■ Hong Kong
Schoolchildren hit by virus
In a city braced nervously for a possible return of SARS this winter, more than 400 schoolchildren were treated yesterday for a mass outbreak of viral gastroenteritis. An emergency hotline was set up by the Department of Health as children at four schools spread out across the territory have been hit by the virus which causes severe vomiting, diarrhoea and fever. The outbreak signals that Hong Kong has entered the flu season when experts say there is the highest risk of a return of SARS.
■ Australia
Families and pets downsize
Houses built in Australia have doubled in size in the past 50 years but the family pet is just a quarter of what it was. Yes, the global fad for dinky dogs has hit the continent-sized country. The fun-size maltese terrier has taken over from the family-size labrador retriever as the companion of choice. The downsizing has been tracked by the New South Wales state government, which requires that dogs and cats be registered and microchipped. The miniaturization is not all that surprising. A plunging birth rate means the family has been miniaturized too.
■ Australia
Music swapping first
Three students in Sydney have been convicted of swapping music files over the Internet, in the first case of its kind in the world. The students, Charles Kok Hau Ng, 20, Peter Tran, 19, and Tommy Le, 21, pleaded guilty to 68 copyright infringement charges. Ng and Tran were both given 18-month suspended sentences, while Ng and Le were also given 200 hours of community service. The trio set up the MP3/WMA Land Web site which had an archive of 390 CDs and 1,800 tracks to download. Ng's lawyer, Chris Levingston, said the trio had made no financial gain and that the music industry had made no loss, although Australian police said the site could have cost the industry £24 million.
■ Hong Kong
Croc still on the loose
A crocodile that has eluded capture for nearly three weeks foiled an Australian expert yet again when it didn't bite on a special trap baited with mice, chicken heads and fatty pork. Croc farmer John Lever set the trap late Wednesday but the beast stayed away. Lever then hunted into the early hours of yesterday and reportedly spotted the croc again several times but was unable to bag his 1.2m prey. Even though the croc avoided the new trap -- equipped with sensitive doors that can close quickly -- officials will make a second similar one, said Viola Kwan, a spokeswoman for the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department. "Now it's a personal challenge," the South China Morning Post quoted Lever as saying.
■ China
S Korea wants POW
South Korea has asked China to release a man who says he is a South Korean taken captive by the North during the Korean War and who escaped to Chinese territory where he was arrested while trying to return home, an official said yesterday. "Apparently he is war prisoner, so we have requested that the Chinese authorities send him to South Korea," said an official at the South Korean embassy in Beijing who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We are still negotiating." The man, Jun Yong-il, was arrested on Monday at Hangzhou Airport in eastern China while trying to board a plane to South Korea using a forged South Korean passport.
■ Canada
SARS screening eased
Canada is easing SARS screening at its international airports, including a halt in the use of thermal scanners to detect people with fever, Health Minister Anne McLellan announced Wednesday. The change comes more than five months after the last new case of severe acute respiratory syndrome was detected in Canada, where the disease killed 44 people and sickened more than 200 others in the Toronto area earlier this year. McLellan said the fever-detecting scanners could be quickly reinstalled if needed, but acknowledged the machines have limited effectiveness.
■ Russia
Drinking champ dies
Alexander Nakonechny triumphed at a vodka drinking marathon in Russia after guzzling three half-liter mugs of vodka in quick succession, but failed to collect his prize after dying on the spot. The weekend contest in the southwestern city of Volgodonsk also left four other male contestants fighting for their lives at the local hospital. Nakonechny's feat of winning the contest -- which earned him a prize of 10 bottles of vodka -- should have been cause for celebration. But prosecutors in Volgodonsk have slapped charges of causing death through negligence on the organizers of the drinking competition, who face
up to three years in jail if convicted.
■ United States
Time lists newsmakers
Major players in the Iraq war dominated the shortlist for Time magazine's Person of the Year award and film-star-turned-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger also made the cut, Time said. With most of the year's headlines about Iraq, President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice are all under consideration. Schwarzenegger is vying with them after an unprecedented election that recalled California Governor Gray Davis. The winner will appear on the cover of Time's Dec. 22 issue.
■ United States
Lewinsky's dating woes
Monica Lewinsky says her White House liaison is a liability on the dating scene. The intern infamous for her affair with former US president Bill Clinton said in next month's issue of GQ magazine that she dates occasionally but her romantic relationships have been short-lived. Lewinsky, 30, said, "If I were a guy and I'd heard all those things about a girl, I don't know that I'd want to take her out ... the one thing I don't do well with, with a guy, is ambivalence. I want to shake them and say, `C'mon, just like me! Do what I say!'"
■ United States
Elderly fish honored
Rome may be the Eternal City, but San Francisco could be home to an eternal fish. On Tuesday, aquarium officials at the Steinhart Aquarium honored an Australian lungfish, Methuselah, who arrived at the aquarium in 1938 as a fully grown adult. That makes it at least 65 years old. Aquarium officials had said Methuselah was the oldest fish in captivity, but learned they were mistaken on Wednesday. The Shedd Aquarium in Chicago has a lungfish, Granddad, that arrived as an adult in 1933. An eel-like fish with large scales, the Australian lungfish is rare even in its native waters. Methuselah, who is one meter long and weighs about 18kg, is known for its sly grin.
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
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