■ China
Factory fire kills nine
A fire at a Taiwanese-invested factory producing touch-panel electronic devices in Shenzhen killed nine workers and injured 10, state media reported. The fatal blaze on Sunday was the second serious factory fire in less than a month in the booming manufacturing city. The official Xinhua news agency reported that 235 workers were evacuated after the fire broke out in the afternoon at the four-story Yanghua Hi-tech Factory. It said 10 were injured, with one in a serious condition.
■ China
Fog causes giant collision
Heavy fog caused a chain collision of 80 vehicles and left 10 people dead on a highway in south China on Sunday, the Xinhua news agency reported. The accident occurred around 8am outside the city of Nanchang, 1,300km south of Beijing, and snarled traffic for thousands of vehicles, Xinhua said. The report did not provide further details on how the pile-up began or whether there were casualties other than the 10 who died.
■ China
Pyramid scheme broken
Authorities have broken up a pyramid scheme based in Beijing that swindled more than 20,000 people nationwide out of more than 1.6 billion yuan (US$206 million), state media reported on Sunday. The Yilin Wood Company had cheated investors by promising them high returns on sales of woodland property through a pyramid-selling model, Xinhua news agency said. Xinhua said it was the largest pyramid scheme ever discovered in the Chinese capital. Eighteen people were arrested as part of the operation.
■ Philippines
Pants stunt earns jail time
A 66-year-old German tourist, annoyed by stringent security at Manila's airport, dropped his pants before walking through an X-ray machine last Friday, newspapers reported yesterday. Authorities were not amused. Instead of boarding a flight to Frankfurt, Hans Jurgen Oskar von Naguschewski was detained after police filed a complaint of lasciviousness against him, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and the Philippine Star reported. "He must have been annoyed that he was asked to walk through the X-ray twice so he took off his pants," airport security chief Angel Atutubo was quoted as saying. The man spent the weekend in police detention and was to face the prosecutor yesterday.
■ New Zealand
Ships clash in Antarctic
A whale conservation boat in Antarctic waters collided twice with a Japanese whale-spotting vessel yesterday, the Sea Shepherd anti-whaling group said. Paul Watson, the founder of the conservation group, said the Sea Shepherd ship, Robert Hunter, was hit twice by the Kaiko Maru yesterday after the conservationists tried to stop the Japanese ship from reaching a pod of whales. The Robert Hunter sustained a 1m gash in the hull above the water line, but no one aboard the ship was injured, Watson said. The Kaiko Maru then issued a distress signal, with the Japanese crew indicating the ship had a propeller problem, which was "vibrating," Watson said. "We responded to the distress call and offered to send down a diver, but the Japanese did not respond, he said.
■ Thailand
Rules to love by
The Culture Ministry has issued what it calls the "10 Commandments of Love" to encourage teens not to get too carried away with romance while celebrating Valentine's Day. The first commandment: "Love with patience, so as not to become a young parent." The fourth urges youths to love carefully "to avoid the risk of sexually transmitted diseases." "When you are young and in love you lack experience and can't tell the difference between love and lust," Culture Ministry official Ladda Tangsuphachai said yesterday. "We want to provide some guidance." Sex isn't the only subject covered by the commandments, which were released on Sunday. They also encourage monogamy, respect, trust and forgiveness.
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