■ Japan
Dogs suffer in winter
It may be the Year of the Dog, but in Japan, man's best friend has seen better days with a bitter winter leaving the canine population suffering indoors, veterinarians said yesterday. Dogs have suffered a greater number of cases this winter of cystitis, a bladder inflammation, since the snow has kept them from going for walks. "Like humans, some dogs do not want to go out or go for a pee under the cold spell," said veterinarian Taizo Umeshita, who heads Heart Animal Hospital in the snow-covered province of Fukui. Owners were also too busy clearing heavy snow to take dogs out for a walk, he added.
■ Hong Kong
Not Chinese: HK youth
More than eight years after the city returned to Chinese rule, youngsters in Hong Kong consider themselves more Hong Konger than Chinese, a survey indicated yesterday. Eighty-eight percent of nearly 3,000 schoolchildren interviewed said they agreed with the statement "I am a Hong Konger," but only 75 percent agreed with the statement "I am Chinese." Eighty-four percent said they loved Hong Kong, but only 59.7 percent said they loved China in the interviews, down from 62.1 percent in 2004, in the annual survey by the youth group, the Hok Yau Club. Asked how much they agreed with the statement "I feel happy about reunification with China" on a scale of one to six, the score was 4.17.
■ Australia
Opera House nominated
Authorities yesterday nominated Sydney Opera House for listing as a World Heritage site, calling the unique expressionist structure "a masterpiece of human creative genius." The multi-shell structure on Sydney's harborside is one of the world's most recognizable and photographed buildings and was nominated for World Heritage listing jointly by the federal government and the state of New South Wales. "Our nomination argues that the Sydney Opera House is an outstanding conjunction of architecture and engineering, a turning point in the modern architectural movement, an exceptional engineering feat," NSW Arts and Environment Minister Bob Debus said. A decision on the building's World Heritage listing will come next year.
■ Kazakhstan
Opposition leader freed
Hundreds of supporters greeted a Kazakh opposition leader on Sunday, as he arrived home in Almaty after more than three years in prison. Galymzhan Zhakiyanov, 41, was the most high-profile prisoner in this energy-rich republic, and his jailing was seen by supporters and rights groups as politically motivated. A panel of judges granted him early release on Saturday in a move following a landslide re-election of President Nursultan Nazarbayev on Dec. 4 that was criticized by Western observers as flawed. The leader of the now-disbanded Democratic Choice party was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2002 on abuse-of-office charges, which he denied.
■ Indonesia
Girl dies of bird flu
A 13-year-old girl died of bird flu over the weekend, while two of her siblings have tested positive for the H5N1 virus, a health ministry official said yesterday, citing the results of local tests."We found three positive bird flu cases in one family coming from Indramayu, West Java," said Hariadi Wibisono, the ministry's director of control of animal-borne diseases. He said this was the nation's fifth cluster of bird-flu cases, where people living in close proximity had fallen ill. There was no evidence of human-to-human transmission, and dead chickens had been found in the neighborhood, he added.
■ Ukraine
Bear mauls child
A bear in a zoo bit off a child's lower arms in the city of Mena, northeast of Kiev, the Ukrainian Civil Defense said on Sunday. The 12-year-old boy had gone into the brown bear's cage to feed him, they explained. The bear bit off the boy's arms from the elbows down. It remained unclear how the child had gained access to the cage. The boy underwent surgery in a local hospital and has regained consciousness, but remains in intensive care, a surgeon at the hospital said.
■ Finland
President wins first vote
President Tarja Halonen won the first round of the presidential election on Sunday, but failed to obtain an absolute majority and will be forced into a runoff, the official count showed. Halonen won 46.3 percent of the vote with all ballots counted and will face Conservative Party leader Sauli Niinistoe, who took 24.1 percent, in a second round of voting on Jan. 29. Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen was in third place, and therefore eliminated, with 18.6 percent, but said he would throw his weight behind Niinistoe in the runoff. Turnout totalled just under 74 percent.
