■HONG KONG
Mainland preggies banned
Hong Kong hospitals on Thursday began turning away women from the mainland arriving to give birth to ensure the territory can cope with an expected 20 percent surge in local births in the next three months. A similar ban was imposed last year as part of an ongoing series of measures to reduce the number of mainland mothers giving birth in Hong Kong. Last year, almost 10,500 — or one quarter — of the 41,000 births in public hospitals were to non-local women. Giving birth in Hong Kong not only guarantees them world-class health care but in many cases secures residency for their children.
■SRI LANKA
Nation hit by power outage
A power blackout plunged the country into darkness for a few hours early yesterday, said Harsha Abeykoon, spokesman for the power and energy ministry. Abeykoon said engineers found that the blackout was caused by a technical fault at the main distribution center and a burnt cable connected to the national grid. He said power had already been restored in some parts.
■HONG KONG
Bottom stalker in jail
A stalker with a fetish for big bottoms was behind bars yesterday after spreading fears of syringe attacks by poking women in the buttocks with toothpicks. The attacks by 43-year-old Vietnamese worker Pham Van Diep early this month triggered fears of random syringe attacks similar to incidents reported in Xinjiang last month. The hunt for the attacker drew wide publicity after two women told how they had been followed and felt stabbing pains in their buttocks. One returned home and found a painful red dot on her backside. At a court hearing on Thursday, however, Diep said he followed women and poked their bottoms with toothpicks because he “could not resist their big buttocks.” He pleaded guilty to two assaults and was remanded in custody.
■CHINA
Nerve gas detected: report
China has detected deadly nerve gas at its border with North Korea and suspects an accidental release inside the secretive state, a Japanese news report said yesterday. The Chinese military is strengthening its surveillance activities after detecting the highly virulent sarin gas in November last year and in February in Liaoning province, the Asahi Shimbun reported, citing anonymous sources from the Chinese military. The Chinese special operations forces found 0.015-0.03 micrograms of the gas per cubic meter when they were conducting regular surveys while there were winds from the direction of North Korea, the report said.
■NEW ZEALAND
Kadeer given visa
The government has issued a visitor’s visa to exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, but Auckland University has banned her from speaking on campus, news reports said yesterday. Kadeer is due to arrive on Monday for a four-day visit to talk about the plight of Uighurs in Xinjiang. Auckland University said it had banned Kadeer from speaking on Tuesday because “the university is not in a position to provide the appropriate levels of support and security for the range of people expected to attend” the meeting. Keith Locke, a Green Party member of parliament who is sponsoring Kadeer’s visit, claimed that the university had barred Kadeer for fear of offending the Chinese government, the New Zealand Herald reported.
■POLAND
Polanski exhibition opens
An exhibition exploring the career of Franco-Polish filmmaker Roman Polanski opened on Thursday in a film museum in Lodz, the city where the embattled director studied cinema. The museum features photographs from Polanski’s private collection and from his friends. It also includes 200 posters of his movies from around the world and will have a retrospective of his movies. The museum denied that the exhibition was linked to Polanski’s arrest in Switzerland, where he was detained last month on a US warrant over a 1977 child sex case.
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