■KAZAKHSTAN
Global currency wanted
President Nursultan Nazarbayev on Tuesday called for the creation of a single world currency called the “acmetal” as a means of combating the worsening global financial crisis. “In our view, we must create a single world currency under the aegis of the United Nations,” Nazarbayev said, a day before a major economic conference opens in the country. “We must make a transition to an absolutely new global currency system based on legitimacy and, in view of all countries, one single monetary system,” he told a meeting of the Eurasian Association of Universities. It was the first time Nazarbayev had spoken publicly about the need for a single world currency although he had written about it.
■THAILAND
ATMs to be revamped
More than 30,000 automated teller machines (ATM) will be revamped to prevent criminal gangs from stealing bank account information amid a surge in thefts, news reports said yesterday. Phol Thanachote, chairman of the Automated Teller Machines’ Business Community, said that special stickers would be affixed to the revamped machines to show they are safe for use, the Nation newspaper said. The report did not say how the ATMs were being altered to make them less theft-prone. The community said it was struggling to keep pace with the new technology used by criminals to copy bank account information from ATM cards.
■TAJIKISTAN
Schools ban cellphones
The government on Tuesday banned mobile phones from all schools and universities in a bid to boost education. “This measure has been taken in order to improve the quality of teaching at schools,” deputy Dodikhudo Saimutdinov said after a vote in parliament. Offenders, including those who carry phones without using them, will be fined. Although Tajikistan is considered Central Asia’s poorest nation, 3.2 million out of 7 million Tajiks use mobiles. President Imomali Rakhmon had earlier introduced uniforms at schools and universities and barred students from going to schools in their own cars.
■CHINA
Police feed drivers chili
Police in the Chongqing region are spicing up drivers with raw chili in a bid to stop them falling asleep at the wheel, the Chongqing Evening News said yesterday. They have started serving drivers chili peppers at highway service stations, holding to the traditional belief that people often feel more sleepy in the spring, it said. Most of the drivers are from neighboring Sichuan, Yunnan and Hunan provinces, where chilis are a local favorite, it said. “It’s really good to have some hot peppers when you are tired from driving,” driver Chen Jun was quoted by the newspaper as saying. “They make you alert.”
■AUSTRALIA
Official turns rocker again
Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts Peter Garrett reunites with his rock band Midnight Oil today to warm-up for a bushfires benefit concert, vowing not to shy away from the politically charged songs of his activist era. Garrett, 55, was the lead singer of Midnight Oil for 26 years, swaying the hearts and minds of a generation as he jerkily danced and railed against US foreign policies and corporate greed and for indigenous rights and the environment. But Garrett quit music in 2002 for politics, winning a seat in the Australian parliament in 2004 for the center-left Labor Party. He was appointed minister when Labor won power in 2007.
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