■ China
Saomai deaths rise to 319
Six days after Typhoon Saomai slammed into the east coast the death toll has risen to 319 and is expected to climb higher as more than 140 people are still missing, officials reported yesterday. In the worst hit city of Fuding, Fujian Province, 24 bodies were found and 94 people are still missing. In the neighboring province of Zhejiang 52 people are still unaccounted for, Xinhua news agency reported. Among the victims are fishermen who died on their boats, including many that had anchored in ports seeking refuge, only for their boats to be capsized and destroyed. Saomai made landfall last Thursday and was the strongest typhoon to hit China in 50 years.
■ Indonesia
Asian psychology studied
Psychologists from Asia and several Western nations will meet on Bali this week to develop an Asian perspective for their work, including theories on preventing terrorism. "Long-time studies and experience have proven that not all Western theories fit the Eastern context," Sarlito Sarwono, chairman of the one-year-old Asian Psychologist Association, said late on Tuesday. Western theories and paradigms dominate the science of psychology. But such developments as the rise of Asian economies, terrorism in Indonesia and disasters in Asia have prompted more thought about Asian perspectives, he said.
■ Malaysia
Thieves bungle ATM theft
Thieves tried to use a backhoe to yank ATM machines from a bank in northeast Terengganu state but were forced to abort their scheme when the vehicle's arm got stuck in the building, the New Straits Times reported yesterday. The bank's closed circuit TV cameras recorded the entire incident, the daily said. The footage showed one man sporting a ski-mask and another wearing a helmet tying two cash deposit machines to a harness, the report said. But they left empty-handed because they couldn't get the backhoe through the bank's entrance and abandoned it there, the paper said.
■ Japan
Pregnant Kiko in hospital
Princess Kiko was to be hospitalized yesterday for complications related to her pregnancy, as the country holds its breath for a possible first male heir in the royal family in four decades. The 39-year-old princess will stay in a Tokyo hospital until she gives birth by Caesarean section, reportedly around Sept. 6. The princess was diagnosed with an abnormal placement of the placenta. Officials announced on Tuesday she would be hospitalized to prevent premature bleeding related to the complication and to prepare her for the delivery. The palace said the princess was in a stable condition, and the fetus, whose gender is yet to be announced, has developed normally.
■ Indonesia
President defends law
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said yesterday that a law cementing a year-old peace deal with separatist rebels in Aceh was a base that could be built on in the future. Responding to criticisms voiced by many Acehnese that it short-changed them on the greater autonomy they had been promised under the historic peace pact, Yudhoyono called "on all sides to accept this law well, as a base to build a more prosperous future in Aceh," during his state-of-the-nation address given in parliament on the eve of the country's 61st independence day.
■ Israel
Implants save woman
A woman's breast implants saved her life when she was wounded in a Hezbollah rocket attack during Israel's war with the militant group, a hospital spokesman said on Tuesday. Doctors found shrapnel embedded in the silicone implants, just inches from the 24-year-old's heart. "She was saved from death," said a spokesman for Nahariya Hospital in northern Israel. The woman has been released from hospital.
■ Italy
Hailstones ruin basil crop
Hailstones as big as ping pong balls and torrential rain has destroyed large swaths of basil grown in Pra, sparking fears of a shortage of the famous alla Genovese pesto sauce from which it is made. The extreme weather hit the area west of Genoa with such force that it shattered panes of glass on dozens of greenhouses where the basil is grown. Further damage was caused by a second storm. About 80 percent of the basil crop, grown in an area known as the Podesta plain, was lost, and the cost of the incident is put at 4 million euros (US$5 million). Volunteers from Genoa's civil protection squad are helping agricultural workers clear up the mess but growers have said that a second cycle of basil, due to be seeded next month, will also be affected.
■ Germany
Foul thieves rob man
Thieves stole 7,500 euros (US$9,554) from a man by throwing feces at him from behind and then pickpocketing him while they pretended to help clean up the mess, authorities in Giessen said on Monday. After withdrawing 8,000 euros from a bank the man was struck in the back of the neck by what he described as human feces, police said. "Immediately afterwards two large women came up to him from behind and claimed they had seen someone excreting down onto the street from above," police said. They were soon joined by a third man, who also came bearing paper towels. Only when the man took his foul-smelling trousers to cleaners did he notice that his money was gone, they said.
