■ China
Bar patrons invited to vent
Stressed-out people can now unleash pent-up anger at a bar that lets customers attack staff, smash glasses and generally make a ruckus, a Chinese newspaper reported yesterday. The Rising Sun Anger Release Bar in Nanjing employs 20 muscled young men as "models" for customers to punch and scream at. "Customers can specify how they want the models to appear -- they can even appear as women -- and then they are free to give them a sound beating," the China Daily said. The bar charges from 50 yuan (US$6.25) to 300 yuan for the pleasure.
■ China
FMD outbreak reported
A new outbreak of foot and mouth disease that sickened 230 cattle in the far west has been reported, the Agriculture Ministry said. Cattle in Gaoshi Village in Gansu Province first started showing symptoms on July 31, the ministry said in a statement posted on its Web site late on Monday. Lab tests on Friday confirmed that it was the Asia 1 strain of the disease, it said.
■ China
Drug under investigation
The government is investigating four deaths for links to a banned antibiotic treatment, state media reported yesterday, adding that more than 80 patients in 10 provinces had complained of severe adverse reactions to the drug. Beijing last week banned the use of the Clindamycin Phosphate Glucose Injection, produced by a firm in Anhui Province for treatment of bacterial infections. Four fatalities possibly linked to the drug include a six-year-old girl in Heilongjiang and a 63-year-old woman from Shaanxi who suffered a severe adverse reaction, the official China Daily reported.
■ Australia
Politician pans pool
Politician Rob Hulls said only Melbourne would name a swimming pool after a man who drowned. It's true: the baths in suburban Malvern are named after former prime minister Harold Holt, who went missing while swimming alone in the surf in nearby Portsea in December 1967. It might also be said that only downunder could a massively ugly concrete structure be given a protection order as something of intrinsic architectural importance. "It's not everybody's aesthetic," admits Chris Gallagher, who keeps Victoria's Heritage Register. "But I'd have to say that aesthetics is not the sole test." The Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Pool was put on the register because it's a fine example of the 1960s Brutalist style of architecture.
■ Australia
Row over beer-drinking sow
Most tourists who visit Tasmania's Pub in the Paddock to watch a couple of pigs swill beer think it's a hoot. After all, the alternative to life as a tourist attraction for Priscilla and understudy Priscilla Babe is death in a slaughter house. But opposition to what goes on at the 126-year-old pub in Pyengana, near St Helens, is growing. Animal lovers are ashamed that the celebrity sows have appeared on television in the US glugging down bottles of beer for an appreciative audience. "There's absolutely no reason to go letting people feed beer to pigs just because they can," Against Animal Cruelty Tasmania spokeswoman Emma Haswell told national broadcaster ABC.
■ Singapore
Heartbreak doesn't cut it
A man's claim that he was so heartbroken by his wife's infidelity that he turned to drugs and alcohol generated no sympathy in a court where he was jailed for 18 months, news reports said yesterday. Oi Bee Kee, 48, was caught driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs when his car skidded and rammed into a truck on March 14, the Straits Times said. He was later found to have taken the party drugs Ecstacy and Ice. Oi, a contractor, was quoted as telling the court that he took the drugs because he "wanted the pain to go away." Deputy Prosecutor Leong Wing Tuck said with Oi on his way home were three lounge hostesses. The court heard on Monday that police found him unsteady and reeking of alcohol at the accident scene. He was banned from driving all vehicles for 15 years.
■ Singapore
ASEAN celebrates birthday
ASEAN kicked off its 39th birthday celebrations yesterday with a film festival and a call for the 10 member countries to enhance mutual understanding through art. "Film is a direct lens with which we can see through to get the real voices and portraits of each country," said Simon Tay, chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. The premiere film was Mano Po from the Philippines. The festival, which runs until next Tuesday at the venue, will screen eight more films from the ASEAN. The group is composed of Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar.
■ Japan
Sept. 6 birth expected
Princess Kiko, who is experiencing complications in a pregnancy that could give the country a male heir, is expected to give birth around Sept. 6 by Cesarean section, reports said yesterday. The princess is expected to give birth to her third child "around Sept. 6," Jiji Press and Kyodo News reported, citing unnamed sources.
■ Germany
Stupidity pill invented
A scientist has been testing an "anti-stupidity" pill with encouraging results on mice and fruit flies, Bild newspaper reported on Saturday. It said Hans-Hilger Ropers, director at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin, has tested a pill thwarting hyperactivity in certain brain nerve cells, helping to stabilize short-term memory and to improve attentiveness. "With mice and fruit flies we were able to eliminate the loss of short-term memory," Ropers, 62, is quoted saying in the German newspaper.
