■ CHINA
Pushup bra ads stopped
Days after banning "sexually provocative sounds" on television, China has now stopped networks showing "saucy" adverts for push-up bras and figure-hugging underwear ahead of a major Communist Party meeting next month. Other targets of the crackdown are "low-brow and base" commercials for sex toys, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television said on Friday. "Every television advertisement management bureau and television station must strengthen their political consciousness and responsibility toward society," Tian Jin (田進), deputy head of the State Administration of Radio, Film and TV, was quoted as saying.
■ INDIA
Climbers stranded by snow
At least one climber died and more than 100 people, including several from Russia, Australia and Germany, were stranded in the Himalayas after a heavy snowfall, an official said yesterday. Authorities lost contact with the climbers on Friday when their satellite phones apparently went down, said P.C. Dandriyal, a local official in the northern state of Uttarakhand. "We have lost track of over 100 mountaineers, hikers, porters and guides from India and abroad who are stranded across Uttarakhand after heavy snowfall," said Dandriyal.
■ MALAYSIA
Buddha statue stolen again
A priceless brass statue of Buddha believed to be more than 1,000 years old has been stolen from a temple in Malaysia for the fifth time since 2004, a report said yesterday. The statue had been missing since Sept. 14, said Tan Khai Beng, 54, a committee member of the Buppharam Thai Buddhist Temple in the northern resort island of Penang. "The monks thought nothing of it at that time as the statue had been stolen four times before since 2004 but each time it would be returned by the thief within three to four days," he was quoted as saying by the Star newspaper.
■ PHILIPPINES
Birth-control lawsuit planned
Family planning advocates in Manila said yesterday they are readying a legal suit against a member of President Gloria Arroyo's Cabinet for his opposition to artificial contraception. The groups said they were readying legal action against Environment Secretary Lito Atienza for removing all contraceptives from city clinics when he was mayor of Manila. The suit aims to "hold [Atienza] liable for acts which caused injury to women," said Elizabeth Pangalangan, executive director of the Reproductive Health, Rights and Ethics Center, attached to the state university. Her group presented testimony on how Atienza introduced a policy in 2000 banning city government clinics from issuing contraceptives or informing people how to use them.
■ PHILIPPINES
Storm may bring mudslides
Tropical Storm Hanna was poised to hit the northern part of the country yesterday, bringing heavy rain and raising fears of mudslides, government agencies warned. At 4am yesterday, Hanna was located 70km east of the northeastern province of Aurora, moving west at 20kph toward the northern half of the main island of Luzon, the government weather station said. Packing maximum wind speeds of 80kph, Hanna was expected to cross the northern half of Luzon and move west of the island by this morning. Heavy rain has fallen over much of Luzon, including Manila, since Friday.
■ GERMANY
Worker skews screw market
A factory worker stole over a million screws from his employer and skewed the market with his cheap stolen goods, police said on Friday. "In the end, it became obvious that screws were being sold for much less than they usually cost," said a spokesman for police in the southern city of Wuerzburg. Over two years, the 33-year-old assembly plant worker smuggled between 2,000 and 7,000 screws out of work each night, and auctioned them on an Internet site, police said. The scheme cost his firm around 110,000 euros (US$156,000).
■ TOGO
Beheadings investigated
Officials are working to connect six beheadings to a suspected network of killers in neighboring Benin, police said on Thursday. All six victims were beheaded over a two-day period earlier this month. The killings were strikingly similar, leading investigators to believe they were the hand of one serial killer, or one criminal group. Colonel Damehane Yark, the commander of Togo's national police, said security forces were working to establish a link between four recently arrested suspects and a network of killers in Benin. The four suspects are allegedly led by Hounguiya Roger, 37, an ex-convict from Benin, police said.
■ GERMANY
China upset over meeting
Germany's foreign minister said China remains upset over a meeting between the German chancellor and the Dalai Lama last week. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Friday that his talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi (楊潔箎) touched on Iran and Myanmar but last Sunday's meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the exiled Tibetan leader in Berlin emerged as the main issue. "The Chinese side used the meeting to express again their anger over the meeting with the Dalai Lama," Steinmeier told reporters following the meeting.
