■ China
Traffic accident kills 24
Twenty-four people were killed when a speeding truck collided with a long-distance bus near Beijing's Badaling Great Wall tourist site, state press said yesterday. The accident occurred on Sunday evening as both vehicles were heading into the capital, Xinhua news agency said. Nine others were injured in the accident. According to initial investigations, the speeding truck lost control before ploughing into the bus. Both vehicles exploded in flames after they went spiralling into a ditch on the side of the road, it said. China's roads are the world's deadliest, with more than 107,000 people killed in accidents last year, according to previously released government statistics.
■ China
Highways threaten pandas
The endangered giant panda is facing a new threat from the rapid expansion of the national highway network, which is well on the way to cutting its natural habitat into tiny pieces, state media said yesterday. The problem is at its most serious in Gansu Province, where new highways have separated the local panda population of 100 into five different habitats. This could spell doom for the Gansu panda, since research shows groups of fewer than 50 animals will sooner or later die out as inbreeding weakens their reproductive ability. Conservationists are scratching their heads to come up with a solution, and some have suggested tunnels under the highways or even special traffic controls to allow pandas to pass from one habitat to the other. The Chinese are fighting an uphill battle to preserve the giant panda, partly because of the furry animal's notorious lack of interest in sex.
■ Japan
Police study Web for clues
Police searching for the killer of a seven-year-old girl are studying Internet bulletin board messages boasting of a plan to kidnap a girl after school, Jiji Press reported yesterday. The murder of Yuki Yoshida, whose stabbed naked body was found on Friday in bushes in central Ibaraki Prefecture, further fueled public outrage 10 days after a girl of the same age was strangled to death in western Japan. "I will be promoted from a would-be-criminal to a criminal. I am drawing up a plan to snatch a grade-school girl," said a message on an Internet site being probed by police, it reported. Police have tracked down the alleged killer of the first girl, a Peruvian.
■ Philippines
Left-wing activist slain
Two unidentified men yesterday fatally shot a left-wing activist as she stepped out of a meeting with farmers and fishermen west of Manila. A witness reported seeing two men on a motorcycle firing guns at Cathy Alcantara, 43, an official of the Movement for National Democracy (KPD), in Abucay, Bataan, 50km west of Manila. KPD spokeswoman Jo Ocampo said Alcantara's killing was similar to recent assassinations of other group activists. "We believe it's part of extra-judicial killings perpetrated against people's organizations by either the military, the police or the `black army' or death squad organized to silence groups protesting against the government," she said.
■ Sri Lanka
Tamil Tigers issue threat
A group allied with the Tamil Tiger rebels threatened yesterday to force the military and "traitors" from the country's Tamil-dominated northeast if violence continues against the ethnic group there. The statement from the Trincomalee Tamil Peoples Consortium followed a weekend of violence during which a Muslim mob beat two Tamil men to death in Trincomalee. "The day when paramilitaries and traitors must run away from our land is not very far," it said. "When the anger of the Tamil people at these lowly acts bursts out, we warn that the traitors will be forced to run with the Sri Lankan military from our land," it said.
■ Malaysia
Twins marry twins
It was twice as much fun at a wedding at which two pairs of identical twins tied the knot. Make that knots. But guests could be pardoned for thinking they were seeing multiple doubles: The best men also were twins, as were the bridesmaids and the flower girls, the Star newspaper reported yesterday. Identical twin sisters Zeenat Begam Sawai Hamid and Zannat Begam Sawai Hamid, 23, had been promised by their parents soon after birth to identical twin brothers Hasan Mohammed Yusof and Husen Mohammed Yusof, 26. But the families lost touch with each other until seven years ago. The couples took their vows on Sunday in Balakong, outside Kuala Lumpur.
