decades they used their academic positions as cover to spy as illegal agents of the Cuban government. Carlos Alvarez, 61, a psychology professor at Florida International University, and his wife, 55-year-old Elsa Alvarez, were charged in a federal indictment unsealed on Monday with acting as agents of a foreign power without registering as required with the US government. They were arrested on Friday. The couple was ordered held without bail by US Magistrate Judge Andrea Simonton.
■ United States
Cuban refugees returned
The US Coast Guard repatriated 15 Cubans on Monday who had tried to reach the US but managed to get only as far as a pylon of an abandoned bridge in the Florida Keys. The repatriation of the Cubans cast a renewed spotlight on the US policy of generally allowing Cubans who reach US soil to stay in the country, and sending back those intercepted by the Coast Guard at sea, a "wet foot, dry foot" policy that non-Cuban immigrant groups consider unfair. The Coast Guard said Washington had decided that the old Seven Mile Bridge, reached by the 15 Cubans, was not connected to land, placing them in the "wet foot" category. As a result, they were sent back to Cuba.
■ Chile
Pinochet granted bail
Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was granted bail on Monday after seven weeks of house arrest on charges related to the disappearance and presumed death of three leftists during his 17-year rule. The motion by Judge Victor Montiglio, who suggested a bail of US$19,000, must be ratified by the court of appeals and a ruling is expected this week. Pinochet, 90, ran Chile from 1973-1990, an era in which an estimated 3,000 people died in political violence and some 28,000 people were tortured. Last week the court of appeals ratified bail for the retired general in the cases of six other leftists kidnapped and presumed killed as part of a government crackdown during the Pinochet regime that became known as Operation Colombo.
■ El Salvador
Pirate vendors protest
Street vendors who make a living from selling pirated films and music albums protested in the capital, San Salvador, on Monday against government plans to seize their counterfeit goods. The vendors, many of whom covered their faces with scarves, carried signs protesting plans by the authorities to begin seizing their goods in coming days in accord with government reforms following the sealing of a free trade agreement with the US. "We're asking the president of the republic not to approve the legal reforms as long as we have no other job opportunities," Martin Montoya, a spokesman for the street vendors, told reporters.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the