■ Australia
Gasoline, nudity don't mix
A 56-year-old man suffered burns to one-fifth of his body on Sunday when he tried to get rid of a spider by setting fire to it at a nudist resort near Sydney. The man tried to kill what he thought was a deadly funnel web spider by pouring gasoline down the spider's burrow and lighting it with a match, a ambulance service spokesman said. The gasoline ignited and a searing burst of flame engulfed the arachnophobe's bare legs and buttocks. The spokesman said the man's nakedness contributed to the extent of his burns. Fellow nudists told the AAP news agency that the spider turned out to be a harmless trapdoor spider.
■ Hong Kong
Aussie drug mules jailed
Three Australians -- including two teenagers -- were given prison sentences of up to 13 years and four months yesterday in Hong Kong for trying to smuggle heroin stuffed in condoms to Australia. Lawyers for the defendants, all from Sydney, asked the judge to give their clients light sentences because they were naive, vulnerable young people recruited by a crime syndicate promising quick money and a vacation to Hong Kong. Deputy High Court Judge Kim Longley sentenced the youngest defendant, Chris Ha Vo, 16, to nine years in prison, while the other teenage defendant, Rachel Ann Diaz, 18, was sentenced to 10 years and eight months. The third defendant, Hutchison Tran, 23, faces 13 years, four months imprisonment.
■ Japan
Whaling firms exit business
Environmentalists hailed victory yesterday as key Japanese firms quit the whaling business after a pressure campaign, although the government vowed no change to its controversial annual hunt. Fishing giant Nissui and four other firms that have owned whaling company Kyodo Senpaku will "soon donate" all of their shareholdings to public interest corporations, a Kyodo Senpaku spokesman said. Its new shareholders will include the Institute of Cetacean Research, the Japanese government-backed agency promoting whaling.
■ Japan
Boy survives 20-story fall
A seven-year-old boy miraculously survived a fall from a 20th floor window when his mother leapt to her death holding him in her arms in an apparent murder-suicide bid, police said yesterday. The woman, 40, wrapped her arms around her son before making the 60m leap on Sunday in Sakai, some 400km west of Tokyo. She died instantly but the boy suffered only broken legs and his life was not in danger, a local police spokesman said. "We suspect the woman forced her son into a double-suicide but because she jumped off holding her son and they landed in a garden, she by chance gave him a cushion and he miraculously survived," the spokesman said.
■ Hong Kong
Man sells soul on Internet
A 24-year-old Chinese man offered to sell his soul on the Internet and attracted 59 bids, a news report said yesterday. The man from Shanghai put his soul up for sale on a popular auction Web site and attracted a top bid of 681 yuan (US$85) before the Web site halted the sale, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post said. "I don't need it, and I want to give it to someone who needs it," the man told the newspaper. He said that if the sale went ahead, he would mail pictures and souvenirs of his life and share his important memories with the buyer.
■ Spain
Pill pushers arrested
Police have arrested a gang that allegedly trafficked a little known psychotropic drug, passed off as ecstasy but more dangerous, at discos around Madrid. Officers arrested 13 people, mostly Spaniards in their 20s, and confiscated 31,000 pills with the same color, shape and shark logo as ecstasy, the interior ministry said. The alleged ringleader used a network of young women to distribute the pills at clubs to avoid raising suspicion. The drug, known as M-CPP or meta-chlorophenylpiperazine, stimulates the nervous system and produces the same hallucinatory effects as ecstasy, but can be more toxic, the ministry said.
■ France
Frog-nappers busted
Eight people suspected of smuggling rare frogs from South America were questioned by police at Paris' Orly Airport on Sunday, police said. The seven Belgians and one French citizen arriving from Guiana were held for questioning after police seized tadpoles and 32 specimens of adult dendrobate frogs -- rainforest frogs sought after by collectors for their bright colors. An environmental protection official in the French police said that the frogs seized were one of the rarest species, of which only a few hundred specimens exist. Three of suspects are due to appear before a criminal court for offenses relating to smuggling a protected species.
