■NEW ZEALAND
Droop-eye Santa gets lift
A Santa with a droopy eye has received a US$100,000 face-lift in the run-up to Christmas so that his aging face does not scare children. The 20m tall fiberglass Santa has been among the festive decorations in Auckland since 1960, but in recent years began to struggle with one of his eyes that was made to wink and a mechanical finger that moved in a welcoming gesture. “There was a concern the guy did look a little creepy. It was the finger and the Sad Sack, winking, droopy eye,” Heart of the City chief executive Alex Swney told local media. The Santa, which stands on a street corner in the city center, has undergone extensive facial work over the past four months at a cost of over US$100,000. His face remains bandaged ahead of a public unveiling tomorrow, but his mechanical finger has been replaced with a static digit.
PHOTO: REUTERS
■HONG KONG
Master beat up mistress
A kung fu grandmaster, who trained under the same teacher as martial arts star Bruce Lee (李小龍), has been jailed for assaulting his mistress, a court report said yesterday. Leung Ting (梁挺), the founder of the internationally known Wing Tsun Association, which has tens of thousands of members, was sentenced to two months for the assault on Rita Lip Sik-ying (聶式盈), 45, his lover of five years. The prosecution said the assault occurred in March after the couple rowed over a matter relating to Leung’s former wife. Lip told the court Leung pushed her down, banged her head on the floor, kicked her in the stomach and boxed her ears, a report in the South China Morning Post said. Leung, 62, pleaded not guilty, claiming a hysterical Lip had banged her own head against the floor because he would not give her money.
■AUSTRALIA
Second twin waking up
A second Bangladeshi twin began returning to consciousness yesterday, three days after being separated from her conjoined sister in a landmark operation, the hospital said. Krishna was opening her eyes and slowly becoming more alert as she came out of an induced coma, a statement said. Her sister, Trishna, was already awake and talking after the surgery that doctors have hailed as a success. “Krishna is waking up slowly. She is more alert, starting to breathe more and opening her eyes,” the statement from the Melbourne Royal Children’s Hospital said. “Trishna continues to do well. Both girls are in a serious but stable condition.” A team of specialists worked for 32 hours on Monday and Tuesday to divide the two-year-olds’ connected skulls, brains and blood vessels in a procedure that took two years of planning and preparatory operations.
■INDIA
Men want equal rights
A group of husbands tired of being harassed by their wives are demanding the local government create a male protection society to address their grievances. The men, who said they had enough of their “nagging” wives, dressed up in clothes traditionally worn by grooms and paraded through Lucknow this week to ask for a National Commission for Men. “We are asking for equal rights. We want somebody to listen to the grievances of men,” said Subhash Dube, a medical doctor who described himself as a victimized husband.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Swine flu shots expanded
Healthy children between six months and five years old will be vaccinated against swine flu, the Department of Health in London has confirmed. The expansion of the British government’s inoculation programme was revealed as the latest weekly bulletin showed a sharp rise in patient deaths in England and the number of children being admitted to hospital. The overall number of new cases showed a second successive weekly fall. Health officials estimate there were 55,000 new cases this week in England compared with 64,000 last week. There was a slight drop in Scotland. The number of people who have died from swine flu in the UK has reached 214.
■RUSSIA
Ice-breaker escapes ice
A Russian ice-breaker cruise ship carrying more than 100 people, mostly British tourists, broke free of Antarctic ice and was on its way to Argentina after days of entrapment, the ship’s operator said yesterday. “The Kapitan Khlebnikov ice-breaker with tourists on board broke free of the ice prison into clear water,” the Far Eastern Shipping Company said in a statement. The ship was bound for the Argentine port of Ushuaia, a 1,225kmvoyage that will take the ice-breaker less than three days, the operator said. The Kapitan Khlebnikov was trapped at the northeastern extremity of the Antarctic Peninsula, next to Snow Hill island, a landmark in the area.
■CHAD
Cambodia sends troops
A group of Cambodian soldiers have arrived as part of a UN peacekeeping mission, the UN said on Thursday. The 42 peacekeepers arrived in Abeche, the eastern capital, on Tuesday and will remain there for a year. Their arrival brings the total number of troops under the command of the UN Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad (MINURAT) to 2,749 of a target of 5,200. It is the second time Cambodia has taken part in a peacekeeping operation, its first being in Sudan in 2006. The UN Security Council established MINURAT “to help create the security conditions conducive to a voluntary, secure and sustainable return of refugees and displaced persons.” The country hosts 72,000 refugees from the Central African Republic and 168,000 internally displaced people, the UN said.
