■NEW ZEALAND
‘Lord of the Ring’ succeeds
A man who promised his wife he would find his wedding ring after it fell into the capital’s murky harbor has been successful, 16 months later. Ecologist Aleki Taumoepeau was checking Wellington harbor for invasive plant species in March last year when the ring went into 3m of water. “It flew off into the air and everyone on the boat was looking at it and said it was like a scene from ‘Lord of the Rings’ in slow motion,” Rachel Taumoepeau was quoted as saying in Thursday’s Dominion Post newspaper. He tossed an anchor overboard to mark the spot and pledged to Rachel, his wife of three months, that he would find it. She offered to buy a replacement. “I just said ‘No, I’ll find it,’” he said. An initial search three months after the loss failed, but Taumoepeau was determined. He returned again recently for another dive, risking chill midwinter temperatures. He spotted the anchor — with the ring lying just inches away. Friends have taken to calling Taumoepeau “Lord of the Ring.”
■HONG KONG
Cop admits to raping girls
A detective yesterday admitted raping a teenager and molesting three other teens and young women in the identity parade room of a police station. Leung Lai-chung, 29, used the police computer to contact female victims of crimes and then invited them on false pretenses to the police station, the High Court heard. He called the four victims into the city’s Mongkok police station over a 10-day period in November, raping a 19-year-old woman who had reported a lost purse and sexually assaulting the three others, ages 16 to 21.
■THAILAND
Monkeys getting hernias
The town of Lopburi has coughed up a special budget to perform hernia operations on its resident monkey population, who have been harming themselves in their greedy pursuit of handouts, veterinarians said on Wednesday. More than 100 macaque monkeys have already undergone surgery on their hernias, but hundreds more are in need of the operation among the town’s 1,700-strong simian colony, said Juthana Supanam, a volunteer veterinarian. The semi-wild monkeys are the main tourist attraction for Lopburi, 100km north of Bangkok. “Macaques like to live up high in tree branches, and here they are constantly jumping down to the ground to grab food from tourists,” she said.
■HONG KONG
Local expats richest
Hong Kong’s expatriates are the wealthiest in Asia, with more than one in four earning more than US$250,000 a year, a survey published yesterday showed. Thirty-nine percent of expatriates in the city of 7 million earn more than US$200,000, while 27 percent earn more than US$250,000, compared with 16 percent of expats globally. Forty-eight percent of expatriates have monthly disposable income of more than US$4,000 and 89 percent said they had more disposable income than in their home countries.
■AUSTRALIA
Parliament passes green bill
Parliament passed a law yesterday requiring that 20 percent of the country’s electricity come from renewable sources such as the sun and wind by 2020, matching European standards and up from about 8 percent now. The law would quadruple the renewable energy target set by the previous government in 2001 and provide enough clean electricity to power the households of all 21 million residents.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Two arrested in gem heist
London police have arrested two men in connection with what is thought to be the UK’s biggest jewelry heist, a spokesman said late on Wednesday. Two gun-toting and smartly dressed men walked into an exclusive Graff store in central London earlier this month and stole jewelry worth £40 million (US$65 million). The Metropolitan Police did not say whether the pair arrested on Wednesday were the same two captured on video pulling off the raid.
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