■ CHINA
Railway extension shelved
Radiation fears have prompted the government to shelve a US$4.3-billion extension of its high-speed magnetic levitation train in Shanghai, a state press report said yesterday. The official Xinhua news agency cited unnamed officials as saying construction, due to begin this year, had been suspended amid concerns the German technology could contaminate residents. "The government is working on the issue," said an official attending this week's Communist Party congress in Shanghai. A spokesman from the Minhang District of Shanghai, said: "The project has been suspended in line with the arrangements of the municipal government."
■ HONG KONG
Butcher contracts pig illness
A part-time butcher has become the third victim of the pig-borne disease Streptococcus suis in the territory in less than a month, the South China Morning Post reported yesterday. The article said the 54-year-old man developed fever, headache and neck pain nearly two weeks ago, but was admitted to hospital only on Tuesday and was stable yesterday. It said that the victim helped sell pork at several markets. All three cases in the territory were diagnosed within the past eight days and are believed to have been contracted locally, the report said.
■ PAKISTAN
Doctors arrested
Police arrested the owner of a local private hospital and three doctors after they were implicated in the illegal trade and transplant of kidneys, police said yesterday. The arrests were made in overnight raids at two private hospitals in Lahore, said Tasaddaq Hussain, a police investigator. He said the doctors were being held for questioning. The arrests came hours after police detained two men for allegedly enticing poor people to sell their kidneys for money. The two arrested men led officers to the city's two hospitals, where four doctors, including the owner of one, were taken into custody, Hussain said.
■ MALAYSIA
Cinemas nab pirates
Movie theaters have found a powerful new weapon in their fight against movie pirates -- military-style night-vision goggles. After showing people to their seats, trained ushers are strapping on the goggles and scanning darkened cinemas around the country to spot anyone trying to make illegal copies of movies with hand-held video recorders or mobile phones. The Motion Picture Association, which is training ushers to catch the pirates, said cinemas had caught 17 people in the past two months. "All of the cases were spotted with night-vision goggles," the association's Malaysia manager, Nor Hayati Yahaya, said on Friday. "Its very successful."
■ AUSTRALIA
English program sparks ire
A government plan to force Aboriginal children to learn English ignited fierce debate on Friday, with some activists calling the plan racist. The initiative was put forward by the indigenous affairs minister, Mal Brough, who said the compulsory teaching of English would help Aboriginal children living in remote and deprived communities to escape poverty and inequality. He revealed that the government was considering a plan to require Aboriginal parents to ensure that their children attend school or risk losing welfare payments. Tauto Sansbury of the Aboriginal Justice Advocacy committee said the idea was insulting and would reinforce old-fashioned stereotypes.
■ ITALY
Free funerals anger public
A free funeral is not everyone's idea of a perk but some politicians in the country's Veneto region defended on Wednesday the right to expense their final send-off amid a public outcry about freeloading politicians. Councilors elected to the regional government housed in a palace on Venice's Grand Canal have voted themselves 7,500 euros (US$10,000) worth of funeral expenses, on top of generous pay and other extras. "I don't think it's outrageous for Councilors to have their funerals paid for, as recognition for 10 or 15 years of public service," said Veneto regional council president Marino Finozzi of the right-wing Northern League party.
