■ China
Workers blamed for deaths
China blamed negligent gas well workers on Friday for an accident that spewed toxic fumes over mountain villages and killed 233 people -- an unusually swift finding that highlights the government's increasing public insistence on accountability. State television said in its national evening newscast that investigators had concluded their probe into the Dec. 23 disaster in southwestern China, and that those who were at fault would be punished. In China's worst recent industrial disaster, a poisonous mix of natural gas and hydrogen sulfide erupted from the well and left a 25km2 "death zone" northeast of the city of Chongqing strewn with bodies.
■ China
Boyfriend gets the chop
A lovelorn 21-year-old waiter chopped off three of his fingers outside his ex-girlfriend's house in western China to try to win her back, the South China Morning Post said yesterday. The waiter sliced the fingers off in front of a policeman to prove his love for Xiao Qian, after she called police to remove him from outside her home in Sichuan Province. However, the gesture failed to win her sympathy, and Xiao refused to visit her former lover in hospital afterwards. "Nothing can change my mind," she said.
■ India
Pets eat old lady's corpse
An 85-year-old woman who lived and died alone in a remote cabin surrounded by her pet dogs in the Indian Himalayas had her body half-eaten by her starving pets, police said Friday. Neighbors discovered Sharda Devi's body after they broke into her cabin on Thursday in the township of Nahan in Himachal Pradesh state after they heard only the sound of dogs barking inside the house and no human voice. "An autopsy report showed that Devi, who lived alone with her three dogs, died a few days ago from a massive asthma attack," a police officer said.
■ Japan
Peeling good for the brain
Eating an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but Japanese scientists have found that peeling one may be good for you too, a newspaper reported yesterday. Experiments by scientists at Japan's National Food Research Institute have shown that cutting the peel from an apple stimulates the most highly evolved section of the brain, the nationally circulated Mainichi newspaper said. According to the report, the team used near infrared spectroscopy analysis to measure changes of blood flow to the frontal brain lobes of 14 adults, ages 23 to 52, while they were peeling apples with a knife. They found blood flow increased "conspicuously" when the subjects actually peeled but did not when they only rubbed the apple with the knife -- leading to the conclusion that a complex task involving the use of a potentially dangerous tool was activating the frontal lobes.
■ Australia
Croc star apologizes
Australia's celebrity crocodile hunter Steve Irwin yesterday apologized for holding his one-month-old son Bob just meters from a feeding crocodile during a show at his zoo on Queensland's Sunshine Coast. "If I could have my time again I would probably do things a little differently," an embarrassed Irwin told reporters at a press conference at which he defended what was slammed as a stupid stunt. "I would be considered a bad parent if I didn't teach my children to be crocodile savvy because they live here, they live in crocodile territory," Irwin said.
■ Colombia
Jailbird elected mayor
The mayor-elect of the town of Quinchia marched from his jail cell to his swearing-in as mayor on Friday -- and returned to lock-up to await action on sedition charges. Colombia's National Prosecutor issued Jorge Uribe a "Get Out of Jail Free" card so he could be inaugurated. Hernando Ramirez, the town notary, said the prosecutor allowed Uribe to swear in -- only after he swore he would return to his cell. Uribe was captured in September along with 89 others suspected of helping rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN).
■ United States
Corpse surprises embalmer
A New Mexico funeral home owner received the surprise of his career when a man pronounced dead at a hospital came back to life just before he was to be embalmed. Russell Muffley, the owner of Muffley Funeral Home in Clovis, New Mexico, said he noticed Felipe Padilla breathing when the man pronounced dead at a hospital was being transferred to his facility on Wednesday. Padilla, 94, was rushed back to the same hospital, but did not recover. He was declared dead for a second time and was taken back to the funeral home.
■ United Kingdom
Princess almost quit
The British government drew up crisis plans in case Queen Elizabeth's sister Princess Margaret decided to renounce her claim to the throne to pursue a love marriage with a divorced war hero, archived documents show. The documents -- unsealed on Friday at Britain's National Archive after nearly 50 years -- include several versions of a letter drafted by officials on behalf of a young Princess Margaret to her sister the queen. In her letter nearly half a century ago, Margaret would have asked permission to marry the dashing Air Group Captain Peter Townsend, renouncing any claim to the throne. Her decision to give up love for duty was widely admired in the press.