■ FRANCE
Youths sentenced for arson
A judge sentenced two youths to eight years in prison on Friday for their part in an arson attack on a bus that left one passenger with burns covering nearly two-thirds of her body. When the judge read out the sentence, the youngest of the two defendants, a 15-year-old boy, shouted: "Why me?" A gang of eight youths attacked a bus in the southern port city of Marseille last October, spraying petrol on the seats and setting it ablaze as passengers tried to flee. Mama Galledou, a 26-year-old student from Senegal, spent months in hospital recovering from severe burns which cover 62 percent of her body.
■ TOGO
Government asks for help
The government on Friday made an urgent appeal for food and medical aid to counter floods that have killed hundreds in West and Central Africa over the past month. Twenty-three people have been reported dead in the West African nation. "We are launching an appeal for solidarity and international aid to relieve the people hit by the floods," Cooperation Minister Gilbert Bawara said. "We need food, medicine and the means to rebuild infrastructure," he said. More than 20,000 people have been left homeless and and another 130,000 families have had homes damaged, according to authorities. The EU has offered US$3 million to help Togo, Ghana and Burkina Faso.
■ UNITED STATES
Patient left in CT scanner
A cancer patient says she was left alone in a CT scanner for hours after a technician apparently forget about her, and she finally crawled out of the device, only to find herself locked in the closed clinic. Elvira Tellez of Tucson, Arizona, said she called her son in a panic, and he told her to call police. Pima County sheriff's deputies arriving at the oncology office had her unlock the office door to let them in, Deputy Dawn Hanke, a department spokeswoman, said. The deputies contacted the office manager, who was not aware of the situation. Tellez was taken to a hospital as a precaution, then released early the next day.
■ UNITED STATES
Suspects may get lawyers
Fourteen "high-value" terrorist suspects who were transferred last year to the US military prison at Guantanamo, Cuba, from secret CIA prisons have been given legal forms to request lawyers, the Washington Post reported on Friday. The move could allow the prisoners, including the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, to join other detainees in challenging their status as enemy combatants in a US appellate court, the report said. The prisoners have not had access to lawyers during their year at Guantanamo Bay or while they were held at the secret CIA sites abroad, the newspaper said. The Post said Defense Department officials confirmed the move.
■ BRAZIL
Asylum granted to athletes
The government granted asylum to two Cuban athletes on Friday, nearly two months after being criticized by the opposition for hastily returning two boxers to the Caribbean nation. Rafael Capote, a handball player, and Michel Fernandez Garcia, a cyclist, had abandoned the Cuban delegation during the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro in July. Capote said he was seeking better professional opportunities in the country. Both were granted their request for asylum, a justice ministry spokeswoman said on Friday. The government's swift deportation in August of two internationally acclaimed Cuban boxers caused concern among human rights group and led Congress to launch an investigation.
■ PUERTO RICO
Visitors rescue stray dogs
Some visitors to the country are leaving with an unusual souvenir -- one of the thousands of scrappy abandoned dogs that roam the island's beaches. Hundreds of abandoned canines are being scooped up and flown to the US; some by tourists unexpectedly touched by their plight, others as part of an expensive organized rescue effort. But critics say the canine airlift does little to reduce the problem of stray dogs in Puerto Rico and ends up fueling overcrowding at the US shelters, where many of the dogs end up.
■ MEXICO
Drug queen arrested
The country's highest-profile female suspected drug trafficker and her Colombian drug boss lover have been arrested by federal agents in Mexico City, the government said. Sandra Avila Beltran, dubbed the "Queen of the Pacific" and reputed to play a key role in shipping cocaine from Colombia to Mexico for the Sinaloa cartel, was arrested on Friday outside a restaurant in the capital's south, Assistant Public Safety Secretary Patricio Patino said. Avila Beltran, 45, was in charge of the cartel's "public relations" and facilitated the movement of cocaine from Colombia to Mexico, including 9 tonnes confiscated from a ship in Manzanillo in 2002.
‘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
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RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in