■ Zimbabwe
Bus plunges off bridge
Thirty-three people, including six children, were killed in the north of the country on Monday when the bus they were traveling in plunged over a bridge and landed in a dry riverbed, state television reported. The accident occurred on Monday morning on the main road linking the capital Harare to Chirundu, Zimbabwe's border post with its northern neighbor, Zambia. As the driver was trying to overtake another bus, a tire burst and he lost control of the bus which eventually went into Chikuti River and landed on the riverbed, a police officer at the scene of the accident told the television. The driver survived.
■ Russia
Gang abducts pensioner
A Moscow gang abducted a 60-year-old handicapped pensioner and held him for two weeks with the aim of forcing him to sign away his flat in one of the city's suburbs, police said on Monday. The three abductors took their victim to a notary, who was possibly involved in the crime, to have him sign the necessary documents in his presence. The police said they had had no difficulty in overwhelming the gang, all former paratroopers from the Russian army, once they became aware of the situation. The gang members were all drunk when police stormed the building on a Russian national holiday. Prices for residential property in Moscow have risen fivefold since 2000.
■ Netherlands
Man creates floating bed
A young Dutch architect has created a floating bed which hovers above the ground through magnetic force and comes with a price tag of 1.2 million euros (US$1.54 million). Janjaap Ruijssenaars took inspiration for the bed -- a sleek black platform, which took six years to develop and can double as a dining table or a plinth -- from the mysterious monolith in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 cult film 2001: A Space Odyssey. "No matter where you live all architecture is dictated by gravity. I wondered whether you could make an object ... where another power dictates the image," Ruijssenaars said. Magnets built into the floor and into the bed itself repel each other, pushing the bed up into the air.
■ Germany
Modern Fagan confesses
A 38-year-old man who faces long jail terms in both Germany and Italy admitted on Monday to a court in the southwestern city of Pforzheim that he ran a gang of children who broke into homes and stole jewelry. Judges told the Croatian national, who uses a wheelchair, that he would likely face a six-year term in Germany when the sentence is pronounced in one week's time after more evidence is heard. Both the defence and prosecution told the court that would be fair. He was indicted on 19 counts of burglary of goods worth 160,000 euros (US$205,000).
■ United States
Hefner denies illness report
Hugh Hefner says he's doing just fine. "I've never felt better," the 80-year-old Hefner told The Associated Press when asked about a report he was in ill health. A newspaper gossip item said the Playboy empire founder had a mini-stroke. But Playboy spokesman Rob Hilburger insisted on Monday the report was "completely untrue." Then Hefner got on the phone with assurances he was OK. "We had a lingerie party Saturday night and I went up a little early because [girlfriend] Holly [Madison] had a cold. I am in very good health," Hefner said. Hefner hosted his "Midsummer Night's Dream" party at his mansion on Saturday night and a movie-night gathering the following night, Hilburger said.
■ Colombia
Mexican cartels in Peru
Peruvian President Alan Garcia said on Monday that Mexican drug cartels have gained major footholds in the Andean country and made Peru an important source of narcotics. Garcia made his remarks from Bogota, where he was attending the reinauguration of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. "In Peru, where up until now we had not had solid, important and international cartels, it seems that we have been chosen as a camp by Mexican cartels, and the so-called Tijuana cartel has already appeared in full strength," Garcia said.
■ United States
Satanist to be executed
A self-described Satan worshiper set to die for stabbing, stomping and kicking to death three people would be the youngest person executed in Ohio in 44 years. Darrell Ferguson, 28, was to visit again with relatives before his lethal injection yesterday morning. Ferguson would be the fourth inmate executed in Ohio this year, the 23rd since the state resumed executions in 1999 and the youngest since 1962. Ferguson was convicted of three counts of aggravated murder in the Christmas Day, 2001, killing of Thomas King, 61, and the deaths of Arlie Fugate, 68, and his wife Mae, 69, the next day.
■ United States
Influential psychiatrist dies
Jean Baker Miller, a psychiatrist who disputed traditional notions of social roles and developed a theory that serves as a foundation for treating women's depression and other disorders through the building of fruitful relationships, died on July 29 at her home in Brookline, Massachusetts. She was 78. The cause was respiratory failure, her family said. Miller developed her premise under what she called relational-cultural theory and explained it in an influential book, Toward a New Psychology of Women (1976). The theory holds that isolation is one of the most damaging human experiences and is best treated by reconnecting with other people.
■ United States
Comedian sues over remake
Comedian Jerry Lewis filed a US$2.3 million lawsuit against two entertainment firms, claiming he is owed money over a proposed remake of his 1961 movie The Errand Boy. The lawsuit said Lewis and JAS Productions Inc entered into an agreement with Hollywood Pictures in 1996 that gave the film company an option to remake The Errand Boy. Lewis was to act in the film and serve as a consultant and executive producer if the option was exercised, the lawsuit said. Between 1999 and 2001, Hollywood assigned its rights to Spyglass Entertainment Group, which never made the movie but prepared a screenplay and hired script writers, according to the lawsuit.
‘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
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in