■ China
Child-trafficker gets death
A court has sentenced a man to death for running a child trafficking ring that sold 44 children to Singapore over a five-year period. Ke Pangjie was sentenced in Quanzhou, with partners Wu Wenbin and Sheng Zhenzhong getting life imprisonment and 15 years in jail respectively. The court said the severity of the verdict reflected the large number of children sold beginning in 1998, with no hope of winning their return. In 1998 Ke met He Yidi, a person running an adoption agency in Singapore. While He and an accomplice set about identifying Singapore families that wanted to adopt a child, Ke searched for children in Fujian's Quanzhou, Yongchun and Anxi cities. The children were bought from willing parents for between 5,000 to 10,000 yuan (US$600 to US$1,200) and were then shipped to Singapore, where they were sold for at least 8,000 Singapore dollars (US$4,800).
■ China
Anthrax outbreak eases
China has brought under control an outbreak of anthrax that killed one person and infected 11 others in the northeastern province of Liaoning, state media reported yesterday. The outbreak was discovered on July 29 in farms in two villages in the Damintun area of Shenyang city, the Liaoning health department said. But by late Sunday, no new cases had been reported for seven consecutive days, prompting Sun Baijun, deputy director of the Disease Control Center of Shenyang, to declare it was controlled, Xinhua news agency reported. "Local people's life is back to normal," said Sun. The 11 suffering anthrax after coming into contact with infected cows remained in quarantine although they were recovering, he added.
■ Hong Kong
Disney train a smash hit
A train taking passengers to Hong Kong's new Disney theme park has attracted 38,000 visitors in one day more than a month before the attraction opens, a news report said yesterday. Huge crowds of day trippers poured onto the trains, which carry special Mickey Mouse ears, for the three-minute journey across Lantau Island to the theme park, which opens on Sept. 12. On Sunday, a combination of the curious and people wanting to see a fireworks display rehearsal flooded the US$250 million line from daylight until dusk, the South China Morning Post reported.
■ Australia
Kylie's cancer spurs women
Media coverage of pop diva Kylie Minogue's battle with breast cancer prompted an unprecedented rise in the number of Australian women seeking early screening for the disease, the author of a medical study said yesterday. The 37-year-old superstar canceled her Australian tour in May after she was diagnosed with cancer and underwent surgery to remove a lump from her breast. A study published in the most recent edition of the Medical Journal of Australia examined the number of mammogram bookings made by women over 40 at four government-run clinics that provide free screening. It found that the number of reservations for breast exams rose by an average 40 percent in the two weeks after Minogue's diagnosis was made public.
■ Thailand
Noodle attack delays flight
A disgruntled passenger, miffed at an AirAsia hostess for telling her to switch off her mobile phone, chucked a bowl of hot noodles in the stewardess' face, delaying the no-frills airline's return flight by three hours. Chirayu Hoontrakul, 35, a car rental agent, was chatting on her phone to a potential customer on Sunday afternoon during the takeoff of flight FD3015 from Bangkok to Phuket, prompting stewardess Monthicha Kuawong, 30, to tell her to turn the device off for safety reasons, the Daily News reported. Chirayu ordered noodles from Monthicha 15 minutes after takeoff, then threw the meal in the hostess' face and pummelled her twice on the neck.
■ Japan
Nuclear plant springs leaks
A nuclear power station in northern Japan which had only just resumed operations after more than three months of inspections has been shut down again after two radioactive leaks were discovered, the power company said yesterday. The leaks at Tokai power station in Ibaraki prefecture posed no danger to the public, Japan Atomic Power Company said. The first leak was found on Sunday night at the entrance to a chamber linking the No. 2 reactor to a turbine, and the reactor was manually closed, the company said. The second leak was found early yesterday in a steam pipe in the same chamber, it said.
■ India
Assam on maximum alert
India's northeastern state of Assam went on maximum security alert yesterday after rebels triggered a string of blasts that killed four people and wrecked oil and gas pipelines, power lines and rail tracks, police said. There were about a dozen attacks in the state at the weekend, a government spokesman said. Police believe they were carried out by the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom, the most dominant of more than two dozen rebel groups that have been fighting secessionist battles in the region for decades.
■ South Africa
Gold miners go on strike
Gold miners stayed off work yesterday in the country's first industry-wide strike in 18 years to demand higher wages. "The strike is 100 percent countrywide, all our people, about 100,000 of them are on strike," the general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said. South Africa's gold industry accounts for around 15 percent of total global output. A strike would lead to 79 million rand (US$12.21 million) in lost revenue per day, and paralyze the mines of the world's top gold producers. In 11th-hour talks, AngloGold and South Deep offered wage hikes of between 5.25 and 6.5 percent, but the unions are demanding a rise of between 10 and 12 percent.
