■ China
Teacher commemorated
Some 100,000 people in Nanjing turned out to commemorate a teacher who was killed by a speeding car after pushing her pupils out of its way, while thousands lined the streets to pay their respects as her hearse passed by. She was credited with pushing "six or seven students" out of the way of the speeding car that sent her flying 25 meters down the road. Yin, 52, was escorting several hundred pupils to cross a street on the way to a cinema. On Thursday, several hundred children from her school knelt down at the spot where she was killed and cried for her.
■ Papua New Guinea
PM demands an apology
Papua New Guinea has frozen a US$613 million dollar aid package it is receiving from Australia to protest the treatment of its prime minister by security staff at a Brisbane airport. Papua New Guinea has demanded Canberra apologize after security staff ordered Prime Minister Michael Somare to remove his shoes as he transited through Brisbane airport last month on his way home from New Zealand. Australian Prime Minister John Howard refused to apologize, saying his wife Janette always removed her shoes at Australian airports.
■ Australia
Man handles baggage badly
Qantas Airways yesterday suspended a baggage handler who was caught on video opening a passenger's bag which contained a camel costume, donning the head and wandering around the airport tarmac. The costume's owner, David Cox, said he was waiting inside the terminal at Sydney Airport when he glanced outside and saw the baggage handler wearing his camel head. "I obviously was flabbergasted, my jaw dropped to the ground," Cox said. Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon said a security camera had recorded the baggage handler, who had been suspended and could be fired pending further investigation.
■ China
Unlucky name causes strife
The husband of Su Danhong, the same Chinese name for the cancer-causing Sudan 1 red dye, came home one day and told his wife "Your name is unlucky and would bring disasters to our family. I heard the whole country is after people who are called Su Danhong." The couple had a heated argument after Su refused to go to the registry office to get a divorce. The couple's noisy row drew the attention of neighbors and local officials, who explained to them the news surrounding the food scare. Su Danhong's husband expressed his regret over his ignorance, hit himself on his ear and said he won't listen to hearsay anymore.
■ Hong Kong
Nose yields odd creature
A woman went to her doctor complaining of nose bleeds and an occasional sensation that something was blocking her left nostril. Her family doctor noticed a "brownish mass'' in her nostril but couldn't remove the 5cm creature because of heavy bleeding. In the emergency room, doctors identified the problem as a bloodsucking leech but had trouble pulling it out because it retracted into the nostril and disappeared in a passage of her nasal and sinus cavity. Doctors used a nasal spray to anesthetize it. After two minutes, the leech moved slowly out of the sinus and was retrieved with forceps. A month before, the woman swam and washed her face in a stream while hiking. The leech could have caused suffocation if it moved into the patients' larynx.
■ United States
Pope off the head table
Diners at Italian-themed US restaurant chain Buca di Beppo can no longer enjoy their meals in the presence of the late Pope John Paul II. The chain's parent company, BUCA Inc, has asked its restaurant managers to send decorative busts of the deceased pontiff back to the company's corporate headquarters. "We're very sensitive to offending anyone," said Buca spokesman Bob Kleiber. The plaster busts of John Paul were in most of the chain's 107 US restaurants, Kleiber said. The busts sat on the popular "Pope's Table," which is reserved for large groups, but were removed last Friday as the pontiff's health waned. The busts will likely be replaced with images of another recognizable pope from history and not with a bust of John Paul's successor.
■ United States
Lasers control fly behavior
Meet the Stepford flies. US scientists have created genetically modified flies they can remotely control with laser light. At the flick of a switch the researchers use the laser to make the flies jump, beat their wings and fly on command -- echoing the way the Stepford husbands use a handheld device to control their wives in last year's remake of the classic film. The scientists hope the freakish experiments will show them how nerve activity relates to behavior, perhaps one day helping to restore feelings and movement to people who have lost nerve cells through injury or disease.
■ United Nations
US also opposes reforms
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's sweeping plan for UN reform ran into new problems when the US joined Russia and China in opposing his call for adoption of the entire package at a summit of world leaders in September. The three veto-wielding members of the Security Council -- whose support for the UN overhaul is considered crucial -- said on Thursday that there should be no "artificial deadlines" and made it clear that it would be impossible to accept all of Annan's proposals. They also stressed the importance of getting broad agreement on the divisive issue of Security Council expansion.
■ Peru
Watch out for taxis, buses
Anyone climbing aboard a bus or taxi in Peru should think twice because many drivers have psychopathic tendencies, a university study said on Wednesday. Some 40 percent of the 640 taxi and bus drivers surveyed by Lima's San Marcos University suffered from psychological problems and showed psychopathic tendencies, such as aggressive, anxious and antisocial behavior, the study said. "Drivers showed they would not feel any guilt in injuring or running over a pedestrian," the study added. Hundreds of people die each year in bus and taxi crashes in Peru because of bad roads, poorly maintained vehicles and recklessness by drivers.
■ United States
Mammoth found at work site
The remarkably well-preserved remnants of an estimated half-million-year-old mammoth -- including both tusks -- were discovered at a new housing development in Moorpark, California. An on-site paleontologist found the remains, which include 50 percent to 70 percent of the Ice Age creature, as crews cleared away hillsides to prepare for building, Mayor Pro Tem Clint Harper said. Paleontologist Mark Roeder estimated the mammoth was about 3.7m tall, Harper said. Roeder believed it was not a pygmy or imperial mammoth, but he had not yet determined its exact type, Harper said.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
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