■ Philippines
Military probes `pirate' raid
The military said yesterday it has launched an investigation into an apparent pirate attack on a Chinese fishing vessel that left four crewmen dead in disputed waters in the South China Sea. Chinese state media said last week's attack near the Spratly Islands on the Jinghai 03012 fishing vessel could have involved Filipinos. Rear Admiral Tirso Danga, the navy chief in the western Philippines, has already visited the area and is expected to submit a report soon, military spokesman Colonel Tristran Kison said. "It appeared to be a pirate attack but the investigation is still ongoing," Kison told reporters. The Chinese government had asked the Philippine foreign office to investigate the incident.
■ Hong Kong
Poll shows Tsang popular
Nearly 75 percent of people support a second term for their Beijing-appointed leader but most also want to see a contest for the top job, according to a poll yesterday. Seventy-three per cent said they would like to see Donald Tsang (曾蔭權) get a full five-year term when he comes up for re-election next year. Most interviewees in the poll seemed happy for Tsang to remain as leader with 79 percent saying they were satisfied with his performance and only 13 percent saying they were not. Nevertheless, 80 percent of the 800 people questioned by the Hong Kong Transition Project said they would like to see Tsang contest the position with another candidate. He took over unopposed as chief executive in 2004 and was rubber-stamped by a largely pro-Beijing 800-member election committee which will convene again when Tsang seeks a second term next year.
■ Philippines
Fortune-telling judge sacked
A judge who claimed he could see into the future and admitted consulting mystic dwarfs has asked for his job back after being fired by the country's Supreme Court. "They should not have dismissed me for what I believed," Florentino Floro told reporters after filing his appeal. Floro was sacked last month and fined 40,000 pesos (US$780) after a three-year investigation found he was incompetent, had shown bias and had criticized court procedure, a ruling showed. He told investigators that three mystic dwarfs helped him carry out healing sessions during breaks in his chambers. The Supreme Court said it was not within its expertise to conclude that Floro was insane, but agreed with the court clinic's finding that he was suffering from psychosis.
■ Australia
Hope for miners
Two miners trapped for more than a week in a tiny cage nearly 1km underground were given iPods on Wednesday to help them pass time as rescuers began drilling an escape tunnel toward them. The manager of Beaconsfield Gold Mine said Brant Webb, 37, and Todd Russell, 34, were given the iPods as they entered their eighth day entombed under tonnes of rocks after an April 25 earthquake. A special tunneling machine was used to dig 16m through solid rock yesterday and a 20cm diameter pilot hole has been made, but must now be widened to 1m before the miners can be rescued.
■ Sri Lanka
Blast kills two guards
An explosion in the northern garrison town of Vavuniya killed two neighborhood guards yesterday as officials announced a visit by a Japanese peace envoy. The blast also wounded two other guards when the group of four guards were returning home on bicycles after night duty, a police officer said. Japan is Sri Lanka's top donor and one of the "co-chairs" of the country's peace process.
■ China
Water diversion costs soar
The cost of a massive project to divert water from the south to the arid north has risen by a staggering US$12.5 billion due to a host of unexpected difficulties, state media said yesterday. The bill for the first phase of the South-North Water Diversion Project will increase by 101 billion yuan (US$12.5 billion) to 225 billion yuan, the Xinhua news agency quoted an official in charge of the project as saying. The extra money is needed to compensate residents who were forced to relocate and to fund environmental repair projects, the official said.
■ China
Nurse shortage dangerous
A chronic shortage of nurses is threatening patient safety, the health ministry warned in comments published yesterday, with staff numbers up to five times less than the global average. Although the number of nurses rose by around 50,000 last year to nearly 1.35 million, many areas still suffered a severe shortage, the Xinhua news agency quoted the ministry as saying. China has one nurse per 1,000 people, a far lower ratio than the international average of four to five per thousand, the report said.
■ Australia
Photo isn't funny to comic
Comic Barry Humphries, better known as his alter ego Dame Edna Everage, punched a photographer on Wednesday after he was snapped outside a Sydney cafe, his publicist said. The freelance photographer upset Humphries by following him, publicist Suzie Howie said. The photographer would not comment.
■ Turkey
Bomb targets soldiers' kids
A bomb exploded beside a minibus carrying soldiers' children home from school on Wednesday in a town in the mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey, injuring 17 people including 11 children, a local security chief said. The bomb, in Hakkari, is part of an escalation of violence in the region, where soldiers have also stepped up operations against the outlawed guerrilla group, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Yasar Agdere, Hakkari's security chief, said none of the injured were in a serious condition.
