Print

Mail

wiki links

World News Quick Take

■ NEW ZEALAND
Vegans shun meat-eaters
They say you are what you eat, and growing numbers of vegans are shunning sex with meat-eaters because they see them as "a graveyard for animals," a researcher says. These vegans not only refuse to eat meat or animal products but refuse to have sexual contact with meat-eaters because their bodies are made up of dead animals, the researcher was reported saying in the Press newspaper yesterday. Annie Potts, co-director of the New Zealand Centre of Human and Animal Studies at Canterbury University, said she coined the term vegansexuals during her research. She discovered the vegansexuals while interviewing 157 vegetarians and ethical consumers for a study.

■ AUSTRALIA
Kangaroo heads severed
The country's leading animal welfare group launched an investigation yesterday after five severed kangaroo heads were found on a beach in Queensland state. A woman walking with her two young daughters made the grisly discovery at Decelption Bay, north of Brisbane, on Sunday, the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals (RSPCA) said. RSCPA spokesman Michael Beatty said it appeared the heads had been used as fish bait in an extreme act of cruelty. "We've seen kangaroos that have been shot with arrows and had all sorts of other unpleasant things happen to them but we've never actually come across five like this," Beatty said. "We'd just like some information to find who did this."

■ CHINA
Panda poo souvenirs
A wildlife research centre has come up with a novel idea to profit from panda poo -- make Olympic souvenirs out of it. Researchers at the center in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, had sculpted photo frames, bookmarks, fans and panda statues out of the 300 tonnes of the stuff produced by 60 giant pandas each year, state media said yesterday. Jing Shimin, assistant to the director of the base, proudly declared that the souvenirs would be relatively odor-free. "They don't smell too bad because 70 percent of the dung is just remains of the bamboo that the pandas are unable to digest," he told Xinhua news agency.

■ MALAYSIA
Dead man's wife detained
Police have detained a woman in connection with the 11 pieces of a man's body found stuffed into a refrigerator, state media said yesterday. Bernama news agency said the woman is believed to be the victim's wife. She was taken in for interrogation on Monday afternoon, Bernama news agency quoted Ku Chin Wah, the criminal investigation department chief, as saying. Reports said a man who had bought a luxury apartment in suburban Kuala Lumpur made the discovery on Sunday after noticing a strong stench.

■ PHILIPPINES
Bulusan volcano erupts
A volcano erupted in the eastern part of the country yesterday, raining ash on two towns, but there were no reports of casualties, volcanologists said. No immediate evacuation of nearby communities was necessary unless the apparently short-term eruption of Bulusan volcano worsens, Julio Sabit of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said. Located on the southeastern tip of the main island of Luzon, the 1,559m Bulusan erupted at 9:30am with a burst of ash that shot 6km above the crater, Sabit said. "The eruption is nearly over although there could be more to follow based on previous activity."

■ UNITED STATES
Clinton camp slams `Post'
Insulted by a fashion article about Hillary Clinton's cleavage, her presidential campaign is trying to use the incident to raise money. A fund-raising e-mail letter signed by Ann Lewis, a senior Clinton adviser, urges potential donors to "take a stand against this kind of coarseness and pettiness in American culture." The Washington Post on July 20 published an article by its fashion writer, Robin Givhan, that noted Clinton wore a black top with a low neckline during an appearance on the Senate floor to talk about the high cost of college education.

■ UNITED STATES
Chief justice has seizure
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts suffered a seizure and was taken to the hospital on Monday but a neurological evaluation showed no cause for concern, a court spokeswoman said. "Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr took a fall about 2pm today near his summer home in Maine after suffering what doctors describe as a benign idiopathic seizure," spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said in a statement. Arberg said Roberts, 52, suffered minor scrapes in the fall but said he was "fully recovered" from the incident. He will stay overnight at the hospital as a precaution.

■ UNITED STATES
Classical music fights crime
City authorities, fed up with gang activity in public places, are taking Bach to their bus stop. Transit workers are installing speakers this week to pump classical music from Seattle's KING-FM into the Tacoma Mall Transit Center. The tactic is designed to disperse young criminals who make drug deals at the bus stop or use public transportation to circulate between the mall and other trouble-prone places. The attack by Bach, Brahms and Beethoven follows the theory that prompted the city to stage pinochle games on dangerous street corners: Jolting the routine in such spots throws criminals off balance.

■ UNITED STATES
Girl kills her father
A 13-year-old girl used a shotgun to fatally shoot her father in the head in a home overrun with animals and filth, police said. The girl told investigators she used a 12-gauge shotgun to shoot 34-year-old Matthew Booth in the face early on Monday while he was in bed, a police affidavit said. A police complaint did not identify a motive in the killing, but her mother, Michelle Fazek, who was separated from Booth, said she had complained several times to county child welfare officials that her daughter and her brother, 14, were living in squalor and that her daughter had been abused.

■ UNITED STATES
Elderly man opens fire
A 75-year-old man walked into a medical building and started firing a shotgun but was killed by a highway patrolman, authorities in the Mojave Desert community of Ridgecrest, California, said. The man fired one shot on Monday on the grounds of Ridgecrest Regional Hospital and entered a medical office building, where he fired several other shots, Police chief Mike Avery said. Employees and patients escaped through a back door, Ann Kapernick, a hospital administrator, told the Bakersfield Californian. The man also hit a female employee with the butt of his gun after entering the building, Kapernick said.


This story has been viewed 1022 times.