■ China
Mr. Ugly under the knife
A 30-year-old man Chinese man will undergo three months of plastic surgery to transform his looks after winning a Mr. Ugly contest. The unemployed man's surgical procedures will focus on his face, with doctors aiming to make him look like Lu Yi, a singer and actor popular with Chinese teenagers, the Shanghai Morning Post reported Friday. The man, who claimed to have lost his job due because he was unattractive, won the ugly contest in China's central Hubei province, where Wuhan is located. "I'm really ashamed. I have not had a real romantic experience although I'm already 30," he was quoted as saying.
■ China
Vietnam animals banned
China has banned imports of pigs and other cloven-hoofed animals from Vietnam and Mongolia due to concerns about foot-and-mouth disease, state television said yesterday. Government agencies were told to destroy any such animals that they discover, the report said, citing the General Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine. The order follows an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in about 2,200 livestock in central Vietnam. Vietnamese officials said on Wednesday the outbreak is now under control with only a handful of infections in the last several days.
■ The Philippines
Kidnappers get busy
A businesswoman was abducted by four gunmen in the southern Philippines, while authorities said yesterday they have arrested one of the country's most wanted kidnap suspects. Police Superintendent Bonfilo Dacoco said the gunmen who kidnapped Zoila Canse, 52, late Thursday, are suspected to be members of the notorious Pentagon kidnapping gang, or lawless groups raising funds for politicians running in the May 10 national and local elections. The often violent 90-day campaign season began this week.
■ Hong Kong
Bullying videos on Web
Hong Kong's schools chief said yesterday he was shocked at videos of bullying posted up on the internet by students in the territory. Education minister Arthur Li said he had met Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa (董建華) to discuss the matter after two apparent attacks on Hong Kong students inside schools were posted on the internet. A police spokesman said Friday they would speak to students in the city's Shek Kip Mei district about the latest incident in which a video of a secondary school pupil apparently being kicked and punched was put on the Web.
■ Bangladesh
Acid attack victims get help
Bangladeshi women scarred for life after having acid thrown in their faces by rejected suitors are to be offered interest-free loans to help gain financial independence. The government has allocated 2,500,000 taka (US$41,600) for the scheme, under which acid burn victims will be eligible for loans to help them start small businesses, the official news agency BSS said. Last year, more than 200 acid attack survivors staged a demonstration in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka. The majority of victims are young women disfigured by former suitors after rejecting offers of marriage. According to the most recent figures compiled by the Acid Survivors Foundation, there were 485 acid attacks in 2002. Some 341 attacks were recorded in 2001.
■ United States
Immigrants stuck in house
More than 150 illegal immigrants have been found packed into a home in the Phoenix, Arizona area for days in filthy conditions and without food, authorities said Thursday. In some cases, the immigrants from Mexico and Central America are believed to have paid US$1,200 to US$6,000 to their human smugglers to get into the US, said Russell Ahr, a spokesman for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Phoenix. Thirty seven of the immigrants were Mexican nationals, and the rest were from Honduras, Guatemala and Ecuador, he said. A neighbor tipped off authorities about suspicious activity at the upscale house near a golf course.
■ Colombia
Treasure hunters lose out
Colombia's Supreme Court on Thursday rejected claims by US treasure hunters to half the gold and jewels valued at US$3 billion to US$5 billion on board a sunken Spanish galleon off the the nation's coast. The judge ruled that the cargo belonged to Colombia. The San Jose, which lies on the border of territorial waters about 16 km off the Cartegena coast, sunk in 1708. The ruling was significant because hundreds of sunken Spanish ships with gold from colonial times are thought to be resting in the watery deeps off the Colombian coast.
■ Germany
Hash cake sickens teachers
Teachers at a school in the northern town of Lueneburg fell ill after gobbling up an anonymously donated chocolate cake, unaware it was laced with hashish, authorities said on Thursday. Some 10 teachers were treated for nausea and dizziness after sharing a cake left at the door to their staff room, a police spokesman said. "They thought it was food poisoning, but the doctors quickly recognized the problem," the spokesman said. "They showed all the classic signs of people under the influence of drugs." Police said they had not yet identified who was responsible for the prank.
■ Denmark
Sex-ed CDs banned
The Danish government halted the distribution 60,000 CD-ROMs for sexual education classes throughout the country because some of the content was deemed unacceptable, Health Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen said Thursday. The 60,000 discs, intended for ninth graders, contained information about threesomes, bestiality and partners relieving themselves on each other while having sex. Distribution of the material was scheduled to start next week. "What is the point of telling children and young people about" that, Loekke Rasmussen said. "That has, in no way, anything to do with birth control." He said the discs for the most part contained valid lessons on sexual education and family planning, but the few questionable inclusions resulted in the ban.
■ South Africa
Spider, snake horrify worker
Secretary Tania Robertson had the shock of her life when she discovered a black widow spider and a poisonous snake just feet from her desk in Bloemfontein, South Africa. In fact, the snake had fallen victim to the spider, and was suspended just above the floor cocooned in web, Beeld newspaper reported. An expert who identified the black widow said it appeared the two had done battle and the spider had tried to drag the ensnared snake into a ventilation shaft.
■ United Kingdom
Ozzy: a reluctant genius
British rock magazine NME awarded Ozzy Osbourne the Godlike Genius award at a ceremony held in London on Thursday night. The former Black Sabbath frontman, who is recovering at his Los Angeles home from a quad bike accident in December, said he had no idea why he had received the award. "I'm far from being a genius. Look at what happened to me before Christmas -- that's hardly genius," he said. His daughter Kelly was on hand to pick up the award at Po Na Na's in Hammersmith, billed by critics as "one of the grungiest events of the year." Previous recipients include The Clash and Paul McCartney. Among other awards were best album to Radiohead for Hail To The Thief and best video for There There. US rockers Kings of Leon were named best new band and best international band.
■ Israel
US evangelist gets award
Reflecting the bond between Israel and evangelical Christians in the US, Israeli Tourism Minister Benny Elon will give a special award to Pat Robertson to thank the TV minister and his followers for their support for the Jewish state. Elon said on Thursday that some 400,000 American and European evangelicals visited Israel last year, pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the Israel economy and fostering the view of Israel as a tourist destination. Elon said it was natural that Israelis and fundamentalist Christians should have a kinship because of their shared
faith in the Bible. Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, said it was not surprising. "Birds of a feather flock together -- both are anti-Muslim extremists," he said.
■ United States
Two executed in Texas
Texas executed its second inmate in the past 24
hours on Thursday night, corrections officials said at
a prison in Huntsville. The execution of Bobby Ray Hopkins, 36, on Thursday night was carried out by lethal injection, as was the execution one night earlier of Edward LaGrone, 46. Hopkins was convicted in 1993 of the stabbing deaths of two young girls in the northern city of Grandview. He had maintained his innocence in the case and no motive was ever identified. LaGrone was convicted
of shooting to death three people in 1991, including
a 10-year-old girl he had impregnated. In both cases, Texas Governor Rich Perry and the courts had rejected last-minute pleas to halt the executions. There have been six executions so far this year in Texas. A further
nine are planned in coming months.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
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