■ Australia
Euthanasia device unveiled
Euthanasia advocates yesterday unveiled do-it-yourself machines, designed to bring death within minutes to anyone suffering a terminal illness. Made from plastic containers, the machines cost A$15 to A$20 (US$10 to US$13.50) to build and deliver the poisonous gas carbon monoxide through plastic tubing to the nose. "You can just lie in bed, hook that up, close your eyes and go to sleep," said Sandra Milne, who built her own machine at a workshop organized by the Voluntary Euthanasia Society of Queensland. Milne said she was in good health and never planned to build the machine, which took around half an hour to build.
■ China
Man poisons reservoir
An unemployed man poisoned a reservoir, sickening 64 people, because he wanted to boost sales for water purifiers, the official Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday. Police detained Cao Qian, 27, after the reservoir that provides drinking water to homes in an area of Ruyang County in the northern province of Henan was found tainted by poison Wednesday. Cao, who had been laid off, was trying to run a small shop selling water purifying devices. No deaths were reported, but 42 people were poisoned badly enough to be hospitalized, the report said. It said Cao "claimed to poison the water in a bid to have his water purifying devices sell well." No details were given.
■ China
Species face extinction
About 15 to 20 percent of animal and plant species in China are in danger of extinction, higher than the world level of 10 to 15 percent, state media reported yesterday. According to statistics from the State Forestry Administration, over 300 species of terrestrial vertebrate animals and some 410 species of wild plants are at risk, the Xinhua news agency said. By 2010, China will have a total of 3,000 to 4,000 plants on the brink of being wiped out, the report cited experts as warning.
■ Japan
Another mad cow found
Japan has detected a possible eighth case of mad cow disease, the Health Ministry announced yesterday, underlining concerns about how widespread the illness may be in Japan. The finding, still to be confirmed as an actual case, comes nearly nine months after the last mad cow diagnosis in January. The latest animal tested positive for signs of the disease on Sept. 29 when it was brought to a slaughterhouse in Ibaraki Prefecture just north of Tokyo, said Health Ministry official Makoto Kanie. Follow up tests by the National Institute of Infectious Diseases backed the initial findings.
■ China
S Korean consulate to shut
South Korea's consulate in the Chinese capital will close for business indefinitely because it is housing too many North Korean refugees to continue operating smoothly, a South Korean diplomat said yesterday. The South Korean diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the closure will take effect today. She couldn't say how long the office would be shut, nor would she say exactly how many North Korean asylum-seekers were inside. The move means that anyone in China seeking a visa to South Korea is out of luck for the immediate future. "The number of North Korean refugees who are staying within the inside of the consulate is beyond our capacity," the diplomat said in a telephone interview. "So it makes it difficult to do our consular jobs."
■ United Kimdon
Magician dodges bullet
Britain's Channel Four on Sunday televised an illusionist playing Russian roulette with a loaded revolver, raising protests from police and anti-weapons organisations. The program, not aired live in case of any horrible accident, showed 32-year-old Derren Brown safely fire the revolver after a member of the public, selected from the thousands who applied, had apparently loaded the gun with one bullet in its six chambers. Viewers saw the magician point the revolver at himself before pulling the trigger. Brown said he used a series of psychological tests to try to "read" the mind of the person who loaded the handgun, to determine where the bullet was. He asked the person to count to six, using the sound of his voice to help locate the live chamber.
■ United States
Roy's crew looking for work
The future of the famed Siegfried & Roy show was in doubt with illusionist Roy Horn still in critical condition after a tiger mauling. Employees of the show were encouraged to look for other jobs. Horn remained on a ventilator on Sunday. Even if he recovers, it's unclear whether he would ever be able to perform again. Horn, 59, was bitten in the neck and dragged off stage by one of the show's signature white tigers. Mirage spokesman Alan Feldman said 267 show employees met at the Mirage hotel-casino, where they were encouraged to find new jobs. The tiger, Montecore, was quarantined at the hotel, officials said.
■ Iran
Rape victim sentenced
A woman accused of killing a police chief in southern Iran who she said tried to rape her has been convicted and is to be executed, the Shargh newspaper reported Saturday. The woman, Afsaneh Noroozi, 32, who has been in jail since 1997, said during her trial that she had stabbed the chief of police intelligence on the island of Kish in self-defense when he tried to rape her. The police chief, whose name has not been made public, was a friend of Noroozi's family, and she was at his house as a guest. Her lawyer cited in her defense a section of the Islamic penal code of Iran that allows citizens to take proportionate action to defend "life, honor, chastity, property or freedom." Human rights workers have said the ruling violates the right of a woman to defend her honor.
■ Germany
Pools full of beer consumed
Beer fans drank the equivalent of six Olympic-sized swimming pools during the two-week Oktoberfest in Germany, close to the annual event's record, organizers said. The world's biggest beer festival, which ended on Sunday, reported a jump in attendance as well as beer consumption after a two-year decline. About 6.3 million people crowded into the beer tents during the festival, some 400,000 more than in the last two years, and drank 6.1 million liters of Bavaria's top export beverage -- up seven percent from last year.
■ Lithuania
Pilgrims sent to Holy Land
Europe's Catholic bishops will urge their flocks to risk visiting shrines in the Middle East in order to sow peace and support isolated Christians in the region. Church leaders from 34 countries backed the initiative at a weekend meeting in Vilnius, Juozas Ruzgys, spokesman for the Lithuanian Bishops' Conference, said. "The bishops seek to revive the ages old tradition of pilgrim journeys to the Holy Land, which has been forgotten amid all the conflicts," said Ruzgys.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
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