■ 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.
■ TURKEY
Candidate shot dead
An independent candidate was shot dead in Istanbul ahead of general elections on July 22, the candidate's Web site and a news agency reported yesterday. Tuncay Seyranlioglu, 42, was shot in his car after participating in a television show on Monday evening, the Anatolia news agency reported. Seyranlioglu's Web site confirmed his death. Three other people in the car were injured and taken to a hospital, Anatolia said. None were in critical condition. The assailants escaped in a black car, the agency said. Seyranlioglu's Web site said he was a businessman and that he owned a small newspaper in Istanbul. Calls to the newspaper, Tamgun, were not immediately answered.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Shambo avoids slaughter
A court on Monday quashed a decision to slaughter a sacred bull which tested positive for bovine tuberculosis, after protests by Hindu monks and nuns. The ruling by the High Court in Cardiff, Wales, was immediately hailed by the Hindu Forum of Britain as "a landmark judgment in the history of religious worship" in Britain. The Welsh Assembly government said it was "urgently" seeking to appeal the decision. The court ruled that the assembly had so far failed to prove that slaughtering six-year-old Shambo was the only way to check the spread of the disease. The case will be heard at the Court of Appeal in London on Friday.
■ AUSTRIA
Divorce fair scheduled
Anyone interested in ending his or her marriage will be able to get all the necessary information to do so at a divorce fair in Vienna from Oct. 27-28. "It's a world premiere," said Anton Barz, the man behind the project. Various stands will be set up with lawyers, mediators, notaries and psychologists on hand to offer counsel. And to avoid any awkward or potentially heated encounter with a former husband or wife, Saturday will be reserved for men while Sunday will be open to women only.
■ SPAIN
Bull run costs man his son
A man who took his 10-year-old son bull running during the annual Pamplona festival last week has had his visitation rights to the boy taken away by a judge. The boy's mother complained to police after seeing a newspaper photograph of her ex-husband leading their son by the arm just a few feet in front of the bulls, El Mundo reported on yesterday. A member of the mother's family said they didn't want the boy to lose touch with his father, but added the man needed to be taught a lesson about taking care of her son.
■ NETHERLANDS
TV show raises donors
More than 12,000 people registered as organ donors following a television hoax in which three contestants purportedly competed for the kidney of a dying woman, the government announced on Monday. The Big Donor Show made headlines around the world and was branded tasteless and unethical when its makers announced they would run a game show with a kidney as the top prize. However, the show's makers were widely praised when they revealed it was a hoax aimed at raising awareness of the plight of patients waiting for organs. "Normally, the register receives 3,000 to 4,000 donor forms per month," the Health Ministry said in a statement.
■ CANADA
Pickton trial continues
Accused serial killer Robert Pickton described how he killed prostitutes after having sex with them and used his pigs to help dispose of the remains, prosecution witness Andrew Bellwood told a court in New Westminster, British Columbia, on Monday. Bellwood, who lived briefly at Pickton's farm, testified that Pickton showed him handcuffs and play-acted as he described stroking their hair and telling them everything would be okay, "it's over now." Bellwood said Pickton told him that after butchering the dead women in the farm's slaughterhouse, he fed some of the remains to his pigs. Pickton, 57, has denied murdering the women.
■ UNITED STATES
Sex change tax disputed
A Boston man who underwent a sex-change operation is suing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), saying the US$25,000 in medical expenses should have been deducted from her taxes. In a potentially precedent-setting dispute now before the US Tax Court, the IRS argues that the procedure was cosmetic, not a medical necessity. Advocates for the transgendered hope the tax agency will treat sex-change operations as a deductible medical procedure. The case is set to go to trial July 24. Rhiannon O'Donnabhain began seeing a therapist in 1996, who eventually diagnosed her with gender-identity disorder. Five years later, her psychotherapist recommended sex-change surgery, finding it was medically necessary. A psychologist who examined O'Donnabhain agreed.
■ UNITED STATES
Waitress gets US$10,000 tip
The personal touch earned a waitress a US$10,000 tip. Jessica Osborne, 20, received the gift from a family of regulars at the Pizza Hut in Angola, Indiana, where she works. The family -- a mother and two sons -- requested Osborne as usual and chatted about their lives. She said she told them how she had started college twice but had to drop out because she did not have enough money. They returned last week before moving away and handed Osborne a check from an education fund they had set up after a death in the family. Osborne said she is now considering where to study photography and journalism.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Chastity ring still banned
A teenage girl banned from wearing a chastity ring in class lost a legal challenge against her former school at the High Court on Monday. Lydia Playfoot, 16, had argued that the ban at the Millais School in Horsham, about 65km south of London, was an "unlawful interference" with her right to express her Christian faith. But deputy High Court judge Michael Supperstone disagreed with her, and supported her school's contention that the ring was not an integral part of the Christian faith. Playfoot wears a ring as a sign of her commitment to abstinence from sex until marriage. The school had said the ring fell outside its uniform policy, which makes exceptions for Muslims wearing head scarves and Sikhs wearing steel bracelets.
■ ARGENTINA
Minister resigns over cash
Economy Minister Felisa Miceli resigned after a prosecutor ordered her to testify about US$64,000 in cash that was found in a bag in her office bathroom, the government said. Late last month, police conducting a routine security check found the cash in a brown paper bag in a bathroom cabinet inside Miceli's offices. She has previously said her brother loaned her most of the money so she could buy a house.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese