■ China
Internet purity drive begins
China is working with its top two search engines to crack down on Internet pornography by restricting the use of keywords, Xinhua news agency said on Monday. A recent survey of Internet use in China showed that 70 percent of surfers used Chinese search engines such as Baidu and 3721 and US-based Google Inc to look for information. Baidu has barred 40,000 keywords. "It means about half a million porn pages can't be clicked open as in the past," Baidu head Bi Sheng told Xinhua. China began its crackdown on porn sites last month and closed 700 Web sites in the first 10 days of the campaign, Xinhua said. The country has 87 million Internet users, over 50 percent of whom are under 24 and approximately 18 percent are minors, Xinhua said.
■ Malaysia
Man dies after sly romp
A Malaysian man died after having his penis nearly hacked off by his neighbor when he was caught having sex with the suspect's wife, news reports said yesterday. The 39-year old man and 34-year-old woman were allegedly in the midst of an act of passion at a deserted housing estate late Saturday when the woman's enraged husband suddenly appeared, the official Bernama news agency reported. The suspect allegedly slashed at his neighbor's penis until it was nearly severed. The woman attempted to bring her lover to a clinic, but was involved in a minor car accident on the way. The victim died from blood loss.
■ Australia
Kidnapped baby returned
An ambulance crew responding to an anonymous call yesterday found a 3-week-old baby girl who was snatched from her mother in a weekend attack at a Melbourne shopping mall, and two suspects in the kidnapping later turned themselves in. Paramedics found Montana Barbaro abandoned at a rundown house and she was reunited with her parents at a hospital, police spokeswoman Cathy Heycock said, one day after the mother, Anita Ciancio, 27, made a tearful public plea for the baby's return. Later yesterday, police said they detained a couple who turned themselves into a police station in Ballarat, a town outside the southern city of Melbourne where the baby was kidnapped.
■ Hong Kong
Officers raid bootleggers
Hong Kong customs officers have smashed an illegal Chinese liquor syndicate which bottled hooch in filthy conditions and even left cockroaches in some drinks, the government said yesterday. During a four-day operation, customs officers raided two factories illegally producing liquor, containing snake and herbal extracts, that retailed at 110 outlets. They seized a total over 10,000 bottles or about 6,000 liters of liquor, worth about HK$200,000 (US$25,600). Five Hong Kong men were arrested.
■ Japan
Talks with N Korea to begin
Japanese and North Korean diplomats will meet in Beijing this week for working-level talks aimed at resolving a dispute over the North's kidnapping of Japanese nationals decades ago and the North's nuclear programs, Japan's Foreign Ministry said yesterday. The two-day meetings, starting tomorrow, would be the first since Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi flew to Pyongyang on May 22 for a summit with North Korea's reclusive leader Kim Jong-il. The two sides, which have never had diplomatic relations, have said they eventually hope to establish ties.
■ France
Rugby star held for murder
France's former rugby captain was under arrest for murder on Sunday after allegedly shooting his wife at a party on Saturday night. About 60 fellow guests, who had gathered in Bourgoin-Jallieu, near Lyon, to celebrate the end of the rugby season, were reported to have witnessed Marc Cecillon shoot his wife Chantal three or four times, just before midnight. She died after being hit in the head and throat. "He had a row with friends, left the party and returned half an hour later with a pistol, and began to shoot," one guest told reporters.
■ Mexico
Indian mob locks mayor up
Hundreds of enraged residents of the impoverished Indian community of San Juan Chamula, located just outside San Cristobal, locked the mayor and three other municipal officials in jail on Sunday, accusing the men of embezzling funds from public works projects. The angry mob gathered on Sunday morning to capture Mayor Juan Gomez, the municipal treasurer and two town council members. The crowd revolted based on evidence that municipal authorities falsified documents to create phantom construction projects, including cisterns for capturing rainwater, rural roads and playing fields that were never built.
■ United Kingdom
Skip the sex, let's have tea
The first thing that goes through the average Briton's mind on waking up is not making steaming hot love, but a steaming hot cup of tea. According to a poll by the UKTV Food channel published on Sunday, many Brits can get up for a cuppa, but not for sex. An overwhelming 52 percent of women cannot wait to brew up, while just one in every hundred would rather stay in the bedroom and cuddle up. And when British men are roused from their sleep, just five percent want to get aroused, but 42 percent want to get the kettle on.
■ United States
Private rocket explodes
A team taking a low-budget stab at the US$10 million X Prize for private manned spaceflight suffered a setback when their rocket exploded after shooting less than 300m in the air. No one was hurt in Sunday's test of the Rubicon 1 near Queets, Washington. The 7m-long, 96.5cm-diameter spacecraft held three dummies simulating the weight of astronauts. The rocket, which crashed about 60m from the takeoff site after its parachute failed to deploy, will have to be rebuilt, said Eric Meier, co-founder of Space Transport Corp. More than two dozen teams are competing to win the X Prize by trying to successfully launching a privately financed, reusable craft.
■ United States
Oil well fighter Adair dies
Paul "Red" Adair, who was instrumental in capping Kuwaiti oil wells set ablaze by Iraq and was immor-talized by John Wayne in a movie based on his life, has died at the age of 89. Adair died on Saturday of natural causes at a Houston hospital, his daughter Robyn Adair said. Adair revolutionized the science of snuffing and controlling wells spewing high-pressure jets of oil and gas, using explosives, water cannons, bulldozers, drilling mud and concrete. He is credited with extinguishing more than 2,000 land and offshore oil well fires. His daredevil reputation led to a 1968 film, Hellfighters, in which he was played by John Wayne -- something Adair described as "one of the best honors in the world."
■ United States
Four held in beating deaths
A 27-year-old man and three 18-year-old men have been charged with murder in the beating deaths of six people at a house in central Florida, police said on Sunday. The suspected ringleader in the killings of four men and two women may have been seeking revenge for the theft of a video game system and some clothes, the Volusia County sheriff's office said. The victims were beaten to death with aluminum baseball bats at a home in Deltona, about 40km north of Orlando.
■ United States
Gorilla demands medical aid
When Koko the gorilla used the American Sign Language gesture for pain and pointed to her mouth, 12 specialists sprang into action. The result? Her first full medical examination in about 20 years, an extracted tooth and a clean bill of health. About a month ago, Koko, a 135kg ape who became famous for mastering more than 1,000 signs, told her handlers at the Gorilla Foundation in Woodside, California, that she was in pain. And because anesthesia would be needed, her handlers used the opportunity to give Koko, 33, a head-to-toe exam. When Koko asked to meet her specialists, they crowded around her, and Koko asked one woman wearing red to come closer. The woman handed her a business card, which Koko promptly ate.
■ Russia
Reforms end elderly benefits
The upper legislative house yesterday approved a controversial bill that would end an array of Soviet-era benefits, including free transportation and medicine, for some of Russia's most impoverished and vulnerable people. The 179-seat Federation Council, which usually rubber-stamps legislation for the Kremlin, approved the government-backed legislation by a vote of 156-5 with one abstention. The measure now goes to President Vladimir Putin for his signature. The bill eliminates free provision of artificial limbs, job guarantees for the disabled and, for many, free medicine. In return, they'll get monthly cash payments ranging from 150 rubles (US$5.10).
■ United States
Thirty rare dolphins put down
Thirty rare rough-toothed dolphins were euthanized after beaching themselves on Florida's eastern coast, news reports said on Sunday. The animals beached themselves on Friday about 90km north of West Palm Beach. Volunteers tried to save them by pushing them to deeper waters, but their efforts failed when the dolphins beached themselves a second time. Many of them were in the process of dying, said Gregory Bossart of Harbor Branch Oceano-graphic Institution. Six dolphins were saved and taken to Harbor Branch, where they were being given fluid as scientists fought dehydration. Strandings of rough-toothed dolphin, which prefer deep water, are extremely rare, Bossart said.
■ Belarus
UK scientist kicked out
A scientist who has studied the Chernobyl nuclear disaster for more than 10 years has been placed on the Belarussian "forbidden persons list" and banned from the country for five years. Alan Flowers, a professor at Kingston University, was expelled weeks after arriving for a lecture tour on an invitation from the the state university. He had regularly conducted his studies, testing radioactive content in soil, and had his visa renewed in March. He said the move was an attempt to gag him by the government, led by President Aleksandr Lukashenko.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
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