■ AUSTRALIA
Cat high on cocaine
An agitated pet cat left in a cupboard overnight turned out to he high on cocaine and benzodiazepines left over from a wild weekend party, a report said yesterday. The cat arrived at a veterinary clinic with dilated pupils and a racing heart, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. While the owner was adamant the cat had not been exposed to toxic plants, mouldy foods or drugs, when contacted by telephone the owner's wife admitted the cat could have licked "plates of cocaine" which had been served at a party. A drug screen also revealed the cat had benzodiazepines in its system.
■ SINGAPORE
Girl's killer sentenced
A man was sentenced to death after he was found guilty of killing his two-year-old step daughter by submerging her in a pail of water, local media said on Friday. The Straits Times newspaper said on its Web site that Mohammed Ali Johari was charged with murder after he drowned his step daughter to stop her "incessant crying." Singapore enforces its death sentences through hanging. The city-state of 4.5 million people has been ranked by Amnesty International as having the highest per capita execution rate in the world, though Human Rights Watch says Iran now executes the most per capita.
■ THAILAND
Wife runs off with penis
A 35-year-old woman was at large with her husband's penis yesterday after discovering the man's unfaithfulness, police said. Pornbun Sinthusin came home late on Friday in Bangkok and found her 34-year-old husband Ploeng Plaekratoke in bed with another woman, Lieutenant Colonel Kornwat Hunpradit said. Pornbun later gave him several beers before cutting off his penis with "a sharp object," Kornwat said, adding that the husband was in intensive care. "We suspect she took both her weapon and her husband's penis because we cannot find the penis in their apartment. We even checked a toilet but she did not dump it there," Kornwat said.
■ JAPAN
Slim fashion hits men
Men worried about bulging bellies now have another option to cutting back on beer -- slip into a boxer brief girdle or T-shirt with tummy-control panels. Overweight adults are still far rarer than in the US, but the trend is definitely up for men, especially the middle-aged. Many suffer from metabolic syndrome, a condition characterized by excess fat around the abdomen. A fashion trend toward slimmer cuts in suits and form-fitting trousers is also making men -- even the relatively slender -- more worried whether their hips, bellies and thighs pass muster.
■ CHINA
Sex parlors targeted
The government has proposed rules to increase inspections of massage parlors in a bid to stamp out a spreading sex trade, state media said yesterday. The China Daily newspaper reported the draft rules meant all public bathhouses would have "to make their premises more accessible to public inspections in a bid to fight the growing sex trade." It said all massage rooms in bathhouses must be open to view from the outside, and that foot massage parlors keep their doors unlocked when a customer is using a cubicle. The country has a booming sex trade, with massage parlors common on street corners.
■ FINLAND
Minks freed from cages
Farmers and other locals were chasing thousands of minks let out of their cages at a fur farm in the western part of the country early on Friday by suspected animal rights activists. About half the 2,500 minks released from unlocked cages in Mustasaari, 400km northwest of Helsinki, have been recaptured, but it could take several days to round up the others, police said. "We have no firm suspects at the moment. But the letters EVR were spray-painted on a feed silo at the farm. In this connection it usually means Animal Liberation Front in Finnish," Chief Inspector Mika Jylha said, but added: "Of course, anyone could write that."
RSS