■ JAPAN
US warns over Roppongi
The US embassy in Tokyo has issued an unprecedented warning to Americans to avoid bars and clubs in the Roppongi district amid a reported surge in drink-spiking incidents. The embassy warned of a “significant increase” in the number of people who had been served drinks laced with drugs and then had their credit cards stolen as they lay unconscious. It said it had encouraged its employees to avoid Roppongi’s bars and advised other US citizens to do the same. Though the embassy did not say how many people had been drugged, the incidents had reportedly occurred at 11 establishments. Britain and Australia had already issued gentler warnings about the potential hazards of a boozy night out in Roppongi. A Tokyo Police spokesman said no claims had been filed about such incidents in recent weeks.
■ CHINA
Shooting sparks manhunt
A sentry on duty outside a People’s Liberation Army garrison in Chongqing was shot dead and an unknown number of attackers remain at large, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday. The attack was carried out by an unidentified assailant or assailants, who fled with the 18-year-old guard’s submachine gun after the shooting late on Thursday, Xinhua said, citing police. A special team has been set up between the military and Chongqing police to find the attackers, it said. The Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights in China said several thousand soldiers and police were looking for the perpetrators.
■ AUSTRALIA
Loose trousers bring fine
A teenager wearing baggy trousers and no underwear was fined after his pants fell down just as a female police officer was walking past, the Sunshine Coast Daily reported on Thursday. Trent Joseph Wroe, 19, was fined A$250 (US$168), and ordered to wear a belt, after the Feb. 28 incident in Mooloolaba, Queensland, the paper said. Police told a magistrate’s court that Wroe deliberately bared his buttocks, but Wroe said he was wearing a pair of borrowed pants that were too big and fell down in the wrong place at the wrong time. He said he would apologize to the police officer, and promised to wear a belt and underwear in future.
■ NEW ZEALAND
Driver crashes, has a beer
A woman lost control of her car on a bend, crashed into a house — and then opened a bottle of beer, a newspaper reported yesterday. Vicky Johnson told the Dominion Post that she was sitting in her garden when the car ploughed into the side of her house in the Napier suburb of Maraenui. Johnson said she asked the woman driver if she was okay: “She said, ‘Yeah,’ then cracked open a bottle of Tui [a local beer], right in front of all the kids, too. It was unbelievable.” Johnson called the police, who arrested the 40-year-old driver and charged her with drunk driving.
■ HONG KONG
No Internet, no life: poll
Life would be meaningless and not worth living without the Internet, nearly one in seven youngsters said in a survey released yesterday by the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups. Just under 14 percent of 1,800 respondents aged 12 to 25 insisted they could not live without the Internet while 80 percent described it as essential. One-quarter of respondents said they used the Internet for more than four hours a day. Youngsters who spent too long online slept badly, engaged in too little exercise and risked failing eyesigh, the federation said.
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