■ China
Women move up a cup
Bra producers have been forced to offer bigger cup-sizes in China because improved nutrition is busting all previous chest measurement records. "It's so different from the past when most young women would wear A or B-cup bras," Triumph brand saleswoman Zhang Jing told the Shanghai Daily from the Landmark Plaza of China's commercial hub Shanghai. "You ... never expect those thin women to have such nice figures if they are not plastic."
■ China
Parent killer sells kids
A woman has been arrested for murdering eight people in China's central Henan Province and selling their children, state media reported on Monday. Jia Dezhi, 55, confessed to the killings after six bodies were found buried in the courtyard of her home in Anyang City, the Southwest Express newspaper reported. "I killed the adults for the money, it made the selling of their children less bothersome," the paper quoted her as saying. Jia said she could earn up to 15,000 yuan (US$1,870) from the sale of a child.
■ Hong Kong
Lawmakers say lines tapped
Three pro-democracy lawmakers say that their phones have been tapped, a newspaper reported yesterday. The legislators said they didn't know who was listening to their phone conversations, reported the Apple Daily. The lawmakers -- Albert Cheng (鄭經翰), Martin Lee (李柱銘) and Leung Kwok-hung (梁國雄) -- said that they have installed a counter-surveillance device called "Bug Smasher" on their phones and the equipment has indicated that their lines have been tapped, the paper said in the front-page story.
■ Singapore
Child smuggler jailed
A father was jailed for 13 months for using his son's passport in a racket that smuggled China-born children into the US, news reports said yesterday. Ang Sin Kiat, 40, passed the China-born boy off as his son and accompanied him to Honolulu, Hawaii, according to the Straits Times. The court was told that Ang received S$6,500 dollars (US$4,062) from the syndicate, which brought children from China to Singapore, and smuggled them out to join their parents in the US by passing them off as Singaporeans.
■ China
Crazed knifeman halted
A man in the southwest wounded 10 people with a knife, four of them seriously, before rushing into a kindergarten where a local official stopped him before he could continue his spree, a state-run newspaper reported yesterday. Chen Guancai was in a restaurant in Neijiang, a city in Sichuan Province, when he took the knife out and stabbed his wife in the neck, the Beijing Morning Post said, citing eyewitnesses. Another customer who tried to stop Chen was cut in the arm, the newspaper said. Chen then went out into the street, where he attacked more people before running into a nearby kindergarten and using the knife to break down a wooden door before a local official stopped him, the Post said.
■ Turkmenistan
Official apologizes on air
The former general prosecutor publicly confessed to taking bribes yesterday, begging president-for-life Saparmurat Niyazov for forgiveness in a tearful plea broadcast on state television. Kurmanbibi Atadzhanova, general prosecutor from 1985 until April, is accused of taking bribes and stealing state property including 25 cars, 36 villas, 2,000 cattle and 30,000 buckets. "Great Leader, I admit everything, but I beg you to forgive me, don't jail me," she said in a sobbing confession on television. "I have three daughters." An indifferent-looking Niyazov appeared on television in the same program and told Atadzhanova: "You have to return everything you've stolen. The president can't forgive everyone."
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