■HONG KONG
Sex offender told to exercise
A TV reporter who quit his job after he was arrested for masturbating naked on a bus said he was only trying to “ease his stress,” reports said yesterday. Chiu Yu-kit, a former journalist at Asia Television, admitted in court to the act while he was alone on the top tier of a double-decker bus on July 31, the Standard reported. An off-duty officer made the arrest after he jogged past the bus and saw Chiu standing on a seat naked and facing a window. Chiu, 31, pleaded guilty to one count of indecency in public. Principal magistrate Josiah Lam (林偉權) put Chiu on a one-year good behavior bond and advised him to exercise or talk to others if he wanted to relax. Last month, a “lonely and disturbed” man became stuck and had to be freed by emergency services after attempting to have sex with a park bench.
■JAPAN
Monk burns down temple
A monk trying to rid his temple of a hornet’s nest panicked when the hornets attacked him and dropped a torch, burning his temple to the ground, police said on Thursday. The Buddhist monk had put lighted rags on a stick into the nest in the temple, but dropped it and ran when the hornets flew out and attacked him, a Niigata prefectural police official said. The fire occurred on Wednesday. Atsushi Sato, 41, suffered burns on his ears, face and left hand, but he was not stung.
■CHINA
Elephant completes detox
An elephant rescued from smugglers in China has undergone a detoxification program to cure it of heroin addiction, state media said on Thursday. The seven-year-old male Asian elephant was scheduled to return to Yunnan Province this weekend after finishing its three-year rehabilitation program on the southern island province of Hainan, Xinhua news agency said. The elephant, named Xiguang, became addicted after smugglers used heroin-smeared bananas to lure it across the border from Myanmar into Yunnan, the agency said. Wildlife experts in Hainan gave Xiguang regular injections of methadone at five times the normal human dose, it said. Xiguang and three rescued female elephants were scheduled to arrive today at the Yunnan Wild Animal Park.
■JAPAN
Geeks seek PC blessings
At Tokyo’s Kanda-Myojin Shinto shrine, the faithful can bring their computer and have the priests use ceremonies to ask the gods for help and protection for their computer, a shrine spokesman said yesterday. The shrine is located near the Akihabara quarter, Tokyo’s technology hub and popular destination for geeks and lovers of the latest electronic gadgets.
■NEW ZEALAND
Farmer impales cow
Two farmers face animal cruelty charges after a live cow was impaled on the steel fork of a tractor’s front-end loader, police said yesterday. Sergeant Mike Craig said he stumbled on the incident near the farming town of Ohakune. “It was actually impaled on one of the forks. I couldn’t believe what I saw and did a U-turn and went back,” he said. Craig said it appeared the farm manager had been asked to slaughter the cow, which was sick, and had shot it in the side of the head. However, it did not die and a short time later the farm owner arrived with the tractor, impaling the cow by stabbing it below its spine. The sergeant said that after his intervention, the cow was released “and it walked away into a neighboring paddock in an obviously distressed state.” The animal was eventually killed by the farmer.
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