■ China
Defense official to visit US
A vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission has left for the US on the highest ranking military visit since a Chinese fighter jet collided with a US surveillance plane in 2001. Guo Boxiong (郭伯雄), who ranks second only to President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) in the commission, China's top military body, left on Sunday for Washington at the invitation of US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Xinhua news agency said. The visit was "the most important Chinese military exchange with another country this year," said Qian Lihua (錢利華) from China's Defense Ministry's Foreign Affairs Office.
■ china
Baby left dead in toilet
A young woman left her newly born baby to die in a Shanghai Internet cafe after she gave birth in a toilet, state press said yesterday. A cleaning woman found the dead baby in the bathroom of the Ruide Online Net Cafe in Jingan district mid-morning on Sunday, the Shanghai Daily reported. Police are on the lookout for a young woman named Shen, who is suspected to be the mother of the baby, it said.
■ vietnam
Highway to link to Yunnan
Vietnam plans to start building a highway next year that will link Hanoi with China's Yunnan Province, boosting trade between the countries, state media said yesterday. The project will cost more than US$1 billion. Construction is scheduled to start in June next year, Transport Ministry officials told state-run Vietnam News Daily. The 264km, six-lane highway would form part of a corridor between the city of Kunming in China and the Vietnamese port of Haiphong. The highway project is set for completion in 2010, the report said.
■ Japan
Fumes sicken three
Three people were rushed to two nearby hospitals yesterday after inhaling fumes at a restaurant in Tokyo's Ginza district, fire department officials said. One of the three people was unconscious, Tokyo Fire Department official Tsuyoshi Shiroshita said. He said the condition of the two others were not immediately known. The restaurant was closed yesterday, and officials were trying to identify the three and the cause of the incident. No other details were immediately available.
■ India
Husband unites wife, lover
In a scene which could have come from the Bollywood movie, Hum Dil de Chuke Sanam (I give you my heart), a husband in the east state of Orissa has allowed his wife to return to her lover, even hosting her second wedding with help from villagers. The incident happened in the village of Ishwarpur, police said. Niranjan Rout, 28 married a woman called Pinky on July 7 in an arranged match, local police officer Satish Chandra Ray said. However she confessed to her new husband that she loved Abhiram Das from the same village but could not marry him because of caste issues. Instead of becoming angry Rout decided to let her live with the man she loved, Ray said.
■ Malaysia
Couple makes leap of faith
A couple celebrated their 37th wedding anniversary on Sunday by jumping out of an aircraft at 2,700m in their first-ever parachute jump, a news report said. Cheah Sum Beng, 64, and wife Choo Kit Har, 61, earned themselves an entry in the Malaysia Book of Records as the oldest pair to skydive from a helicopter, the national news agency Bernama said. They went into a 30-second freefall before opening their parachute, Bernama said. It was a true leap of faith, because neither had skydived before, it said. Cheah, a company manager, told reporters that the curiosity and the will to face adversity made them take up the challenge.
■ Japan
Rain forces 10,000 to flee
Heavy rain yesterday caused mudslides and a train derailment in the country, injuring at least two people and forcing more than 10,000 people to evacuate their homes. The rain caused a mudslide in the southwestern prefecture of Shimane, burying two people. They were both rescued but one was still unconscious and critically ill, Shimane police said. Police said rain also caused a train derailment on the Ichibata Railway in the prefecture, slightly injuring a 26-year-old man.
■ Australia
Eggs found in underwear
A man caught with six eggs from endangered species in his underwear as he was preparing to fly to Bangkok was fined A$25,000 (US$33,225) yesterday by a judge who rejected his claim that he only wanted to surprise his girlfriend. Wayne Frederick Floyd pleaded guilty in February to exporting regulated native specimens without a permit or exemption, which carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence. Judge Martin Sides called it a commercial venture, but said he didn't mandate jail time because the eggs had come from birds at Floyd's home and hadn't been taken from the wild. Floyd was about to board a flight from Sydney to Bangkok last November when a customs officer frisked him and noticed a suspicious bulge around his groin, the New South Wales District Court was told. A strip search revealed six eggs hidden inside a stocking in his underwear.
■ United Kingdom
MI5 seeking minorities
MI5 -- the domestic secret service agency -- was to begin a poster campaign yesterday aimed at recruiting more women and ethnic minorities to join the service. The agency has been trying to beef up the number of minority officers in its ranks to tackle homegrown terrorist threats, particularly after the bombings last year on London's transit system that killed 52 commuters. The posters -- which depict an anonymous, T-shirt attired black woman -- will be placed in Fitness First gyms around Britain, as well as in leisure magazines. The MI5 receives up to 1,500 applications per week, but only 5 percent of the approximate 2,800-person staff are minorities.
