■ Hong Kong
Embryo-toting maid stopped
Police have interviewed a Filipino maid after her employer found a bottled human embryo in her luggage as she prepared to return home, a news report said yesterday. The 41-year-old maid was about to fly back to the Philippines after completing her contract when her employer found the embryo as she checked her bags, the South China Morning Post reported. The maid told police she had had a miscarriage when three months pregnant and was taking the 9cm long embryo preserved in alcohol home with her, the newspaper said.
■ Hong Kong
22 marathoners in hospital
Twenty-two people were taken to hospital and two of them were in critical condition after taking part in the territory's biggest marathon amid the worst air pollution levels in months, the government said yesterday. A record 40,000 people took part in Sunday's Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon and many complained of the thick smog which obscured the Tsing Ma Bridge, a key landmark along the route of the annual race. Of the two runners in critical condition, one collapsed near the finish in Wanchai district.
■ China
Golf paintings featured
Ancient paintings which allegedly prove that the Chinese invented the game of golf up to 1,000 years ago are to go on display in Hong Kong this month, a news report said yesterday. The pictures from the 13th and 14th centuries show Chinese noblemen hitting balls into holes with clubs that look remarkably similar to modern golf clubs. The paintings will go on display in an exhibition titled "Ancient Chinese Pastimes" in Hong Kong's Heritage Museum fromMarch to June.
■ Australia
Sydney deemed a sad city
Sydney with its golden beaches and harbor is routinely ranked one of the world's most liveable cities, but a happiness survey has found it is home to Australia's saddest people. The Australian Unity Wellbeing Index survey of 23,000 Australians found the country's happiest people live in poor regional towns and the saddest live in cities. "Money doesn't actually buy happiness and that's what was shown very clearly for the nearly 23,000 people we've interviewed so far," said Liz Eckerman, researcher at the Australian Center on Quality of Life at Deakin University in Melbourne. "Only at very, very high [income] levels does money actually have any impact to act as a buffer," Eckerman told local radio.
■ Laos
Nation plans for April poll
Planes and helicopters will be used to transport voters living in remote, mountainous areas of Luang Prabang province to the polls in April, Radio Vientiane said yesterday. The Luang Prabang Election Committee said it would use army transport to make sure villagers in the remotest areas had a chance to vote, said the state-run radio in a broadcast monitored in Bangkok. Lao voters, however, will only be able to choose candidates from the Lao Communist Party and a handful of "independents." The country will hold its Communist Party Congress next month prior to its general election for 119 members of the National Assembly on April 30.
■ New Zealand
Locals support bra fence
Local residents have given a US immigrant a message of "Hands off our bras," after he complained about one of New Zealand's most unusual tourist attraction -- a farm fence decked with hundreds of brassieres in the South Island's Cardrona Valley, according to news reports yesterday. The American, Andre Prassinos, who lives only part of the year on land he owns nearby, complained that the fence, photographed by thousands of tourists who drive through the scenic valley, was an "eyesore and a potential traffic hazard" and asked the local council to remove it. A Cardrona residents' association survey showed unanimous support among his neighbors for the fence display to remain.
■ Singapore
Newborn defects screened
Doctors plan to introduce a new screening program to detect rare genetic metabolic disorders in newborns, two hospitals said yesterday. KK Women's and Children's Hospital and the National University Hospital are currently screening 3,000 babies to establish a range of normal levels of various amino acids. Those with metabolic disorders have problems breaking down either fats or proteins, the doctors told the Straits Times. If not detected early, the disorders may cause delayed development, mental retardation and even death.
■ Tonga
Prime minister resigns
Prince Ulukalala Lavaka Ata has resigned as prime minister and been replaced by a commoner member of parliament, Radio New Zealand International reported yesterday. No reason was given for the resignation, which was announced by Lands, Survey and Natural Resources Minister Fielakepa, who uses only one name. Fred Sevele, a long time pro-democracy advocate, has been named acting prime minister. Fielakepa said Crown Prince Tupouto'a had accepted the prime minister's resignation letter on Saturday. Ulukalala has also given up all his other Cabinet portfolios.
■ Germany
Pulmonary sounds online
A German association for lung ailments has put online the sounds typical of patients suffering from a variety of pulmonary diseases. At the Web site [www.lungenaerzte-im-netz.de], the association based in the town of Werne in the Ruhr, has published 12 different examples of the sounds heard by lung doctors. If a doctor suspects lung disease they often ask patients to make specific sounds or utter specific words, for example containing the letter S, which are easily heard through the stethoscope. But if there is serious narrowing of the air passages or a collapsed lung, the phenomenon know as "silent lung" occurs, in which breathing is scarcely audible.
