■ North Korea
Rocket invention claimed
The government claims that Koreans invented the world's first rocket -- over 1,300 years ago. The North's official KCNA news agency reported late on Monday that weapons similar to modern jet-propelled rockets were used in Korea in the final years of the Koguryo period in the 7th century. "The first rocket was very simple but its principle is similar with that of a modern one," KCNA said. "A jet-propelled weapon called Kwanghwi demonstrated its might in a battle near the castle in Mt Pukhan in 661." KCNA said that during 918-1392, Koreans also made a rocket called Hwajon that was nearly a meter long with an arrowhead that used rocket technology to propel the arrow over great distances. It was fired by lighting a combustible cartridge.
■ Chian
Beijing rebuffs Tokyo
China turned down a Japanese request to stop exploration of a gas field in the East China Sea yesterday, but the two countries agreed to keep talking. Tokyo has demanded China stop its search for energy in the area and provide data on gas development projects there. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan (孔泉) said China had a right to explore those fields because they were within its coastal waters. "Moreover, Japan does not dispute those coastal waters. It is a normal exercise of our sovereign rights," he said. A Japanese delegate to the two-day talks that began in Beijing on Monday said China had offered a proposal to jointly develop gas fields in the disputed waters in the East China Sea.
■ Thailand
Octogenarian ruled father
Bangkok's Juvenile and Family Court has ordered an 80-year-old former politician to accept paternity for his 2-year-old son conceived out of wedlock, media reports said yesterday. The court ruled that Tavich Klinprathum, father of the current labor minister, must register Thawee Pornsri as his son and pay support until the boy reaches the age of 20, the Bangkok Post said. Tavich met Thawee's mother, Phetcharaporn Wilairat, in 1999 when he was still a member of parliament and she was a 14-year-old waitress at the Parliament House Restaurant. She became pregnant in 2003, but Tavich ordered his chauffeur to claim to be the father.
■ Thailand
Smokers urged to quit
Cigarettes kill at least six Thais every hour and smoking among the country's youth is on the rise, the health minister said yesterday. Minister Suchai Charoenratanakul sounded the alarm as Thais marked World No Tobacco Day with a nationwide campaign urging everyone to quit smoking -- at least for a day. He said more than 52,000 people died from smoking-related diseases last year, or about six every hour. The ministry's records show that more than 9.6 of 64 million Thais were habitual smokers last year, a drop from 10.4 million in 2003. But the minister said more teens had taken to the habit, especially young women.
■ New Zealand
Mouse sparks police alert
Australian police alerted their counterparts in Wellington when a woman reported that her mother had dropped the telephone and screamed while talking to her. Police in Wellington rushed to the woman's home to find her recovering from the shock of seeing a mouse run across the floor, the Dominion Post reported yesterday. "I'm absolutely terrified of them," the embarrassed woman told the paper. "I just feel so silly."
■ United Kingdom
Troops told to wear undies
Britain's servicemen and woman have been ordered to remember to put underwear on when getting measured for new uniforms to avoid embarrassing their tailors, the Ministry of Defense said on Monday. A notice was issued to members of the army, navy and airforce in January after tailors complained about military personnel turning up to be fitted for their parade uniforms without wearing any underpants, a spokesman said.
■ United Kingdom
Rolling cheese contest held
Contestants in a traditional British cheese rolling competition broke bones and skinned their knees and elbows on Monday in their pursuit of a giant piece of cheese down a steep hill. The competition, in which participants hurl themselves 200m down a hill after a 3.6kg cheese, has been celebrated for centuries in Gloucestershire, west of London. The race is thought to originate from a heathen festival to welcome the spring. The first person to follow the cheese across the line at the bottom of the hill wins the cheese and a small cash prize.
■ South Africa
Boy shut in with slain family
A three-year-old boy spent four days locked in a house with his murdered parents and two sisters, police said on Monday. His father and two sisters, aged 7 and 8, were strangled and his mother hung from the roof of the family's two-room house in Mhluzi township, 120km east of Johannesburg. "The boy was in the house with them all the time," inspector Leonard Slathi said, after neighbors alerted the police. "The house was a bit ransacked. The father was found in the kitchen and the girls -- one was on the floor and one on a bed."
■ Italy
Woman bites `Satan-child'
A 40-year-old woman in Italy bit off her daughter's ear lobe after claiming to recognize the face of Satan in that of her 8-year-old girl, local newspapers reported Monday. The woman, originally from the Dominican Republic and a resident of Gazzo Padovano, a small town in northern Italy, is currently being held in police custody while her daughter is treated in a hospital in Padua. The girl, who also received bites on her hand and neck and other parts of the body, was expected to spend about a month in hospital. Her mother, described by reports as a "religious fanatic," was clutching a Bible at the time of her arrest and told police she had wanted to take her daughter to heaven with her.
■ United States
Teens kill hobo `for fun'
Two Florida teenagers, charged with murder said they killed a homeless man for fun and something to do. Christopher Scamahorn, 14, and Jeffery Spurgeon, 18, confessed to beating the 53-year-old victim with their fists and sticks and kicking him, sheriff's spokesman Brandon Haught said on Sunday. The teens said they attacked the man "for fun" and "to have something to do," Haught said. The teens found the man in the woods on Wednesday and harassed him, Haught said. Spurgeon said he punched the man in the face and left. The pair returned a short time later and kicked the man and beat him with sticks, Haught said. Investigators said there may be more arrests.
■ United States
Wife-beater in feline shocker
Police arrested a man in New York State who allegedly beat and chained his wife to a wall and kept two leopards in his basement. The leopards were allowed to roam the house and came in contact with the couple's four young children, ages 2, 4, 7 and 8, Suffolk County police said on Sunday. Police also said Anthony Barone, 34, punched and kicked his wife, Anastasia Barone, on May 20, breaking her nose. He then allegedly chained her to a downstairs wall for several hours before freeing her. Barone fled his house before police arrived on Sunday, but he was tracked to a nearby wooded area. He was charged with reckless endangerment for allegedly letting the leopards near his family, assault and unlawful imprisonment.
■ Mexico
`Fire Volcano' erupts
Mexico's "Fire Volcano" spewed a column of rock, ash and lava almost 5km into the sky on Monday in its largest eruption for at least 15 years, civil protection officials said. The government was considering evacuating tiny communities around the 3,860m Colima volcano in the western state of the same name after the predawn eruption. "It's the largest explosion in the past 15 years and we are monitoring it because the activity is increasing, though gradually," said federal civil protection coordinator Carmen Segura.
■ Canada
Red Cross pleads guilty
The Canadian Red Cross pleaded guilty in court Monday to distributing tainted blood products in the 1980s and 1990s that infected tens of thousands of people with HIV and Hepatitis C. The admission of violating Canada's food and drug laws came as part of a deal with prosecutors to drop charges of criminal negligence causing death and common nuisance. As well, Red Cross Secretary-General Pierre Duplessis apologized to those afflicted and their families in a video-taped statement shown in court.
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
Prime ministers, presidents and royalty on Saturday descended on Cairo to attend the spectacle-laden inauguration of a sprawling new museum built near the pyramids to house one of the world’s richest collections of antiquities. The inauguration of the Grand Egyptian Museum, or GEM, marks the end of a two-decade construction effort hampered by the Arab Spring uprisings, the COVID-19 pandemic and wars in neighboring countries. “We’ve all dreamed of this project and whether it would really come true,” Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly told a news conference, calling the museum a “gift from Egypt to the whole world from a
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