■ United Kingdom
Princess' party turns wild
A party celebrating the 16th birthday of Prince Andrew's daughter Princess Eugenie turned into a drunken binge, with the luxurious home of her mother the Duchess of York winding up "in a real state," the tabloid the Sun reported yesterday. Andrew and his ex-wife had spent US$52,170 on a Pirates of the Caribbean theme party for their youngest daughter on March 18, the Sun said. Contract Options, the company in charge of cleaning the house, said: "It was like a bomb had gone off, the house was in a real state. There were empty bottles and broken glasses. It took all day to clean up."
■ Belarus
Protesters denounce treaty
About 50 demonstrators ventured on Sunday onto a central Minsk square that was the focus of days of protests over the disputed re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko, blowing up balloons and popping them to symbolize what they said was the collapse of a union treaty signed a decade ago with Russia. Police pushed the mostly young protesters off Oktyabrskaya Square after about 10 minutes. The protesters mixed anger over the election with criticism of the union, opposed from the start by Lukashenko foes eager for Belarus to shed Russian influence and forge ties with Europe.
■ Central Europe
Thousands flee floods
Swollen rivers and rising floodwaters forced thousands of people across central Europe to leave their homes on Sunday and there were fears melting snow could make matters worse. In the Czech Republic the death toll from the floods rose to at least four. A fifth of the city of Olomouc, east of the country, was inundated when an embankment holding back the Morava gave way early on Sunday. In Hungary, Budapest's mayor urged the government to declare a state of emergency for parts of the city most threatened by the Danube and put a ban traffic on the river. In Slovakia, river levels remained critical but the risk appeared to be easing.
■ United States
Tornadoes wreak havoc
At least 11 people were reported killed in western Tennessee after tornadoes touched down there, the Nashville Tennessean reported yesterday. Citing emergency officials, the paper said eight deaths were reported late on Sunday in Dyer County and three in neighboring Gibson County. A woman working in the Dyer County sheriff's office described what happened as "bad" and said the sheriff's department was "still trying to get to the injured people." In Missouri, strong winds were blamed for the deaths of at least two people. The paper said damage and injuries were also reported in Kentucky, with a possible tornado destroying about 15 homes in the Happy Hollow subdivision north of downtown Hopkinsville.
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■ United States
Bush headed for `dark night'
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said that US President George W. Bush is leading the US toward a "dark night." "America is intoxicated by its position as the world's only superpower," Gorbachev said in an interview in yesterday's Time magazine. "It wants to impose its will. But America needs to get over that. It has responsibilities as well as power. I say this as a good friend of America," he said. The 75-year old former leader, in Washington to deliver a speech, said he thought "some people may be pushing President Bush in the wrong direction." But he exempted US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whom he called a "cultured person," as one of the culprits.
■ United States
General blasts Rumsfeld
For the second time in two weeks, a retired general has called for the resignation of US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld over what both generals described as serious mistakes made in the war in Iraq. In remarks on Sunday on the NBC program Meet the Press, General Anthony Zinni of the Marines, a former commander of Central Command for the Middle East, said Rumsfeld, among others, should be held accountable for tactical mistakes in Iraq. Asked who should resign, Zinni said, "Secretary of defense, to begin with," adding that resignations should also come from others responsible for planning the war effort. On March 19, similar sentiments were expressed by General Paul Eaton, a retired Army major general in charge of training the Iraqi military from 2003 to 2004, in an opinion piece in the New York Times.
■ Canada
Mystery blast rocks shop
A man who walked into a Tim Horton's coffee shop in Toronto on Sunday with a can of gasoline was killed in an explosion in the store's toilet, police spokesman Staff Sergeant Don Cole said. "We don't know at 100 percent if it was arson or suicide," he said. Police sealed off the coffee shop and exploded a suspicious package that was found nearby. But the package only contained rubbish, Cole said.
■ United States
Kids too big for safety seats
Many children in the US are too heavy for standard car-safety seats, according to new research. More than a quarter of a million US children aged one to six are heavier than the weight limits for standard car seats, the study found. Lead author Lara Trifiletti said researchers at a safety center at Johns Hopkins Hospital became interested in the topic because they saw children "who were very obese and our car-seat technicians were having a hard time finding car seats to fit them." The study appears in the journal Pediatrics, published yesterday.
‘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
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
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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