■ INDIA
Betel nut condoms offered
A condom flavored with the popular mixture of betel nut and tobacco known as paan is to go on sale in India, newspapers said yesterday. State-owned company Hindustan Latex has already tested the pungent and bitter mixture on their main market, sex workers, who preferred it to other flavors such as banana and chocolate, the Hindustan Times reported. "The community loved it as most of the sex workers chew paan," Sanjeev Gaikwad, a director at advocacy group Family Health International who helped launch the new condom as part of HIV-AIDS prevention efforts, told the newspaper. Varieties of betel nut, tobacco and often sweet and bitter pastes are mixed in a concoction called paan sold at street-side stalls.
■ CHINA
Bus pulled from river
Rescue teams have raised a sunken bus from a river in the southeastern part of the country, recovering eight bodies while more than a dozen people are still feared missing, state media reported yesterday. The bus had slid off a ferry and into the Xinjiang River on Monday morning in Jiangxi Province's Yugan County, a region of lakes and rivers about 700km southeast of Shanghai, the Xinhua News Agency said. The bus was reportedly carrying up to 30 passengers, many of them school children on their way to summer school classes. Six people were pulled from the river immediately after the accident, five of whom survived, Xinhua said.
■ INDIA
Monkey accused of stealing
Police combed the alleys of the Hindu holy city of Varanasi in northern India yesterday to search for a monkey accused of stealing reading glasses from a South Korean tourist. Kim Dang-hoon filed a formal complaint against the primate that he claims broke into his hotel room and pinched his spectacles, according to investigating officer Inspector Govind Singh. "It is difficult to trace the monkey but I am trying my best to locate the rogue," Singh said. Thousands of wild monkeys roam Varanasi, dotting the trees on the banks of the Ganges River and scampering through the city's many temples, where they are venerated as manifestations of the Hindu monkey god Hanuman.
■ MALAYSIA
Car stolen from showroom
A thief crashed a US$300,000 Porsche through the glass doors of a showroom in Kuala Lumpur after asking to test its engine, reports said yesterday. The man got into the high-performance car and asked a saleswoman to switch on the engine before making his dramatic exit, Bernama said. It described him as well-dressed, and said he produced a cheque book before smashing his way out of the showroom in the Porsche 911 Targa 4. But the thief did not get very far. Officers found the car abandoned 1.5km away, and newspapers reported it had run out of fuel.
■ THAILAND
Bomb kills one, wounds 18
A motorcycle bomb killed a policeman and wounded 18 people in Yala Province in the south yesterday, an army spokesman said. Most of the wounded were forensic police, soldiers and journalists drawn to the scene by an earlier bomb blast at the site, Colonel Acra Tiproch said. "Police were actually on alert for booby traps, but they let their guards down after nothing happened in the 20 minutes after they arrived," he said. The second bomb, triggered by a remote device, was hidden under the pillion of a motorcycle parked in front of a shop in Yala city, Acra said.
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