■ France
Socialist urges poll unity
Socialist Party leader Francois Hollande called on Sunday for the plethora of leftist parties to desist from presenting candidates in next year's presidential elections to avoid a repeat of 2002's showdown with the extreme right. "There are candidacies which are legitimate and others which are not really necessary," Hollande said on Europe-1 radio. He cited the Radical Party of the Left and the movement of former defense minister Jean-Pierre Chevenement as among those who should withdraw their candidates and join with the Socialists. Extreme right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen was a top scorer in the first-round vote in the 2002 presidential race and faced off President Jacques Chirac in the final round, shocking France and the world.
■ Ethiopia
Clinton urges AIDS action
Former US president Bill Clinton advised African countries on Sunday to set "ambitious goals" in the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic during a visit to African Union headquarters in Ethiopia. Speaking to diplomats in Addis Ababa Clinton recalled how, four years ago, anti-retroviral drugs were expensive even by US standards and the pessimism of HIV-AIDS experts about the possibility of all Africans receiving treatment. "I hope we would be able to defeat such an attitude in my life time," said Clinton, who will be 60 next month. "We should set ambitious goals in the fight against AIDS in Africa."
■ United Kingdom
Swimmer tackles Thames
Long-distance swimmer Lewis Gordon Pugh was to bid yesterday to become the first person to swim the length of the River Thames -- passing Big Ben and a host of famed landmarks as he braves the 346km span of murky waters. Pugh said finishing the 15-day challenge would be the greatest feat of his career. "I've always enjoyed the challenge -- once I get somewhere I say, `Go a little farther,'" he said. "The sheer distance of the Thames makes it the most challenging." Pugh, a 36-year-old law graduate, plans to swim 18km per day, and, if successful, will have swum 144km longer than any previous swim.
■ United Kingdom
Geeky housewife wins big
A self-confessed geeky housewife said she wanted to buy a plot on the Moon after winning £1 million (US$1.8 million) on a TV gameshow on Sunday. Sarah Lang, a 31-year old mother of two from Wales, scooped the prize in Pokerface, a game of general knowledge and bluff. "I have heard that you can buy plots of land on the Moon. It might be worth something in a few years," she said. "I have always been fascinated with stars and space so I'm going to get a strong telescope."
■ United States
Songstress ties the knot
Singer Avril Lavigne married longtime boyfriend, fellow rocker Deryck Whibley, media reported on Sunday. The wedding ceremony took place on Saturday afternoon in Montecito, a California coastal town north of Los Angeles where the couple lives. Around 110 people attended the event, while dozens of paparazzi flocked to the location hoping to snap pictures. Lavigne, 21, and Whibley, 26, a singer with group Sum 41, both hail from Ontario, and have known each other for years, but only began dating in 2004.
■ United States
Fires still wreaking havoc
Thousands of firefighters worked on Sunday to rein in wildfires in southern California, and officials reported an apparent fire-related death. Two major fires that converged on Friday have consumed nearly 34,000 hectares, including part of a protected national forest, injured 15 people and may have killed a man whose body was found with burn injuries, officials said. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, in its online report on the bigger fire, the Sawtooth Complex, listed "one civilian fatality." But a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department, said the cause of the death had not yet been determined.
■ Mexico
Copper miners end strike
Workers at the nation's largest copper mine have ended their more than month-long strike, the national miners union said in a statement late on Sunday. Grupo Mexico SA, owner of the Cananea mine in the northwestern state of Sonora, agreed to award miners 50 percent of lost wages during the strike. The agreement came two days after labor authorities approved Grupo Mexico's request to close La Caridad copper mine, also in Sonora, and cancel the collective contract there after a three-month strike. Workers at Cananea walked off the job on June 2, saying the company had refused to give half of the workers the day off to celebrate the 100th anniversary of a historic 1906 strike at the mine. Grupo Mexico will honor the holiday under the agreement.
■ United States
`Friends' reunion possible
TV's most famous group of Friends may be headed for a reunion show, former cast member Jennifer Aniston says in a television interview to be broadcast yesterday. In the interview on British talk show Richard and Judy, Aniston said she would like to revive her role as Rachel for a Thanksgiving special. "The only thing I can think of doing is maybe for fun doing a Thanksgiving episode," Aniston said. "Our Thanksgiving episodes were really fun." The hit sitcom ended its 10-year run in May 2004.
■ United States
Child killings trial continues
A forensic psychiatrist was to testify for a third day at the second murder trial of Andrea Yates, who is accused of drowning her children in a bathtub. Dr Park Dietz, testifying for the prosecution during its rebuttal phase, was to take the stand again yesterday. He evaluated Yates after she drowned her five children in the bathtub in 2001, and he has told jurors that she knew killing them was wrong. Dietz's testimony in Yates' first trial led an appeals court to overturn her 2002 murder conviction. Dietz, also a consultant to Law & Order, said an episode of the television series was about a woman being acquitted by reason of insanity after drowning her children in a tub. After Yates' conviction those involved in the case discovered that no such episode existed.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema