■ Singapore
Litterbug smokers fined
Ultra-tidy Singapore is upping the ante in its battle to stub out litterbug smokers. In its latest social campaign to keep the streets of the wealthy and tightly controlled city-state sparkling clean, police are stopping smokers who litter and giving them tin boxes for their cigarette butts, and a US$120 fine. "Smokers who persist in littering might think twice if they have something to put the butts in," the Straits Times newspaper said. Also under the drive, students from 50 primary schools will form roving "anti-littering squads" this year to purge primary education institutions of litter, the newspaper reported.
■ China
Doctors get bodyguards
A Chinese hospital has hired bodyguards for its doctors after a rash of assaults and death threats by angry patients. Six guards hired by Sichuan University Huaxi Hospital in China's southwest follow doctors during rounds and escort them to and from homes, the Yangcheng Evening News reported yesterday. "The source of these threats are with patients and their family members who are unhappy with the effects of their treatment," the paper said. It didn't give any details, but said seven doctors have been assaulted. Patients who make the threats tend to be suffering from tumors, congenital illnesses and mental problems, the report said.
■ Thailand
Body parts found in canal
More parts of a body believed to belong to a woman whose Israeli husband is accused of killing and dismembering her have been found in a Bangkok canal. But the search for the woman's head was still under way a day after 36-year-old Eli Cohen was charged with murdering his wife Carol, which could bring him the death penalty, they said. "We found a foot-long piece of back flesh, a right foot, a left hand and an intestine weighing around 1.5kg in the same canal yesterday," Police Colonel Niphon Chareonphol said. The parts were believed to belong to Carol Cohen, 26, following the discovery of a torso stuffed in a suitcase in the canal on Wednesday.
■ Singapore
Blind Thai gets tooth implant
Surgeons from Singapore's National Eye Centre and National Dental Centre are performing a revolutionary procedure on a blind Thai teenager, using a tooth implant to help him see again. Thai teenager Luck Pewnual, 19, lost his eyesight six years ago. On Saturday, he underwent a six-hour operation at the National Eye Centre that removed a tooth and part of his jaw. His tooth was then shaped into a tiny cube, implanted with a plastic cylinder and buried in his cheek. This is to encourage it to grow blood vessels. During the final stage of the operation, to be performed in June, the tooth with the implant will be surgically placed into his eye and this will hopefully help him regain his sight, although his field of vision will be narrowed.
■ Australia
Sex slave racket busted
Australian police said they had charged 10 people with organizing sex slave rackets yesterday but admitted they had no idea of the true extent of the problem. Australian Federal Police (AFP) acting deputy commissioner John Lawler said police had identified 14 victims as part of their investigation into sex slavery, most recently this week in the state of New South Wales. "This week three women presented to the New South Wales police and made complaints that they were victims of sexual slavery," Lawler told a parliamentary committee.
■ France
Oral sex linked to cancer
Although the risk is small, scientists have uncovered evidence that oral sex can cause mouth cancer. Researchers had suspected that a sexually transmitted infection linked to cervical cancer could also be associated with tumors in the mouth. A study by researchers working for the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, seems to have confirmed it. The scientists studied more than 1,600 patients from Europe, Canada, Australia, Cuba and the Sudan with oral cancer and more than 1,700 healthy people. They found that patients with oral cancer containing a strain of the human papilloma virus known as HPV16 were three times more likely to report having had oral sex than those without the virus strain.
■ South Africa
Chef convicted of rape
An acclaimed South African chef was convicted on Wednesday of 37 rapes, 30 kidnappings, 17 indecent assaults and other crimes in a four-year raping spree against young girls, news reports said. Judge Max Labe took more than 20 hours to read out the judgment against Fanwell Khumalo, in which he was convicted on 102 charges and acquitted on 30 others, the South African Press Association reported. Khumalo maintains his innocence. Most of the victims were school girls, aged between 7 and 13.
■ Nigeria
Christian villagers killed
Suspected Muslim militants armed with guns and bows and arrows killed at least 48 people in an attack on a farming village in central Nigeria. Most of the victims died as they sought refuge in a church, police said. The latest bout of Muslim-Christian violence in the region occurred on Tuesday night in Yelwa, a mainly Christian town in Nigeria's Plateau State, police commissioner Innocent Ilozuoke said. Army and police reinforcements helped restore calm. The killings appeared to be the latest retaliatory attack in a sporadic conflict that has rocked the central region since an outburst of sectarian violence in 2001.
■ United States
National Zoo director quits
The director of the US National Zoo announced Wednesday that she would quit her post amid recurring allegations of mismanage-ment and animal neglect at the capital park. Lucy Spelman, formerly the zoo's chief veterinarian, said that she would leave her post at the end of the year. Earlier Wednesday, the National Academy of Sciences issued a report finding that animals in the National Zoo had suffered unsafe conditions and health problems resulting from poor care, bad management and rat infestations. "I have become a lightning rod for too much attention," Spelman said.
■ United States
Woman dies at screening
A 57-year-old woman died Wednesday after collapsing at a movie theater during a screening of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, a graphic movie about the last 12 hours of the life of Christ. Peggy Scott was attending a morning showing of the movie in Wichita, Kansas, when she collapsed about 20 minutes before the movie was to end, the Wichita Eagle reported. The movie was stopped and two physicians who also were watching the movie tried to revive Scott, Ken Crockett, general manager of the theater, told the newspaper. She was taken to a hospital by ambulance where she was pronounced dead.
The pledge by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to “work, work, work, work and work” for her country has been named the catchphrase of the year, recognizing the effort Japan’s first female leader had to make to reach the top. Takaichi uttered the phrase in October when she was elected as head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Many were initially as worried about her work ethic as supportive of her enthusiasm. In a country notorious for long working hours, especially for working women who are also burdened with homemaking and caregiving, overwork is a sensitive topic. The recognition triggered a
‘HEART IS ACHING’: Lee appeared to baffle many when he said he had never heard of six South Koreans being held in North Korea, drawing criticism from the families South Korean President Lee Jae-myung yesterday said he was weighing a possible apology to North Korea over suspicions that his ousted conservative predecessor intentionally sought to raise military tensions between the war-divided rivals in the buildup to his brief martial law declaration in December last year. Speaking to reporters on the first anniversary of imprisoned former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol’s ill-fated power grab, Lee — a liberal who won a snap presidential election following Yoon’s removal from office in April — stressed his desire to repair ties with Pyongyang. A special prosecutor last month indicted Yoon and two of his top
The Philippines deferred the awarding of a project that is part of a plan to build one of the world’s longest marine bridges after local opposition over the potential involvement of a Chinese company due to national security fears. The proposals are “undergoing thorough review” by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which acts as a lender and an overseer of the project to ensure it meets international environmental and governance standards, the Philippine Department of Public Works and Highways said in a statement on Monday in response to queries from Bloomberg. The agency said it would announce the winning bidder once ADB
IN ABSENTIA: The MP for Hampstead and Highgate in London, a niece of deposed Bangladesh prime minister Sheik Hasina, condemned the ‘flawed and farcical’ trial A court in Bangladesh yesterday sentenced British Member of Parliament Tulip Siddiq to two years in jail after a judge ruled she was complicit in corrupt land deals with her aunt, the country’s deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina. A judge found Siddiq, the Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate, guilty of misusing her “special influence” as a British politician to coerce Hasina into giving valuable pieces of land to her mother, brother and sister. Siddiq’s mother, Sheikh Rehana, was given seven years in prison and considered the prime participant in the case. The trial had been carried out in absentia: Neither Hasina, Siddiq,
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