■CHINA
Sing no to drugs
Karaoke singers in Beijing are being forced to listen to an anti-drugs song before belting out tunes as part of a crackdown on narcotics use ahead of National Day, state media said yesterday. Police have told more than 1,200 karaoke venues in the capital to install the three-minute “educational video” as authorities clamp down on drug users and dealers ahead of the Oct. 1 festivities, the Global Times reported. “It pops up after you start the system. You can’t cut it short but have to wait till the song finishes,” said Li Tong, manager of a Party World karaoke venue. “Some sing to it. The tunes are quite catchy.”
■BRUNEI
Police look for croc victims
Police divers searched the rivers yesterday for a missing man and a four-year-old boy snatched by crocodiles in separate attacks. Awg Tuah Yahya, 41, was pulled underwater by a crocodile while he was fishing in knee-deep water on Monday. His wife, who witnessed the attack, said they had spotted the crocodile lurking around but chose to ignore it. The second attack occurred on Wednesday, when Sharizan Anak Sumua was dragged away by a crocodile while bathing with his father and siblings in a different river, a police report said.
■JAPAN
No new appointees
Prime minister-designate Yukio Hatoyama may delay choosing his Cabinet until a meeting of party lawmakers next week on the advice of a party heavyweight known for behind-the-scenes maneuvers, media said yesterday. Hatoyama initially said he would announce his ministerial lineup after officially being voted in as prime minister by parliament on Sept. 16. But he later announced he had chosen Naoto Kan as head of a new National Strategy Bureau, and Katsuya Okada, his rival in the last party leadership race, as foreign minister. However, media reports yesterday said further appointments could be held over until next week on the advice of party No. 2 Ichiro Ozawa. “It seems Ozawa wants everything decided on Sept. 15,” the Nikkei Shimbun quoted one lawmaker as saying. The Asahi and Tokyo newspapers also said Ozawa had urged the delay.
■HONG KONG
Police arrest 17 in killing
Seventeen people have been arrested over the execution of a feared triad gang leader outside a luxury hotel in Hong Kong, police said yesterday. Lee Tai-lung, 44, known as the “Baron of Tsimshatsui East,” was run down by a van outside the five-star Kowloon Shangri-la Hotel on Aug. 4 and then hacked to death by three men with knives. Police said the attack was a well-organized hit using a technique known as “ram and chop.” They said the murder bore the hallmarks of a hit by the Wo Shing Wo triad faction. Seventeen suspects aged between 19 to 49 have been arrested after a city-wide operation by officers from the specialized Organized Crime and Triad Bureau, a police spokesman said.
■JAPAN
Centenarians top 40,000
The number of centenarians has doubled in the past six years to a record high of more than 40,000, with women dominating the list, the government said yesterday. Japan will have 40,399 people aged 100 or older this month, surpassing the previous record of 36,276 last year, the Health and Welfare Ministry said in an annual report marking a Sept. 21 national holiday honoring the elderly. More than 86 percent are women.
■UNITED NATIONS
Child mortality drops
The rate of child deaths has declined by 28 percent since the early 1990s, the UN Children’s Fund said on Thursday. “Compared to 1990, 10,000 fewer children are dying every day,” said Ann Veneman, UNICEF director general. “While progress is being made, it is unacceptable that each year 8.8 million children die before their fifth birthday.” The new estimates provided by UNICEF were obtained and analyzed from sources including demographers, the WHO, the World Bank and the UN population division. There were 90 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990, for an estimated world total of 12.5 million deaths. The death rate declined to 65 deaths per 1,000 live births last year for a total of 8.8 million deaths.
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