■ China
Blast on bus kills eight
An explosion on a passenger bus killed at least eight people and seriously injured 19 others in Hunan Province, just days after a similar incident in another province, state media said yesterday. The explosion in Hunan's Guiyang County on Sunday evening killed eight people instantly and left seven in critical condition in local hospitals, the semi-official China News Service said. The cause of the explosion was still under investigation, the agency said.
■ Indonesia
Boy has bird flu
A 16-year-old Indonesian boy being treated for flu-like symptoms at a Jakarta hospital has tested positive for bird flu, a health official said yesterday. But the official said more tests were needed to confirm the results after preliminary findings showed that the boy had contracted the deadly H5N1 avian influenza virus. Ningrum, an official at the health ministry's bird flu post center, said the boy was receiving treatment at Jakarta's Sulianti Saroso Infectious Disease Hospital, which is designated to handle bird flu patients.
■ China
Olympics official upbeat
The 2008 Olympics in Beijing will not be shrouded in smog or choked by traffic jams, state media said yesterday, citing the city's top Games official. There are only two years to go before Beijing is to host the world's biggest sports event, but that will be enough time to solve the problems, according to Liu Qi (劉淇), who also heads Beijing's Communist Party. "The problems that exist in Beijing, such as traffic jams and environmental pollution, are things we have to solve, whether we are hosting the Olympics or not," said Liu, according to the China Daily newspaper.
■ Australia
Prize exhibit declared fake
A Vincent Van Gogh painting that for 65 years has drawn millions to a Melbourne art gallery has been declared a fake by British experts. National Gallery of Victoria director Gerard Vaughan said yesterday that Head of a Man would be worthless if the bulk of art historians concurred with the view of Michael Daley, director of Art Watch UK, that the gallery's prize exhibit had "all the hallmarks of a pre-existing picture tricked up to resemble a Van Gogh."
■ Hong Kong
Tsang sued over fish
A prankster is suing Chief Executive Donald Tsang (曾蔭權) over the death of a pet fish, a statement said yesterday. Matt Pearce, a British-born teacher who stages public spectacles to promote liberal political causes, filed a writ with the small claims tribunal alleging that Tsang failed to return a koi carp he lent him which later died. Pearce is claiming HK$50,000 (US$6,400) in compensation. He said the fish was named "Democracy" and that his action was a protest against the slow pace of democratization in the territory.
■ India
Bicycle bombers blow up
Separatist rebels tossed grenades at a paramilitary convoy in northeastern India, wounding eight troopers, while two suspected militants died when the explosives they were carrying blew up, police said yesterday. Elsewhere in the northeastern state Assam, a trader was shot by suspected rebels trying to extort money from him, police said, as violence in the region escalated ahead of India's Independence Day next Tuesday. The grenade attack on a convoy of the Central Reserve Police Force came on Sunday near the town of Bhojo, about 300km east of Gauhati, Assam's capital. Separately, two suspected militants were killed as the explosives they were carrying in a bicycle went off in the town of Tezpur.
■ South Korea
Roh explains release
President Roh Moo-hyun has sent a letter to his Vietnamese counterpart explaining a decision to release a Vietnamese dissident from prison here last month, officials said yesterday. The letter was sent last week to Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet after a South Korean court turned down his request for the dissident's extradition, a government official said. "In his letter, President Roh said he cannot but respect the court's decision," the official said. South Korean police arrested Nguyen Huu Chanh, 55, on April 5, acting on a extradition request from Vietnam. But the court rejected the petition for extradition on July 27, noting that Vietnam was not a signatory to the 1998 International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombing.
■ Australia
Aid sought against rabbits
The government is hoping that visitors to Macquarie Island will chip in to help get rid of the rabbits that seal hunters shipped in 200 years ago in an attempt to put meat on their menu. The estimated 100,000 rabbits that have overrun Macquarie, 1,500km south of Tasmania, are wrecking the sub-Antarctic environment. They graze on the tussocks that are the breeding grounds for smaller birds like petrels and have laid bare hillsides. Parks and Wildlife Tasmania general manager Stuart Lennox told national broadcaster ABC that around 500 tourists visited Macquarie every year, and that contributions from them could help pay for a baiting program.
■ Germany
Drunk swimmers warned
Swimming under the influence of alcohol can lead to heart failure, say a group of experts. Consuming alcohol in the evening and then jumping into the water is even more dangerous, says Peter Sefrin, head of the Wuerzburg-based Federal Association of the Working Group of Emergency Room Doctors. "Consuming alcohol widens the blood vessels. Going in the water, even if it is 20 degrees Celsius or 22 degrees Celsius, can lead to shock from the cold," he says. Such a shock can momentarily stop the heart. Sometimes the heart will not start beating again and the swimmer drowns. A combination of heat, alcohol and swimming leads to deaths every year, says Sefrin.
■ Australia
Hungry want GMO: scientist
Starving people don't share the rich world's worries over genetically modified food, an African agronomist told a biotechnology conference in Australia. Jennifer Thomson of Kenya told the Melbourne gathering that the advantages of stronger, healthier crops far outweighed the risks. "When you live in a country where you haven't got enough food, it's all about the benefits," she said. "If we want to feed African and other developing countries, we're going to have to use new technologies." "If we can improve soil fertility, have less loss to weeds, insects, diseases and drought, farms can be secure and farmers can move from being subsistence farmers to commercial farmers," Thomson said.
■ Iraq
Former Baathists given jobs
About 10,000 workers in former president Saddam Hussein's regime have been re-employed as part of national reconciliation, reversing their purge after the 2003 US-led invasion, an official said. More than 8,000 of the reinstated employees worked for the key interior and defense ministries, Rashid Najeb Saleh, the chief of the Agency for Dissolved Entities, told a news conference on Sunday. The agency was set up by the government last year to help tens of thousands of workers made jobless in the purge after the 2003 invasion toppled Saddam.
■ Germany
Beware of black tongue
A black tongue might be harmless, but it looks awful. Worse, it's a real possibility for men who smoke. A black, hairy tongue, or lingua villosa nigra, occurs when the papilla on the tongue, normally only 1mm in length, grow up to 1.5cm in length and turn black or brown, says Joachim Dissemond of the University of Essen. It occurs most regularly among men who smoke. Smoking, especially when combined with poor oral hygiene, certain medicine and vitamin deficits can lead to the black hairy tongue. Sufferers should improve their oral hygiene and quit smoking.
■ Italy
Venice flood plan in doubt
A controversial plan to help protect Venice from flooding was in doubt on Sunday after it was revealed that the project has a budget shortfall of almost 3 billion euros (US$3.86 billion), with little likelihood of the extra money being found. According to a report compiled at the behest of the recently elected center-left government, the Moses flood barrier system will cost around 4.3 billion euros but only 1.46 billion euros is available, leaving a gaping hole in its future financing. The project was inaugurated in May 2003 by then prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and was one of the jewels in the crown of his conservative government's infrastructure proposals.
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
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing