■AUSTRALIA
Doctors try to grow breasts
Scientists said yesterday they would test a revolutionary treatment that could allow women to regrow their breasts after cancer surgery. Doctors from Melbourne’s Bernard O’Brien Institute of Microsurgery said they had developed an implantable device that uses a woman’s own fat cells to grow back breasts following a mastectomy. “There is a dollop of fat that is put inside a device, a chamber, fed with the blood supply, and then this dollop of fat will grow into the space and essentially feel normal to the patient,” lead researcher Phillip Marzella said. Initial participants would have to undergo a second operation to remove the chamber, but a biodegradable version is planned. Trials on pigs were “very successful,” he said. Human trials will begin early next year, he said.
■AUSTRALIA
Missing sniffer dog found
A sniffer dog has been found alive and well nearly 14 months after going missing in an intense firefight in Afghanistan, officials said yesterday. Sabi, a black labrador who searches out roadside bombs for Australia’s Special Forces, appeared unharmed by her ordeal after being returned by an unknown Afghan man. “I nudged a tennis ball to her with my foot and she took it straight away. It’s a game we used to play over and over during her training,” her trainer said. “It’s amazing, just incredible, to have her back.” Sabi went missing in September last year when Taliban militants ambushed Australian, US and Afghan forces in Uruzgan Province, wounding nine people, including her handler.
■JAPAN
PRC activist stuck at Narita
A Chinese rights activist said yesterday he had been stuck in limbo at Tokyo’s Narita airport for nine days after his country denied him the right to return home. In a situation reminiscent of the stateless man portrayed in the movie The Terminal, Feng Zhenghu (馮正虎) has been camped out on a couch near the immigration checkpoint at Narita International Airport since Nov. 4. “I’ve been here for nine days, eight nights. I have not had a lot to eat or drink,” he said yesterday at Terminal 1. “I have a Chinese passport that is valid for three more years. I have a valid visa for Japan, but I do not want to stay in Japan. I want to go home.” Amnesty International lists Feng as a prominent activist who has been jailed in the past. He told a reporter that, after a stay of several months in Japan this year, he had tried to go back to China eight times. “Four times I was turned back by Shanghai authorities at the Pudong airport. They did not let me into the country,” he said.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Canoe fraud wife to pay up
Lawyers for Anne Darwin said on Wednesday she had agreed to repay more than £500,000 (US$829,150) from a fraud carried out with her back-from-the-dead canoeist husband. Lawyers told Leeds Crown Court she would repay £591,838, while her husband John would repay a nominal sum of £1 because he has no financial assets, the Press Association reported. The pair were jailed last year for an elaborate insurance scam that saw them fake his death in a canoeing accident at sea in 2002, deceiving emergency services, police, a coroner and even their own sons. They fled to Panama to set up a new life, but John Darwin turned up at a police station in November 2007.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Noisy lover loses sex appeal
A woman lost her appeal on Tuesday against a ban on her noisy sex sessions, after a court heard how her marathon romps that kept neighbors awake sounded like someone being murdered. Caroline and Steve Cartwright’s “howling” lovemaking sounded “unnatural,” “hysterical” and “like they are both in considerable pain,” Newcastle Crown Court heard. A 10-minute recording of their sex sessions was played out in court, which also heard how she tried covering her face with a pillow to muffle her cries of passion. Neighbors of their home in Washington, England, complained about the noise — as did passers-by and the postman. The couple were banned from “shouting, screaming or vocalization at such a level as to be a statutory nuisance,” but Caroline Cartwright, 48, appealed under human rights laws against her conviction for breaching the ban. A judge upheld the original conviction.
■NETHERLANDS
Women no less ambitious
Women are not less ambitious than men, a study noted. The study, carried out by a team of researchers from the Radboud University in Nijmegen and Research en Beleid, a public policy research bureau, said women find it just as important as men to develop themselves personally and professionally. The study found, however, that women are more focused on content and depth, while men concentrate on “hierarchical growth” and salary. Women are also more prepared than men to give up professional ambition if it jeopardizes family life.