■ Haiti
President under pressure
South African President Thabo Mbeki met with Haitian opposition leaders on Friday as they stepped up demands for President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to resign amid growing unrest. The meeting came a day after bloody clashes broke out between police and protesters on the 200th anniversary of Haitian independence from France and the founding of the first free black republic. At least eight anti-government protesters were injured on Thursday in the clashes, and on Friday Aristide's opponents issued a declaration calling for a transitional government to replace him. Mbeki called the Haitian revolution an inspiration and said Africans on both sides of the Atlantic face common challenges of poverty and conflict.
■ Ivory Coast
Soldier caught with cash
A French soldier supposed to be guarding a bank from fighting in Ivory Coast has been sent back to Paris to face criminal charges after being found carrying a large amount of cash, a military spokesman said on Friday. Authorities believe the money belongs to a branch of the West African central bank in the rebel base of Bouake, where a bloody battle for spoils between bands of rebels and looters left at least 25 dead in September. The cash has been returned to the bank's headquarters in Abidjan.
■ Iraq
US helicopter shot down
Insurgents shot down a US military helicopter west of Baghdad on Friday, killing one soldier, and attackers posing as journalists fired assault weapons and rocket-propelled grenades at US paratroopers guarding the burning aircraft, US Army Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said. Enemy fire likely brought down the OH-58 Kiowa Warrior that crashed near Fallujah, he said. Elsewhere, Arab gunmen shot and killed a Kurd amid rising ethnic tensions in Kirkuk, and a minor Baath party official was assassinated. A US tanker was set ablaze in a rebel attack, and coalition forces raiding a Sunni Muslim mosque arrested 32 suspected non-Iraqi Arab insurgents.
■ United States
Bridesmaid sisters killed
Three sisters on their way to be bridesmaids at their brother's wedding were killed in a head-on collision with a minivan near where the ceremony was to take place. The sisters were trying to pass another vehicle on a highway near Willmar in west-central Minnesota when the crash occurred on Thursday night, the State Patrol said. The wedding was to proceed as scheduled yesterday, the family said. "They would totally want this wedding to go on," Debbie Mayer said on Friday of her daughters, aged 19, 17 and 12. The driver of the minivan, a 15-year-old girl with a learner's permit, suffered a broken ankle. Her mother and 12-year-old brother were in the vehicle but were not seriously hurt.
■ United States
Detroit named fattest city
Houston, judged the US' fattest city for the past three years, is starting to look thinner -- but only when it's measured against Detroit. Houston is now the second-fattest city among 25 that were compared by Men's Fitness magazine in its February issue, due out this month. The scales tipped Detroit's way because of a jump in TV viewing, a worsening commute time and a scarcity of gyms, the magazine said. Houston officials were pleased, although the sixth annual survey made it clear their city still could stand to lose more than a few kilograms.
■ United States
More cows quarantined
Authorities quarantined a third herd of cattle in Washington state in a widening investigation of mad cow disease after they located another cow from the same Canadian herd as the infected cow. At least some cows quarantined since the discovery last month of a Holstein with the brain-wasting disease will be destroyed, either because of possible exposure to the infection or to quell public fear, Ron DeHaven, the Agriculture Department's chief veterinarian, said on Friday. "It would be safe to assume that ... some or all those animals will need to be sacrificed," DeHaven said of the quarantined cattle.
■ Canada
Meat ban hurts dog race
US beef, pork and chicken products destined for dogs in an international sled-dog race in Canada will not be allowed across the border because of fears about mad cow disease. Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race organizers this week notified mushers that any dog food containing proscribed meat products could not cross the border because of health concerns. The notice came as many mushers were working to meet a Jan. 23 deadline for having food ready to be delivered to drop points along the 1,600km course from Fairbanks to Whitehorse, Yukon.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
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