■NEPAL
Appa records 19th climb
A Sherpa guide has once again broken his own record, scaling Mount Everest for the 19th time, mountaineering officials said yesterday. Appa, who like most Sherpas goes by one name, reached the 8,850m peak early yesterday, guiding foreign clients and accompanied by several other fellow guides, said Ang Tshering of the Nepal Mountaineering Association. Tshering said Appa and members of the team were safe and returning to lower camps after spending a few minutes on top of the world. Appa, 48, first climbed Everest in 1989 and has done so almost every year since. His closest rival is fellow Sherpa guide Chhewang Nima, who has made 15 trips.
■AUSTRALIA
Rudd blasts public benefits
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday questioned why taxpayers are funding weight loss courses for well-padded public servants. Official documents released this week showed the government was paying A$30,000 (US$22,800) to provide weight-loss classes for bureaucrats from the employment agency Centrelink and that it paid a similar amount to Weight Watchers for defense department workers in 2007. Rudd said he did not believe the expenditure was appropriate. Official figures released earlier this month showed Australians are getting fatter, with 62 percent classified as overweight or obese, compared with 45 percent in 1995.
■CAMBODIA
Fake bid for Pol Pot’s shoes
A photographer’s attempt to sell the sandals of late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot has yielded only one bid — US$790,000 in fake money offered in protest at the sale, a report said yesterday. Nhem En, who photographed inmates at the regime’s main torture center and also snapped pictures at official regime ceremonies, announced last month he was selling the footwear along with two cameras. “Bidder” Pok Leak Reasey told English-language Phnom Penh Post newspaper that the reason he “offered the money in ghost notes is because I want to say that all material remaining from the regime is worth nothing.”
■HONG KONG
Costly mystic advice
A disgraced politician burned US$70,000 on the advice of a feng shui master who told him it would help him avoid jail for vote-rigging, the South China Morning Post reported yesterday. Gilbert Leung told a court he was advised by the feng shui master to burn 15 HK$1,000 bills worth US$129 each every night for a year if he wanted to stay out of jail — an act that would have cost him more than US$700,000, the paper said. To save money, Leung said he burned US$100 bills worth US$12.90 each instead, but the nightly rituals failed to prevent him from going to prison when his case came to court. When Leung challenged feng shui master Tony Chan about the outcome, Chan told Leung it was his fault for not following his advice by burning HK$1,000 bills.
■NEW ZEALAND
Couple flee with millions
Police said yesterday they had launched an international hunt for a couple who fled after reportedly having millions of dollars mistakenly paid into their bank account. Reports said an Asian couple who ran a gas station in the northern city of Rotorua had fled overseas after Westpac bank mistakenly deposited NZ$10 million (US$6 million) in their account. Police and the bank refused to say how much money was withdrawn or give any details of the couple, but the bank said it was “pursuing vigorous criminal and civil action.”
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