■ Sri Lanka
Open piggy banks, kids told
The Finance Ministry has launched a campaign to try to convince children to bust open their piggy banks to help ease coin shortages, a newspaper reported yesterday. The ministry estimated the scheme could pour 4 percent of Sri Lanka's total coinage back into circulation and help avoid the high cost of minting new ones, the Island newspaper said. For every 100 rupees (US$0.91) worth of coins brought forward the central bank will issue a fresh 100-rupee note, which will be deposited into bank accounts maintained by students at school saving societies, it said. Notes are cheaper to make than coins, which the newspaper said were generally worth more as metal than currency in Sri Lanka.
■ New Zealand
Sex toy sparks bomb scare
A suspicious package which sparked a bomb scare and evacuation of a New Zealand mail center was later identified as a harmless sex aid, a report said on Thursday. An airport X-ray machine alerted staff about suspicious wiring in the parcel from China on Tuesday and it was placed in an explosives safe overnight. Emergency services were only notified the next morning when they decided to evacuate the mail center near Auckland airport. The parcel was later identified as a sex aid, the New Zealand Herald reported. The incident has prompted a Customs investigation into why emergency services were not immediately contacted, leaving a potential bomb in a safe overnight.
■ China
Alleged bank robbers caught
Police have arrested two men who are suspected of stealing about 50 million yuan (US$6.6 million) in cash from the bank where they worked, state media said yesterday. The men worked as tellers in a branch of the Agricultural Bank in Hebei Province, the China Daily reported. It cited public security ministry spokesman Wu Heping as saying some funds had been recovered. Wu also lamented the ease at which the men apparently got away with an estimated 2 tonnes of cash. The men were seen fleeing the bank in a van shortly after it was noticed that the money was missing last Saturday.
■ China
Jobs sold like `cabbages'
A Chinese police chief has been sacked for handing out promotions to 92 officers in one day like a "farmer selling cabbages." Zhang Xiaoning, head of the public security bureau in Houma, in the northern province of Shanxi, single-handedly decided on and announced the promotions in March, Xinhua news agency said. "The sudden elevations were like a farmer selling off radishes and cabbages at the market," the Shanxi Evening News said.
■ Canada
Hunters may remain stuck
Dozens of seal hunting vessels stuck in pack ice off Newfoundland's northeast coast could remain stranded for another week, a Canadian coast guard official said on Thursday. As many as 100 vessels are stuck in ice floes jammed together by strong northeast winds. By Thursday, crews had been evacuated from at least 10 vessels amid growing concerns about dwindling supplies of food and fuel and of damage to the boats. "With the current forecast, it looks like it's going to be at least into the weekend before we get any significant wind change," said Brian Penney, a superintendent with the coast guard.
■ Russia
Students ordered inside
A leading Moscow university ordered its foreign students on Thursday to remain in their dormitories for the next three days because of fears of ethnic violence before Adolf Hitler's birthday, students said. Hundreds of students at the prestigious Sechenov Moscow Medical Academy were told to stock up on food and warned they would not be let out of the dormitories through today in an attempt to protect them amid a marked rise in hate crimes. Ethnically motivated violence tends to increase in the days leading up to and after Hitler's April 20 birthday, when some members of ultra nationalist organizations stage attacks on non-Slavic looking people.
■ United States
Pot grower blown into yard
An explosion set fire to a Miami, Florida, house being used to grow marijuana hydroponically on Wednesday and the force of the blast sent the occupant flying into the yard, police said. The man, identified by police as Edel Mesa, 40, was badly burned on the chest, arms and legs and was in critical condition at a trauma hospital, investigators said. "The house was pretty much destroyed," Miami-Dade Police Detective Carlos Maura said. Firefighters extinguished the flames and called police, who seized more than 40 marijuana plants from the home, police said. Police said the man may have been using propane gas near the high-intensity lamps used to grow the plants indoors.
■ United States
Sex predator plan backfires
Talk about your wrong number. An effort to provide constituents with a hotline number that helps track the location of sexual predators backfired for a group of Long Island, New York, politicians when they mistakenly listed a telephone number that connects callers to a sex chat line. "Hey there, sexy guy," a sultry recorded female voice is heard telling callers who dialed the number. "Welcome to an exciting new way to go live, one on one, with hot, horny girls waiting right now to talk to you." That's not what Nassau County, New York Legislator Peter Schmitt and seven colleagues intended when they sent out postcards to constituents announcing an initiative to prevent and treat sex abuse.
■ Russia
Tunnel project revived
An idea first mulled in the czarist era -- a tunnel under the Bering Strait -- is being revived as part of an ambitious project to build a 6,000km transport corridor linking Russia with Alaska. Billed by backers as the key to developing Russia's Far East, the US$65 billion project will be the focus of a conference in Moscow on Tuesday, organizers said in a statement this week. The Bering Strait is about 80km wide at its narrowest; it was unclear where the tunnel might be located.
■ Canada
Man caught with body parts
Police were interviewing a man on Wednesday after he was apprehended carrying body parts in garbage bags. Police in Montreal said the man was seen on Tuesday night carrying the bags from an apartment to a vehicle parked in an alley. Officials were unable to immediately identify the victim or indicate whether the body parts belonged to a man or woman. Local media reported that police were alerted to the activity in the alley by a man who had been putting up posters of his missing brother in the neighborhood.
■ United States
Man sets himself ablaze
A man set himself on fire inside Long Beach City Hall, California, and was in critical condition at a hospital, police said. Haouy Nguyen, 50, walked into the building lobby on Thursday afternoon, approached an information desk and set himself ablaze, said police spokeswoman Nancy Pratt. Pratt said she didn't know how he set the fire, but a security guard who tackled the man and extinguished the fire reported smelling gasoline. Nguyen had burns to 20 percent of his body, and the security guard suffered minor burns to his hand. During the fire, a suspicious package was discovered and City Hall was evacuated. A bomb squad determined it was harmless.
■ Venezuela
New Zeppelin launched
A Zeppelin was launched on Thursday to patrol Caracas, seeking to fight crime in one of Latin America's most dangerous cities but also raising fears that President Hugo Chavez could be turning into Big Brother. Around the hot-dog stalls of the run-down suburb where the airship took its first flight, most people felt the unmanned eye-in-the-sky could help counter routine hold-ups, shootings and carjackings. "It is a necessity," said street vendor Pedro Marin when asked about the 15m helium-filled blimp. Police will be able to control the blimps remotely, steering them over the city.
■ Canada
Racism shocks couch buyer
Doris Moore was shocked when her new couch was delivered to her Toronto home with a label that used a racial slur to describe the dark brown shade of the upholstery. The situation was even more alarming for Moore because it was her seven-year-old daughter who pointed out "nigger brown" on the tag. "My daughter saw the label and she knew the color brown, but didn't know what the other word meant. She asked: `Mommy, what color is that?' I was stunned. I didn't know what to say. I never thought that's how she'd learn of that word,'' Moore said. The mother complained to the furniture store, which blamed the supplier, who pointed to a computer problem as the source of the derogatory label. Kingsoft Corp, a Chinese software company, acknowledged its translation program was at fault and said it was a regrettable error.
■ United States
Mystery beasts roam Ohio
Wildlife experts haven't been able to positively identify at least three animals spotted roaming the woods in Chester Township, about 32km east of Cleveland, over the past few months. "We're not exactly sure what they are," said Allen Lea of the Ohio Division of Wildlife, which has reviewed photos taken by a resident. "But they're definitely not a native species. They're not where they belong." Police have received calls from residents offering varying descriptions. Sergeant Debbie Davis said her Internet searches have failed to identify the "half deer, half ram" she has seen while on patrol.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the