■ Germany
Dehydration causes delirium
Dehydration can lead to extreme confusion, especially among the elderly. "Often diagnosed as delirium, it is the most common complication among older people in hospitals," said Martin Haupt, an instructor from the Bonn-based German Society of Gerontological Psychiatry and Psychotherapy. It does not necessarily have to be linked to alcohol. Delirium can affect any age group, but children and the elderly are most at risk.
■ United Kingdom
Private debt outstrips GDP
Debts owed by British families have overtaken the size of the national economy for the first time, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported yesterday. "People have borrowed so much their total debt outstripped the nation's GDP over the new year," it reported. Private debt last year rose to ?1,158 billion (US$2,017 billion), ?30 billion more than the ?1,127 billion in economic output which the nation generated in the year, Treasury estimates said. The 10.2 percent growth in household debt also dwarfed the national economic growth of 1.8 percent over the year.
■ United Kingdom
Blasphemy law targeted
A group of writers and artists have started a campaign for the abolition of the country's blasphemy law, the Times daily reported yesterday. The campaign, launched by the English PEN writers group, is spearheaded by Philip Pullman, author of the best-selling His Dark Materials trilogy, and London's National Theatre director Nicholas Hytner. Fellow PEN members Salman Rushdie and playwright and film director Hanif Kureishi are also expected to get involved in the campaign, it said. The UK's blasphemy law, introduced in 1697, only covers the Anglican church. A 1938 ruling denied the law's coverage to all other religions, including other Christian faiths. That is why angry Muslims could not invoke it in regard to Rushdie's Satanic Verses.
■ Spain
Terror victims meet
Survivors and families of those killed in terrorist attacks worldwide were to gather in Valencia yesterday for an international two-day conference to share their tragic experiences and discuss ways to fight the terror. About 600 people were expected at the meet, including EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini, who was scheduled to give opening remarks about terrorism within the EU. The first International Congress on Victims of Terrorism was held in Madrid in 2004, six weeks before the March train bombings in the capital. The program included a round table with international victims where survivors from attacks in the US, Ireland, Israel, Russia and London were to share their experiences.
■ United States
`Jaws' author dies
Peter Benchley, author of the book Jaws that was the basis for the blockbuster movie that terrified beachgoers, died at his home aged 65, his family said on Sunday. Benchley, well-known for other water-based suspense fiction including The Deep and The Island, which also spawned films, died of complications from pulmonary fibrosis, his son-in-law Chris Turner said. Benchley was diagnosed with the condition last autumn and his health had been diminishing, but his death at this time was unexpected, according to Turner. "It was peaceful," he said, adding that the writer's wife Wendy and other family members were by his side at their New Jersey home.
■ Brazil
Murdered nun remembered
Environmental and human rights activists on Sunday marked the one-year anniversary of the killing of US nun Dorothy Stang, organizing several protests in the jungle region where she lived. Stang was gunned down in the jungle state of Para, where her efforts to help peasants gain land and protect the rain forest earned her the enmity of powerful loggers and ranchers, who routinely hire pistoleiros to harass and often kill those who get in their way. Local communities and human-rights activists organized the demonstrations in the town of Anapu to remember the nun and to call for those accused in her killing to be punished, the government news service Agencia Brasil said.
■ United States
Rumsfeld in arms sales talks
US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said on Sunday that he discussed possible arms sales to Algeria with the country's president in what other Pentagon officials described as a growing US effort to build a military relationship. A senior Pentagon official said Algeria was interested in high-technology equipment like night vision goggles and helicopters useful in tracking down suspected anti-government fighters in the country's southern region. Pentagon officials said they believed that Rumsfeld was the first secretary of defense to visit Algeria, which shunned ties with Washington during the Cold War and endured a brutal Islamic insurgency during the 1990s that kept US officials away.
■ United States
Another church torched
A fire at a Baptist church has been ruled arson, the 10th in a recent string of deliberately set church fires in Alabama, authorities said. The Saturday afternoon blaze severely damaged the Beaverton Freewill Baptist Church in northwest Alabama. It was not immediately clear if the fire was connected to the other blazes that have destroyed or damaged nine churches since Feb. 3. Saturday's fire was the only one that was not set in the pre-dawn hours. Investigators have said they do not know a motive, but there is no racial pattern. Five of the churches had white congregations and five black. All were Baptist and mostly in isolated country settings.
■ Brazil
Roof collapse kills student
A roof collapsed at a university auditorium on Sunday, killing one man and injuring 18 people, authorities said. The roof came down as hundreds of students were registering for a national zoology conference at the Londrina State University, about 520km west of Sao Paulo. Authorities were investigating what caused the collapse, a spokeswoman with Parana state's public safety secretariat said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in