■ITALY
Police capture video suspect
Naples police say they have detained a suspect in a gangland-style slaying that was captured on a surveillance camera. The video was made public last month by prosecutors in hopes citizens might recognize the killer. Paramilitary Carabinieri police said on Thursday they had detained Costanzo Apice in the countryside. They declined to say how they found him but did say they were not tipped to the 28-year-old man’s whereabouts by a citizen who saw the video. Last May, a man fired shots into the back and head of a man smoking a cigarette outside a coffee bar on a Naples street.
■MOLDOVA
New flu remedy: onions
The army is feeding its soldiers onions and garlic to help them ward off swine flu. Defense Ministry chief doctor Colonel Sergiu Vasislita says about 25g of onions and 15g of garlic will be added to each soldier’s daily diet. That roughly corresponds to a small onion and a couple of garlic cloves. Onion and garlic are traditional remedies in the country, where they are widely believed to boost the immune system.
■UNITED STATES
Church fund paid for Botox
A New York pastor accused of using church funds to pay for plastic surgery has been ordered to serve five years probation. The Reverend William Blasingame also must pay back US$84,537 to St Paul’s Memorial Episcopal Church on Staten Island. Prosecutors said he paid for personal luxuries, including tens of thousands of dollars worth of plastic surgery and Botox treatments, with money earmarked for the needy and the upkeep of church grounds. Defense attorney James Hasson said on Wednesday that Blasingame planned to sell land he owns in Georgia to cover the restitution, the Staten Island Advance reported.
■UNITED STATES
NY grants gay rights
New York’s top court ruled on Thursday that gay couples legally married elsewhere are entitled to some government benefits, boosting stalled legislative efforts to legalize same-sex marriage in the state. The Court of Appeals rejected a Christian legal group’s argument that same-sex marriage was akin to incest and polygamy, although the court avoided declaring that gay couples are entitled to all the rights of other married couples. The 4-3 decision was on the narrow question of benefits; the court did not address whether the state must recognize same-sex marriage but encouraged the legislature to settle the issue.
■CANADA
Pteropods at risk: scientists
Melting of the Arctic sea ice because of global warming is diluting surface waters and this is endangering some species of shellfish that need minerals in the water to form their shells and skeletons, scientists have found. In a paper published in Science, they warned that this has serious implications for ecosystems in the Arctic. “Organisms that are likely to be affected are from the family of pteropods, also mussels and clams on the sea floor,” said Fiona McLaughlin, research scientist at the Institute of Ocean Sciences’s department of fisheries and oceans. Pteropods are minute swimming sea snails. “It puts the food chain at risk. These organisms are a food source for fish that are a food source for seals and bears. The food chain in the Arctic is quite a short one, so it’s quite vulnerable,” she said by telephone.
■UNITED STATES
Spray offers sex solution
A spray that numbs the penis can help prevent premature ejaculation, doctors reported on Thursday, and drug maker Sciele Pharma Inc, a division of Japan’s Shionogi, plans to file for US approval next year. Tests on more than 500 men suffering from premature ejaculation showed they were more satisfied and less distressed when they used the spray, the researchers told a meeting in San Diego of the Sexual Medicine Society of North America. The drug, called by the experimental name PSD502, is a combination of the numbing agents lidocaine and prilocaine.
■COLOMBIA
Caracas ‘blows up’ bridges
The Colombian government said on Thursday Venezuelan soldiers blew up two small pedestrian bridges that stretch across their border in the latest incident to test diplomatic ties between the Andean neighbors. Colombian Defense Minister Gabriel Silva told reporters that uniformed men apparently from the Venezuelan army blew up the bridges with explosives in what he described as a violation of international law. “Uniformed men, apparently from the Venezuelan army, arrived in trucks on the Venezuelan side at two pedestrian bridges that link communities on both sides ... and then proceeded to dynamite them,” Silva said.
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
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
YELLOW SHIRTS: Many protesters were associated with pro-royalist groups that had previously supported the ouster of Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, in 2006 Protesters rallied on Saturday in the Thai capital to demand the resignation of court-suspended Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and in support of the armed forces following a violent border dispute with Cambodia that killed more than three dozen people and displaced more than 260,000. Gathered at Bangkok’s Victory Monument despite soaring temperatures, many sang patriotic songs and listened to speeches denouncing Paetongtarn and her father, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and voiced their backing of the country’s army, which has always retained substantial power in the Southeast Asian country. Police said there were about 2,000 protesters by mid-afternoon, although
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