■ United Kingdom
Woman banned from beach
Welsh police said on Sunday they had banned a suicidal woman from visiting her local beach, after she repeatedly tried to drown herself. Dyfed-Powys Police said that Amy Dallamura, 42, was now banned from entering the sea, the beach and parts of the promenade in her home town of Aberystwyth. Inspector Terry Slater said the action had been taken not only to protect Dallamura, but also emergency services staff who have been scrambled on three separate occasions to rescue her from the sea. In an interview with the BBC's Web site, Dallamura said she was plagued by hip and back pain, which had driven her to attempt to take her own life.
■ Iran
Holocaust forum proposed
Tehran announced on Sunday that it would stage a conference to question the authenticity of the Holocaust. The statement follows a series of inflammatory remarks by Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has described the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis in World War II as a myth and called for Israel to be "wiped off the map". An Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said the proposed conference would examine the Holocaust's "scientific aspects and its repercussions." The description echoes Ahmadinejad's characterization of Holocaust denial earlier this month as a "scientific debate."
■ Egypt
`Toxic' ship cleared
Cairo said on Sunday it faced no environmental threat from a decommissioned French warship and cleared the way for it to enter the Suez Canal after a delay caused by the possibility it had hazardous materials aboard. The aircraft carrier Clemenceau left France in December for a ship-breaking yard in India, amid protests from the environmental group Greenpeace, which says it contains tonnes of toxic waste that could harm the scrap workers. The Environment Ministry ruled that the ship "does not represent an environmental danger to Egypt if it is allowed to pass through the Suez Canal", a statement carried by the official Middle East News Agency said.
■ United States
Cheney tours Middle East
US Vice President Dick Cheney headed for Egypt and Saudi Arabia early yesterday for talks with the leaders of both countries that are expected to focus on Iraq and regional security. The trip, officials said, is meant as a continuation of Cheney's tour of the region that began in December with visits to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Oman, but was interrupted when he had to rush back to Washington to cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate on the budget. Today Cheney is scheduled to meet with both Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, officials said.
■ Peru
Poll gap narrows
A nationalist former army officer continued his sharp climb in polls for the presidency, but a new survey indicated he still trails in a head-to-head runoff with his chief rival. The rising popularity of retired Lieutenant-Colonel Ollanta Humala, an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, has been tied to a wave of leftist populism across South America and it has rattled Peru's financial markets. A survey by the Apoyo polling company, published on Sunday in the El Comercio newspaper, showed Humala favored by 28 percent in the April 9 poll while rival Lourdes Flores was backed by 25 percent.
■ United States
A wee legal problem
A St. Louis, Missouri, councilman and bar owner wants the city to lower the penalty for some instances of public urination. Currently, urinating in public in St. Louis is classified as lewd and lascivious conduct, a misdemeanor that, like indecent exposure, carries a penalty of 90 days in jail and a fine of up to US$500. But Ken Ortmann has introduced a bill saying that public urination "does not uniformly constitute indecent exposure." Hoping to get the bill passed before the annual Mardi Gras Parade on Feb. 25, he said: "There's a difference between going in the middle of the street, in front of God and country," and someone who relieves himself behind a garbage barrel.
■ United Staets
Rare bat colony found
A forestry specialist with the Cherokee Nation has discovered a colony of endangered Ozark big-eared bats while appraising timber in eastern Oklahoma. Scientists believe that only about 2,000 of the bats exist, and roughly 75 percent of those are in Oklahoma. Neither the tribe nor the federal agency will release the landowner's name or the location of the bats for fear that they may be disturbed while hibernating. The Cherokee Nation has reportedly provided enough money to protect the bats for three decades.
■ United States
Genetic diabetes link found
A team of scientists has discovered a gene variant with the closest link to type-two diabetes -- the most common type -- of any such genes found to date, scientists said in a research report released on Sunday. Presence of the variant in test groups with type-two diabetes suggests that the variant accounts for about 20 percent of all cases, Kari Stefansson, senior author on the study, said in a statement. "This is a milestone in human genetics. A common gene variant conferring elevated risk of [type-two diabetes] has been earnestly sought by the genetics community for many years," Stefansson said. The discovery could allow scientists to develop a test to diagnose the risk of type-two diabetes in patients, he added.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not