■CHINA
Mega bridge opened
China formally opened what it says is the world’s longest sea-crossing structure yesterday, a 36km bridge spanning a bay just south of Shanghai. The Hangzhou Bay Bridge links Shanghai to the industrial city of Ningbo across Hangzhou Bay, cutting the driving distance between them by 120km. The bridge is a cable-stayed structure built at a cost of 11.8 billion yuan (US$1.7 billion). Construction started in November 2003. The 32.5km Donghai Bridge had been the previous longest sea-crossing structure, linking Shanghai to the port of Yangshan.
■HONG KONG
Poisoner sent to hospital
A mentally ill woman was on Wednesday sent to a psychiatric hospital for seven years for poisoning churchgoers by giving them cakes laced with psychotropic drugs. Jannifer Chan Mei-fung, 37, left the cakes as a gift for members of the Church of Christian and Missionary Alliance in August last year, the city’s district court was told. Three teenagers ended up in hospital, two in intensive care, after the cakes were served up at a youth group meeting later the same day. Tests found a psychotropic drug inside the cakes, and police said they found the same drug when they later raided the defendant’s home. Chan was found guilty of administering a poison with the intention of endangering life and was committed to a psychiatric hospital for the maximum possible term of seven years. Judge Joseph Yau (邱智立) described Chan as “a dangerous character” who not only suffered from paranoia but was also manipulative and cunning.
■NORTH KOREA
Group says people starving
North Korea’s food crisis has already seen some people starve to death amid fears of another famine, according to an aid group which works in the nation. People in remote rural towns in the province of South Pyongan are dying of starvation, South Korea’s Good Friends organization said in a newsletter late on Wednesday. It said local government officials fear hunger may cause massive deaths by starvation in the province and elsewhere unless the government takes urgent action and resumes suspended food rations.
■AUSTRALIA
Apple stays pale
Scientists have come up with an apple that does not go brown when cut. Unlike most apples, which go brown almost immediately, the fruit stays a pale pink color for several hours after it is exposed to air. It will be sold under the name Enchanted, and state minister Kim Chance said on Wednesday he hoped its unique qualities would make it popular worldwide. “The resistance of Enchanted apples to oxidation makes it much more useful and attractive for industry,” said Chance, Western Australia’s state agriculture minister. He said the fact that the apple was produced without genetic modification meant it can be marketed around the world.
■PAKISTAN
Attack leaves 20 injured
An apparent suicide attack at the office of a religious organization wounded about 20 people yesterday, an official said. The blast occurred in Bara, a town about 15km from the city of Peshawar. Government official Purdil Khan said it appeared that a suicide attacker blew himself up at a gate leading to the office of an organization called Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. Sher Khan Afridi, a resident of Bara, said the group was led by Maulana Namdar, a cleric associated with a local militant leader involved in recent heavy fighting with rivals.
■SWEDEN
Road signs show women
The gender-conscious country plans to make room for women on its crosswalk signs. The government has ordered the National Road Administration to design a female alternative to the walking-man signs found at the Scandinavian country’s pedestrian crossings, a spokesman said on Wednesday. The new sign will show a woman instead of a man crossing the street, giving more gender balance to road signs, enterprise ministry spokesman Kenneth Hultgren said. The government was inspired by a campaign in the city of Mariestad, 300km southwest of Stockholm, to put up a walking woman sign created by a local artist.
■SPAIN
Mayor charged with ETA link
A mayor in the Basque region has been arrested on suspicion of supporting the militant Basque separatist group ETA, authorities said on Wednesday. Inocencia Galparsoro, mayor of the small city of Mondragon near San Sebastian, was taken into custody on Wednesday under orders from judge Baltasar Garzon, citing evidence she had supported the group. In Mondragon, a local socialist politician was gunned down by ETA just two days before parliamentary elections. Galparsoro repeatedly declined to condemn the assassination. Hours after the arrests, three bombs exploded in the region. Initial reports said no one was wounded.
■CANADA
Dead ducks not a good sign
Alberta’s environment minister said the provincial government’s efforts to allay environmental concerns about its booming oil sands industry will be hurt by the deaths of hundreds of ducks that landed on a pond filled with toxic waste. Environment Minister Rob Renner concedes the deaths have put a dent in Alberta’s efforts to counter the message being spread by environmental groups that the oil sands projects are taking a toll on the environment. The government is investigating the incident, in which about 500 birds landed and died in the pond. The pond full of toxic sludge sits along a major flight path for migrating waterfowl. Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach said he was concerned that Syncrude had not reported the incident. The government was alerted by a tipster.