■ NORWAY
Police chief gets robbed
A police campaign to crack down on pickpockets has come too late to help the capital's top crime fighter, Police Chief Anstein Gjengedal. His wallet was snatched by a pickpocket as the campaign was set to began, the Oslo newspaper Dagbladet reported on Friday. The police chief was on the Oslo airport train on Monday, when a group of people jostled him. When he checked a few minutes later, his wallet was gone. "I didn't have much money with me," he was quoted as saying. "But it still wasn't very nice." Gjengedal said he had followed police advice, by having the wallet in the inner pocket of his jacket, but the thieves got it anyway.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Transsexual mayor installed
The mayor of Cambridge is a transsexual, so is the mayoress, and this university city has taken them in its stride. Jenny Bailey, 45, was installed on Thursday as mayor of the Cambridge City Council, and her partner Jennifer Liddle, 49, a former council member, assumed the honorary title of mayoress. Both were born male, and had gender reassignment surgery in their 30s. According to the Local Government Association, Bailey is the first transsexual to serve as a mayor. "This is fantastic," Bailey said after being installed. She has two sons with her ex-wife, who remains a friend.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Bees force plane to land
A passenger plane was forced to land after flying into a swarm of British bees on Thursday. The Palmair Boeing 737, with 90 passengers on board, had to return to Bournemouth Airport shortly after take-off following an engine surge. The pilot decided to abort the flight to Faro in Portugal and returned for safety checks. The plane's engine was thought to have become clogged with bees, the company said Friday. Huge clouds of bees have been seen around Bournemouth over the past few days, a spokeswoman said.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Major says Blair should go
Sir John Major, the former prime minister, yesterday calls on his successor to quit Downing Street and hand over power to Gordon Brown as soon as possible. In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, the former Tory prime minister criticizes Prime Minister Tony Blair's drawn-out departure from office, mocking him for being "in the middle of the longest farewell since Dame Nellie Melba quit the stage." Sir John warns that it would be "constitutionally desirable for Gordon Brown to become prime minister with the minimum of delay".He argues that the present situation, which will see Blair continue as prime minister until Labour's leadership contest is concluded late next month, is unnecessary.
■ UNITED STATES
Boy shoots huge wild hog
An 11-year-old boy used a pistol to kill a wild hog in east Alabama his father says weighed a staggering 476.73 kg and measured 2.74m, from the tip of its snout to the base of its tail. Think hams as big as car tires. If the claims are accurate, Jamison Stone's trophy boar would be bigger than Hogzilla, the famed wild hog that grew to seemingly mythical proportions after being killed in south Georgia in 2004. Hogzilla originally was thought to weigh 453.6kg and measure 3.6m long. National Geographic experts who unearthed its remains believe the animal actually weighed about 362.8kg and was 2.4m long.
■ MEXICO
Motel fits steel gates
A motel near Monterrey is putting steel doors on its rooms to protect guests from kidnappings and shootings in an escalating war between rival drug cartels. Owners of the Rancho El Trueno, or Thunder Ranch, began fortifying the highway motel a year ago but have decided to shield all 35 rooms as drug killings have worsened in the area in recent months. Complete with hot tubs, red imitation-leather beds, mirrored walls and striptease poles, the rooms are shuttered behind steel gates about 4cm thick and some already have steel doors. "We want people to have fun and be able to feel safe. Lovers come, big groups come, we are full on weekends," said Emilio Massa, the motel manager.
■ COSTA RICA
Deadly toothpaste seized
Health officials said on Friday they have seized more than 350 tubes of Chinese-made toothpaste tainted with a deadly chemical reportedly found in tubes sold elsewhere in the world. Health Secretary Maria Luisa Avila said 56 tubes of toothpaste containing diethylene glycol, a chemical commonly used in antifreeze and brake fluid, were found in the northern city of Liberia, and 306 more were seized from a warehouse in the capital of San Jose. Avila also said her department issued a nationwide alert although there have been no reports of anyone falling ill.
■ UNITED STATES
Ring retrieved from sewers
It was a mucky job, but the reward was great. Alma Coate-Wilson, 98, of Olympia, Washington, accidentally flushed her US$8,000, 1.6-carat diamond wedding ring down the toilet in the middle of the night two months ago. Devastated, she wrote a letter to the city's public works department, pleading with help in recovering it. Usually the department has no time to grant such requests, but they decided to try this time. Maintenance workers Bill Davis and Jean Wright started by sending a camera through the sewer line. It did not work. Then they flushed the main line, blocking solids using pea gravel. Finally, they went through the solids with a garden hose and found the ring. Four city employees returned it to Coate-Wilson this week.
■ MEXICO
Aztec lightning bolts found
Archaeologists diving in a lake in the crater of a snowcapped volcano say they've found wooden lightning bolts matching what Spanish priests wrote about more than 500 years ago when they described offerings by Aztecs to their rain god Tlaloc. Scuba-diving at more than 4,200m above sea level in one of the twin lakes of the extinct Nevado de Toluca volcano this month, the scientists said they found the lightning bolts, along with cones of copal incense and obsidian knives. Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History must still conduct tests to determine the age of the offerings.
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