■ Morocco
Female preachers graduate
In an unprecedented move, 50 women graduated as religious preachers, part of a concerted effort by authorities to promote a moderate Islam in a country grappling with Muslim extremism. One-hundred-and-fifty men graduated on Wednesday as imams, or prayer leaders. The female religious guides, or morchidat, will not be leading prayers in mosques, which is reserved for men, but will be dispatched around the country to teach women -- and sometimes men -- about Islam and its practice. While some Moroccan officials said the appointment of female state preachers was a rare experiment in the Muslim world, others went as far as to say it was the first of its kind.
■ Egypt
Protesters block highway
Thousands of angry protesters swarmed onto a highway north of Cairo on Wednesday, burning tires and debris, after a speeding car struck a cyclist. The cyclist was moderately injured in the incident. Some 5,000 people from the village of Sindarhum, on the outskirts of Cairo, blocked the highway in protest against motorists who routinely ignore traffic rules, police said. Police peacefully dispersed the demonstrators.
■ Italy
Man pays US$1,251 for beer
He had heard Rome was expensive but nothing prepared the Hong Kong tourist for a 990 euro (US$1,251) beer. The unwary visitor received the bumper bar bill for a drink sipped near Rome's most famous street, Via Veneto, where beers usually cost as much as 10 euros, Rome mayor's office said. The tourist, who was traveling alone, was invited to the bar by a tout who served him a beer and then said it would cost him 990 euros. He bartered it down to 490 euros, but the bar owner ended up taking 990 euros off his credit card anyway. "When the bill arrived I thought it was safer to pay it. I was scared something could happen to me if I didn't," the man, whose name was witheld, told Rome's mayor's office which is investigating the crime.
■ Italy
Fake guard robs museum
A thief disguised as a security guard on Tuesday duped the unsuspecting staff of a top art gallery into giving him more than 200,000 euros (US$253,100), local media reported. The thief showed up on Tuesday morning at the Pitti Palace, a grandiose Renaissance construction in central Florence and one of the nation's best known museums, wearing the same uniform used by employees of the security firm which every day collects the institution's takings. After the cashier staff gave him three bags full of money, he signed a receipt and calmly walked out. The robbery was only discovered 30 minutes later, when the real security guards turned up to collect the money.
■ United States
Executive blew US$250,000
An executive at a heart disease charitable foundation who embezzled close to US$250,000 dollars over two years to pay a dominatrix to beat him was sentenced on Tuesday to two to six years in prison. Abraham Alexander, an accounts payable executive at the Manhattan Cardiovascular Research Foundation, admitted to stealing US$237,162 and spending most of it on services provided by a Columbus, Ohio-based dominatrix called Lady Sage. Manhattan prosecutors said Alexander, a Singapore-born citizen of India, had forged or altered checks payable to himself, to two credit card companies and to an online dominatrix company called Through the Looking Glass.
■ United States
Teen `plotters' arrested
Investigators looking into an alleged plot by five teenage boys to carry out a shooting spree at their high school used a search warrant for violent computer games to seize The Legend of Zelda, two Spiderman games and the financial software Quicken, one of the boys' mothers said. Also seized from Chasinee Jaeger's house were two pocket knives and a plastic zip bag containing small-caliber ammunition used by her son to go hunting with his father, she said Wednesday. The teenagers were arrested on April 20 -- the seventh anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado -- after a message about an alleged plot to attack Riverton High School appeared on a Web site.
■ United States
Schools ditch sweet drinks
Non-diet sodas will be yanked from US schools, and other drinks will be downsized under a deal announced by former president Bill Clinton and the nation's largest beverage distributors. Most elementary schools are already soda-free. But under the new deal, beverage companies agreed to sell only water, unsweetened juice and low-fat and non-fat milk to elementary and middle schools, where children are usually under age 15. The agreement, to be phased in over the next three years, was brokered by the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a collaboration between the William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation and the American Heart Association.
■ United States
Mothers should earn big
A full time stay-at-home mother would earn US$134,121 a year if paid for all her work, an amount similar to a top US ad executive, a marketing director or a judge, according to a study released on Wednesday. To reach the projected pay figures, the survey calculated the earning power of the 10 jobs respondents said most closely comprise a mother's role -- housekeeper, day-care teacher, cook, computer operator, laundry machine operator, janitor, facilities manager, van driver, chief executive and psychologist.
■ United States
Subways told to stay alert
US mass transit systems should remain alert against possible terror attacks, the Homeland Security Department said in a new warning. Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said on Wednesday described the notice, sent on Tuesday, as a routine reminder for transit authority operators, state security advisers and police to remain on guard. The notice said a foreign man was arrested in November in an unnamed European city after videotaping the interior and exterior of several subway cars and stations, including trash cans and stairwells. The man taped nearly 17 minutes of subway pictures, the notice said, but "the camera contained no footage of tourist sites."
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