■ Malaysia
Fish chokes boy
An eight-year-old boy choked to death in a Malaysian village when a live fish he was holding in his hands leapt into his mouth and lodged in his throat, a news report said yesterday. Samiun Ahmad, the son of a rubber tapper, had scooped the fish out of a pond in a neighbor's house and was excitedly showing it around when the freak accident occurred on Monday, the New Straits Times reported.
■ China
Mine death toll rises
The death toll from a gas explosion in a coal mine in northwestern China rose to 76 yesterday and the chances of finding the seven miners still missing alive are slim, government officials said. The remains of the dead had been lifted out of the shaft and taken to funeral homes, said Yu Zhengui, deputy secretary general of the Xinjiang regional government. A total of 87 people were working in the mine in Fukang, Xinjiang region, when the blast happened on Monday, the State Administration for Work Safety said. Only four have been found alive so far.
■ Australia
Lawyer to sue over `McBrat'
An Australian lawyer vowed yesterday to pursue legal action against McDonald's after the fast food giant attempted to block him from using part of his own name to sponsor a local rugby team. Malcolm McBratney has used his nickname, McBrat, to sponsor his community-based rugby team for several years. He attempted to register the name with the national trademark office, in March last year but was blocked by McDonald's Australia, a unit of McDonald's Corp, which claimed the name was too similar to its McKids trademark used on action toys and clothes.
■ China
US pullout call reiterated
Beijing called on the US yesterday to respect a demand that it set a deadline to withdraw troops from Central Asia. Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao (劉建超) said Central Asian nations took part in anti-terrorist activity after the Sept. 11 attacks, but "now the situation has changed." China, Russia and four Central Asian nations last week jointly called on the US to set a date to withdraw forces from Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
■ The Philippines
`Elvis' confounds anchor
ANC network anchor Ricky Carandang was left fumbling for words yesterday following an interview with the president's executive secretary about a Cabinet appointment that included cutaway shots showing the interview's location at a government broadcast studio -- with Elvis in the background. "Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, making the announcement while, uh ... interestingly enough, talking with Elvis Presley," Carandang said to laughter in his own studio. "Or at least someone who looks very much like him." It turned out the Elvis impersonator is a new addition to the sparsely watched government TV network NBN, where he is a regular on a morning show.
■ Thailand
Energy plan approved
The Cabinet yesterday approved energy-savings measures designed to save the country US$162 million in oil imports. The Cabinet ordered all gasoline stations nationwide to close between 10pm and 5am and billboards using more than 1,000 watts of electricity to be turned off after 10pm, starting on Friday. It also ordered all civil servants to use gasohol in their cars. An official said the measures were expected to save Thailand 6,800 million baht (US$162 million) in fuel imports a year.
■ China
Restaurant embraces racism
Japanese customers must apologize for their country's wartime occupation of China before getting a seat at a restaurant in Jilin or find another place to eat, Japan's Kyodo news agency said yesterday. No Japanese had tried to enter the restaurant since it started the new policy and hung a sign that read "Japanese people barred from entry." "We totally welcome those Japanese customers who can correctly view history," the manager, surnamed Tian, was quoted as saying.
■ Australia
Deadly jellyfish avoid red
Wear a bright red bathing suit if you are swimming on Queensland beaches when the box jellyfish is near Australia coasts from November to May. That's the advice from James Cook University researcher Jamie Seymour, who experimented with different colored plastic fish in tanks that also contained Chironex fleckeri. "When you put a red tube in the water they actively swim away from it, but it it's a black one they will swim around it," he told The Australian.
■ India
Snake bites priest, dies
A snake in Jharkhand state bit a priest, vomited blood and died shortly after. The priest, who is recovering in a hospital, attributed the miracle to the Hindu god Lord Shiva, news reports said. The priest of Nag Devta (the snake god) temple was bitten by a 1.5m snake in the temple premises, the IANS news agency reported on Monday. Villagers also said Lord Shiva saved the priest. "The priest has not only survived but is also behaving normally," one villager said.
■ Saudi Arabia
Woman drives, defying ban
A Saudi woman defied a ban on women driving to get her husband urgent medical help after he collapsed at the wheel, al-Watan newspaper said yesterday. It said the couple were driving from the eastern city of Dammam to the capital Riyadh on Sunday night when the man started having trouble breathing and lost consciousness. His wife, who had learnt to drive on trips to the desert, jumped behind the wheel and drove 15km down the motorway to a gasoline station where he was treated. Women are banned from driving in the conservative Muslim kingdom, where religious academics fear it would encourage them to mix with men outside their family.
■ Spain
No one gored in bull run
Thrill-seekers trotting with a pack of fighting bulls tripped, fell and formed a human pileup yesterday in a messy but relatively injury-free sixth day of the San Fermin festival. No one was gored, although two people were hospitalized with head injuries, officials said. The pack of six bulls separated early in the run, which is the most dangerous thing that can happen at the festival. The pileup of at least a dozen people happened about halfway along the 850m course. One stray bull fell right near those runners and looked right at them as it got up, but eventually went on its way.