■ITALY
Holy water available on tap
An inventor has combined faith and ingenuity to come up with a way to keep church traditions alive for the faithful without the fear of contracting swine flu — an electronic holy water dispenser. The terracotta dispenser, used in the northern town of Fornaci di Briosco, functions like an automatic soap dispenser in public washrooms — a churchgoer waves his or her hand under a sensor and the machine spurts out holy water. Catholics usually dip their hands into fonts full of holy water, but fear of contracting swine flu has led many in the country not to dip their hands in the communal water font.
■TURKEY
Colonel jailed over plot
A court jailed a senior military officer on suspicion of involvement in an alleged army plan to discredit the ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party, state-run Anatolian news agency reported yesterday. The investigation has stoked tensions between Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s government and the secularist military in the predominantly Muslim, EU candidate country. An Istanbul court ordered the arrest and detention of Colonel Dursun Cicek on suspicion of “membership of a terrorist group.”
■UNITED STATES
CNN anchor Dobbs quits
CNN evening host Lou Dobbs, a self-described advocacy anchor known for economic nationalism and opposition to illegal immigration, announced on Wednesday that he was quitting to “pursue new opportunities.” He announced his immediate departure during his nightly broadcast on Wednesday evening. “Over the past six months, it has become increasingly clear that strong winds of change have begun buffeting this country and affecting all of us, and some leaders in media, politics and business have been urging me to go beyond the role here at CNN and to engage in constructive problem-solving as well as to contribute positively to a better understanding of the great issues of our day,” Dobbs, 64, said. A founding member of the network, he had long anchored a business news show on CNN.
■UNITED STATES
Disney in Pooh dispute
The company founded by the man who made Winnie the Pooh internationally famous filed a notice of appeal to get unpaid royalties for the use of the beloved children’s characters. Stephen Slesinger Inc filed papers in US District Court in Los Angeles on Nov. 5 to notify the court that it is appealing to collect past royalties from Walt Disney Co and redress for “past improper business practices.” Disney said claims by the late Stephen Slesinger’s family were dismissed in federal court in September. Slesinger signed a licensing deal with Pooh creator A.A. Milne in 1931. Slesinger gave the bear his red shirt, developed Pooh products and then licensed the rights to Disney. Stephen Slesinger Inc said the latest ruling in the case left the door open for the family to get hundreds of millions of dollars in past royalties from Disney.
■UNITED STATES
Warhol sells for US$43m
A silk-screen painting by iconic pop artist Andy Warhol sold for US$43.8 million on Wednesday night in New York, Sotheby’s auction house said. The work, 200 One Dollar Bills, was one of Warhol’s first silk-screen paintings. The painting was estimated by the auction house at US$8 million to US$12 million, and bidding began at US$6 million. The winning bidder followed the auction by telephone but was not identified by Sotheby’s.
■UNITED STATES
Pilot jailed for assault
Police said a pilot tried to hit officers with his plane at a small Georgia airport. Authorities said Dan Gryder was jailed on Wednesday and charged with two counts of aggravated assault. Griffin police investigator Bryan Clanton told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the 48-year-old Gryder was driving his car on the runway at Griffin-Spalding Airport. Officers tried to issue him tickets, but he boarded a small plane without signing. Police said he threatened to strike officers with the plane. Deputies flooded the area and ordered him to stop but he continued to taxi. Gryder attempted to fly away but didn’t have enough fuel and was arrested.
■UNITED STATES
Pioneering cardiologist dies
William Ganz, a pioneering cardiologist and one of the inventors of a specialized catheter, has died. He was 90. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center released a statement on Wednesday saying Ganz died of natural causes on Tuesday in Los Angeles. In 1970, Ganz and H.J.C. Swan invented a balloon-tipped catheter that measures heart function and blood flow in critically ill patients. The Swan-Ganz Catheter is still used by physicians across the world.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
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