■ Ethiopia
Flood death toll hits 194
The death toll from the latest in a series of devastating floods in the country has risen to 194, state television said yesterday. That increased toll from southern Ethiopia, where the Omo River burst its banks on Sunday, brought to around 700 the total feared dead in floods in the Horn of Africa nation this month. State television also said 6,000 people were stranded and needed emergency assistance in the latest flood. "Two army helicopters and 14 motorboats have been deployed to evacuate up to 6,000 people marooned by the floods," it said. adding that "bad weather has been hampering rescuers."
■ Dubai
Pink cabs for women only
Dubai, one of the seven sheikhdoms that make up the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, will deploy pink taxis at places frequently visited by women, said an official quoted by the local newspaper Gulf News. The taxis will soon be on Dubai's roads to provide a "women-only" taxi service, said Ammar Bin Tamim, director of the Dubai Taxi Department at the Roads and Transport Authority. "The taxis will have pink roofs, pink seats and interiors, and other features to give the vehicles a feminine touch. We will roll out pink taxis with at least 50 cars in a few months," Tamim said.
■ United States
Passenger disrupts flight
Fighter jets escorted a diverted London-to-Washington flight to Boston's Logan airport yesterday after a distraught passenger pulled out a screwdriver, matches, Vaseline and a note referencing al-Qaeda, an airport spokesman said. United Flight 923 landed safely, Logan airport spokesman Phil Orlandella said. The flight, with 182 passengers and 12 crew members, landed safely, UAL Corp spokesman Brandon Borrman said. Borrman said a female passenger was spotted engaging in some "suspicious" activity, but he could not immediately say what the activity was. State police and federal agencies took control of the plane after it landed.
■ United States
One giant problem for NASA
The government has misplaced the original recording of the first moon landing, including astronaut Neil Armstrong's famous "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," a NASA spokesman said on Monday. Armstrong's famous space walk, seen by millions of viewers on July 20, 1969, is among transmissions that NASA has failed to turn up in a year of searching, spokesman Grey Hautaloma said. "We've been looking for over a year and they haven't turned up," Hautaloma said. In all, some 700 boxes of transmissions from the Apollo lunar missions are missing, he said. "I wouldn't say we're worried -- we've got all the data. Everything on the tapes we have in one form or another," Hautaloma said.
■ United States
Pop culture reigns
Three quarters of Americans can correctly identify two of Snow White's seven dwarfs while only a quarter can name two Supreme Court Justices, according to a poll on pop culture released on Monday. According to the poll by Zogby International, commissioned by the makers of a new online game on pop culture called Gold Rush, 57 percent of Americans could identify J.K. Rowling's fictional boy wizard as Harry Potter, while only 50 percent could name the British prime minister, Tony Blair. The pollsters spoke to 1,213 people across the country. Asked what planet Superman was from, 60 percent named the fictional planet Krypton, while only 37 percent knew that Mercury is the planet closest to the sun.
■ United States
New records to be released
Delayed by what the New York fire commissioner says was "poor management," the city plans to release a new avalanche of documentary records from Sept. 11, 2001, including more than 1,600 phone calls made to emergency services that morning. While most of these are calls made by people outside the buildings or watching television, officials say about 31 were from people who were part of the morning's narrative of struggle and loss: 21 firefighters who died and 10 civilians who were also in the World Trade Center towers.
■ Mexico
Leftist threatens rival
Supporters of leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador pledged on Tuesday to place conservative Felipe Calderon "under siege" if he is declared the winner of the disputed presidential elections, while Calderon's camp accused the leftist of wanting to make blood flow in the conflict. Calderon "will be a president under siege ... he will not be able to operate outside his office," said Gerardo Fernandez, spokesman for Lopez Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party. The heightened rhetoric came one day after Lopez Obrador supporters clashed with police outside the federal Congress building in Mexico City.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not