■FRANCE
Le Pen sells car on eBay
Far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen said on Wednesday he had put his armored car up for sale on the online auction site eBay to face up to the financial crisis gripping his party. “The National Front is not bankrupt because its assets are greater than its debt. But that means we have to cash in the crown jewels, as it were. They are being sold,” the veteran far-right leader told France Inter radio. “I am even selling my armored car, to tell you the truth. It’s on the Internet, it’s all very public” said Le Pen, 79, whose party is negotiating the sale of its Paris headquarters.
■CANADA
Lion escapes near Ottawa
A two-year-old pet lion was on the loose near the nation’s capital on Wednesday, sparking a hunt by police, officials said. The 70kg male African lion escaped overnight on Tuesday from an Indian reservation and was last seen near the tiny village of Maniwaki, north of Ottawa, Melanie Larouche of the Quebec police said. Schools in the region were alerted and asked to keep children indoors, she said. The lion named Boomer belongs to a resident of the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg reserve and is said by its owner to be harmless. Authorities hope to tranquilize it.
■UNITED STATES
Blaine breaks world record
Magician David Blaine set a new world record on Wednesday for breath-holding: 17 minutes and 4 seconds. The feat was broadcast live during The Oprah Winfrey Show and the studio audience in Chicago cheered as divers pulled Blaine from a water-filled sphere. He looked relaxed afterward and said the record was “a lifelong dream.” The previous record was 16 minutes and 32 seconds, set on Feb. 10 by Switzerland’s Peter Colat, according to Guinness World Records. Before he entered the sphere, Blaine inhaled pure oxygen through a mask to saturate his blood with oxygen and flush out carbon dioxide. Next, Blaine said he plans to try to break the world record for staying awake. The current record is 11.5 days, he said. However, Guinness said it no longer acknowledges such attempts because of health concerns.
■CHILE
Seniors get free Viagra
A working class suburb of Santiago began handing out free Viagra to senior citizens on Wednesday. Lo Prado Mayor Gonzalo Navarrete said he launched the program because “an active sexuality improves the overall quality of life.” About 1,500 residents of the working-class area are eligible to receive as many as four pills of the erectile dysfunction drug each month, the mayor said. They have to be at least 60 and be registered with the municipality’s health service. “A doctor will have to certify that they suffer from erectile dysfunction and that their condition would not put them in danger of suffering cardio-respiratory side effects,” Navarrete said. He said he has assured about US$10,000 in financing for the program through the end of the year.
■UNITED STATES
Jurassic dung auctioned off
A pile of dinosaur dung 130 million years old sold at a New York auction for nearly US$1,000. The prehistoric deposit fetched US$960 at Wednesday’s auction, a spokeswoman for Bonhams New York said. The fossilized dung is from the Jurassic era, the auction house said. It looks like a rock on the outside and a colorful mineral inside. The buyer was Steve Tsengas of Fairport Harbor, Ohio. The 71-year-old owns OurPets, a company that sells products to treat dog and cat waste. Tsengas bought the dung in hopes of motivating his employees and using it as a marketing tool by displaying it at the company’s booth at trade shows, he said. “Poop,” he said, “is a big business in the pet industry.”
■ECUADOR
Right to sexual bliss mulled
A new inalienable right could be enshrined soon in Ecuador’s Constitution: the pursuit of sexual happiness for women. The proposal by a member of the ruling party has created a stir in this socially conservative Andean nation, where a constitutional assembly is at work. Assembly member Maria Soledad Vela, who belongs to President Rafael Correa’s party and sits on a committee defining fundamental constitutional rights, said women have traditionally been seen as sexual objects or in a solely reproductive role in Ecuador. On Monday, Vela said the right to sexual enjoyment means ensuring women can make free, responsible and informed decisions about their sex lives. Opposition Assembly member Leonardo Viteri accused Vela of trying to decree orgasm by law, saying it “isn’t possible.” “I never asked for the right to orgasm, only the right to enjoyment,” Vela responded.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion