■ 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.
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