■ Zimbabwe
Mugabe slams critics
President Robert Mugabe yesterday lashed out at critics who have condemned his demolition campaign, calling them "hypocrites" and "long-distance philanthropists who romanticize shacks." Addressing a ceremony, Mugabe said, "Let those long-distance philanthropists, who want to romanticize shacks as settings and habitats for human rights, tell us why they do not allow them in their own land." Some 700,000 Zimbabweans have lost their homes and livelihoods in the campaign and a further 2.4 million people have been affected, according to the UN.
■ Iraq
Constitution group in a rush
With only a week until the deadline for a new constitution, Iraqi political leaders launched marathon negotiations seeking to overcome formidable obstacles blocking agreement on the draft. Insurgent violence aimed at derailing Iraq's political efforts killed three more US servicemen and at least 13 Iraqi civilians and government employees across the country. President Jalal Talabani expressed optimism that leaders from all communities could reach agreement in time for parliament to approve the charter by the Aug. 15 deadline.
■ Germany
Book on legal errors a hit
Furious tourists have gained an unlikely ally in the form of lawyer Ralf Hocker, whose research revealed that leaving towels on lounge chairs to reserve lounge chairs at the beach was not legally binding; that is, unless the seat was hired. "A tourist would be quite within their legal rights to ignore the reservation implied by the towels if there is nobody there," said Hocker, 34. Bar patrons who leave coats on chairs and pedestrians who try to claim parking spots for yet-to-appear cars are on equally shaky legal ground. Hocker's research is published in a book that came out last week, the New Dictionary of Popular Legal Errors. Volume one spent 20 weeks on the German bestseller list last year. "People just don't realize how often they are bossed around when there is no justification," Hocker said.
■ France
Snail spitter wins again
Frenchman Alain Jourden can spit a sea snail, or periwinkle, farther than anyone else in the world, and he proved it again at the weekend when he won his fourth world title in the discipline, media reported yesterday. Jourden, 44, won his world championship in Paris by spitting the mollusc a distance of 10.11m, well ahead of second-best Tim Leuchters of Germany, who managed 7.84m, followed by Swiss Marc Besson, at 7.61m. The women's title was won by Edith Krotz of Germany, with a spit of 4.39m, edging out Swiss Dominique Elmer, 4.20m, and Sacha Thierry of France, with 4.08m.
■ United States
Early detection vital
Much of the improvement in breast cancer survival in recent years is because the average tumor is smaller, not just because treatments are so much better, a huge new study has found. Examining 25 years of cancer records nationwide, researchers concluded that smaller tumor size accounted for 61 percent of the improvement in survival when cancer had not spread beyond the breast, and 28 percent when it had spread just a little. For women 65 and older with early-stage tumors, the shift in size accounted for virtually all of the improve-ment in survival. The study wasn't designed to determine the value of mammograms or treatments. But it implies much about the value of early detection. The study was published yesterday online by the American Cancer Society's journal Cancer and will be in its Sept. 15 print edition.
■ United States
DIY chief builds aquarium
The legacy of billionaire Bernard Marcus, who co-founded the Home Depot chain, will be the world's largest fish tank. The Georgia Aquarium, due to open in Atlanta in November, will have 19 million liters of water and more than 100,000 fish. It will be home to two white beluga whales, giant groupers and octopuses. The main attraction will be two whale sharks, the world's largest fish, which can grow to more than 13m. The sharks, Ralph and Norton, are adolescents and currently 4m and 5m long. They were transported from Taiwan in a plane with aquatic life-support systems.
■ United States
Sleeping with the fishes
At Chicago's newest "hotel," guests can swim out, but will they ever leave? Friends of the Chicago River, an environmental group, cut the ribbon on Saturday on the city's first "fish hotel," off the Michigan Avenue bridge at the south end of the city's Magnificent Mile shopping district. The hotel is actually a series of small gardens -- some floating and others submerged -- densely planted with wetland vegetation that should be more inviting to urban fish species than the river's bare, steel walls. The habitat will be equipped with underwater cameras so Chicagoans can get a glimpse of the action of some of the 18 species that live in the river.
■ United States
Detainees potty about Potter
Books about boy wizard Harry Potter have become favorite reading material among terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, the Washington Times reported yesterday. Citing a librarian working at the center, the newspaper said J.K. Rowling's tales about the boy and the school of wizardry are on top of the request list for the camp's 520 al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects, followed by Agatha Christie novels. The librarian said she is compiling a list to provide to various lawmakers in Washington, according to the report.
■ United States
Fourth craft headed for Mars
A fourth Mars orbiter is set to blast off tomorrow. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will scan the desolate surface of the Red Planet in search of sites to land more robotic explorers in the next decade. "It's time we start peeling back the onion layer and start looking at Mars from different vantage points," said project manager James Graf of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The probe will seek evidence of water and other signs that Mars could once have hosted life. The mission, which launches from Cape Canaveral, Florida, will also serve as a communications link to relay data to Earth.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
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