■ Cuba
Storm damages top a billion
Hurricane Dennis left 16 people dead and US$1.4 billion in damages in Cuba when it roared through the island last week flattening houses and downing trees and powerlines, Cuban President Fidel Castro said on Monday. "In total, 16 people died," Castro said in a seven-hour national television broadcast on the impact of the storm. The new death toll raised to 38 the number of people killed by the hurricane's rampage through the Caribbean before slamming the US Gulf Coast. In Haiti, 22 people died, most of them when a bridge collapsed.
■ Germany
Killer files rights complaint
A convicted child murderer has filed a complaint against Germany with the European Court of Human Rights, six months after a German court found a former top policeman guilty of threatening him with torture. A spokeswoman for the European court said on Monday that Magnus Gaefgen, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2003 for the abduction and murder of Jakob von Metzler, the young heir to a banking family, had lodged a complaint over his treatment. Article three of the European Convention on Human Rights stipulates no one should be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment and article six states everyone has the right to a free trial.
■ Canada
New Potter book leaked
Harry Potter's latest secret may have slipped out in Canada, and publishers of the best-selling books hope the magical allure of author J.K. Rowling's autograph will get it back under wraps. Rowling's sixth book about the young wizard is scheduled to be released on Saturday, but a store near Vancouver briefly put the put the book on sale last week. Raincoast Books Ltd, which distributes the books in Canada, said a "small number" of the books were sold, and it has won a court injunction barring the buyers of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince from disclosing the plot.
■ United Nations
ICAO announces agreement
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) announced yesterday the coming of new era in high-tech security check points at airports worldwide. The UN agency said all of its 188 member states have agreed to begin using machine-readable passports by April 1, 2010 that can be readily recognized by officials at security, immigration and customs check points, and by embassies and consulates worldwide. Some 110 states have already started using them. And more than 40 plan to upgrade to the biometrically-enabled version with integrated computer chips by the end of next year, the ICAO announced.
■ Spain
Bomb kills police dog
A small, rudimentary bomb exploded yesterday outside the Italian Cultural Institute in Barcelona, injuring a policeman and killing a bomb-sniffing dog, the Italian Embassy said. A police official in Spain's second-largest city said the blast did not appear to be a terrorist attack. Embassy spokesman Filipo La Rosa said it was too early to say. La Rosa said staff at the institute called police when they arrived for work Tuesday morning and found a suspicious object -- a metal coffee pot with wires coming out of it -- on the steps leading into the building. The explosion occurred while police bomb-disposal experts with a bomb-sniffing dog were examining the device, he said.
■ United Kingdom
Brits want tighter security
An overwhelming majority of Britons would support tough new measures to reduce the threat of attacks after last week's deadly London bomb blasts, a poll by the Times newspaper showed yesterday. Some 86 percent of those questioned said they supported giving the police new powers to arrest people they suspect of planning attacks and 88 percent said they were in favor of tighter controls on who comes into the country. Only 21 percent said they would change any plans or normal routines for travel into central London after bombs killed at least 52 people on three underground trains and a double-decker bus in the city last Thursday. Police suspect the bombs were planted by Islamist militants.
■ Spain
Gay men marry
Spain had its first homosexual marriage on Monday under a law passed last month making it the fourth country to legalise same-sex unions. Emilio Menendez and Carlos Baturim tied the knot after more than 30 years as lovers at a civil ceremony in the town of Tres Cantos, some 30km north of Madrid. The Socialist government's drive to give homosexual unions equal status with heterosexual marriage -- including inheritance and adoption rights -- has outraged many Roman Catholics. Hundreds of thousands of people, including bishops and nuns, protested in Madrid last month against the reform.
■ United Kingdom
US' London ban lifted
The US Air Force yesterday lifted an order barring its personnel from visiting London, the US Embassy said. The order, issued last Thursday shortly after the bomb attacks on three subway trains and a bus, sparked indignation in London after it was splashed on page one of the Daily Mail newspaper yesterday. The orders contrasted with British officials urging Londoners to get on with normal life.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
CHINESE ICBM: The missile landed near the EEZ of French Polynesia, much to the surprise and concern of the president, who sent a letter of protest to Beijing Fijian President Ratu Wiliame Katonivere called for “respect for our region” and a stop to missile tests in the Pacific Ocean, after China launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). In a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York on Thursday, Katonivere recalled the Pacific Ocean’s history as a nuclear weapons testing ground, and noted Wednesday’s rare launch by China of an ICBM. “There was a unilateral test firing of a ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean. We urge respect for our region and call for cessation of such action,” he said. The ICBM, carrying a dummy warhead, was launched by the
As violence between Israel and Hezbollah escalates, Iran is walking a tightrope by supporting Hezbollah without being dragged into a full-blown conflict and playing into its enemy’s hands. With a focus on easing its isolation and reviving its battered economy, Iran is aware that war could complicate efforts to secure relief from crippling sanctions. Cross-border fire between Israel and Hezbollah, sparked by Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7 last year, has intensified, especially after last week’s sabotage on Hezbollah’s communications that killed 39 people. Israeli airstrikes on Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon followed, killing hundreds. Hezbollah retaliated with rocket barrages. Despite the surge in
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