■ Singapore
Foreign pickpockets nabbed
Ten Vietnamese suspected of belonging to a foreign pickpocketing syndicate have been nabbed along with a 68-year-old Thai woman, Singapore police said yesterday. Eight women and two men, aged 29 to 53, were rounded up during the weekend after plainclothes cops spotted three of the suspects behaving suspiciously in a shopping center. The officers trailed the trio and nabbed them when they allegedly tried to pick the pockets of several shoppers. Police raided the gang's hideout in a rented flat and rounded up the rest of the suspected syndicate members.
■ Sweden
Yuletide goat ablaze again
Vandals set light to a giant straw goat Saturday night in the central town of Gavle, police said -- an event that has happened so frequently it has almost become a Christmas tradition. It was the 22nd time that the goat had gone up in smoke since merchants in Gavle, north of Stockholm, began erecting it to mark the holiday season. Police received a call at 9pm that the goat was ablaze. In just a couple of minutes only a sooty wooden skeleton remained. One of two men seen running from the scene was wearing a Father Christmas mask. Since 1966, just 10 of the 13m-high goats have survived beyond Christmas Day. In 2001, the goat was set on fire by a 51-year-old visitor from Cleveland, Ohio. The culprit, Lawrence Jones, was convicted and spent 18 days in jail.
■ Ukraine
Soldiers cull ducks, poultry
Troops moved from house to house on Sunday in five villages where a virulent strain of bird flu has been detected, removing birds for a mass cull in pits being excavated by diggers. Emergency Ministry troops, covered from head to toe in plastic and wearing masks, rounded up chickens, ducks and geese, stuffed them in plastic bags and tossed them in the back of dump trucks. Villagers could do little but watch and head for administrative offices to receive compensation.
■ Syria
Cops clash with militants
The police clashed with suspected Islamic terrorists in the northern city of Aleppo on Sunday, foiling their plans to bomb sites in the city. Syria's state-run news agency said in a statement five people were wounded in the clashes, including two of the suspected militants, that took place near the Aleppo transportation department. "Anti-terror forces clashed this morning with an armed terrorist Takfir group in the city of Aleppo," the statement said.
■ United Kingdom
Concern raised over STIs
British scientists are worried that an increase in the number of men who have paid for sex may lead to a corresponding rise in the rate of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). A study published in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections examined two national lifestyle surveys of 11,000 British adults. The 1990 survey revealed that 5.6 percent of men said they had paid for sex at some point in their lives, with 2 percent having done so in the last five years and 0.5 percent in the previous year. But 10 years later around 9 percent of men said they had paid for sex, 4.3 percent had done so in the previous five years and 1.3 percent had paid for sex in the last year.
■ Car
Misogynistic music banned
The Central African Republic government has ordered radio and TV stations to stop broadcasting songs which encourage men to dump their wives, saying such music is a hindrance to the country's development. Broadcasters had been told not to play any music which might inspire men to look for new partners if the ones they were married to no longer satisfied their needs. Polygamy is legal in the former French colony, one of the world's poorest countries, with men allowed to marry up to four wives.
■ Mexico
Agents suspected of crime
The country created an elite force of federal agents modeled on the FBI four years ago, but now one in five members of the agency is under investigation for committing crimes, the attorney general's office said on Sunday. The attorney general's office said 1,493 members of the Federal Investigation Agency (AFI), are under investigation "for probably committing crimes," and 457 of those currently face prosecution. Founded in an attempt to end rampant corruption among police, the AFI is seen as being infiltrated by powerful drug gangs.
■ United States
Coffee, tea may aid liver
Coffee and tea may reduce the risk of serious liver damage in people who drink alcohol too much, are overweight or have too much iron in the blood, researchers said. A study of nearly 10,000 people showed that those who drank more than two cups of coffee or tea per day developed chronic liver disease at half the rate of those who drank less than one cup each day. The study, conducted by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases and Social & Scientific Systems, found that coffee provided no protection to people at risk of liver disease from other causes, such as viral infections.
■ United States
Demolition proves a bust
A big boom anticipated by thousands of spectators in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on Saturday turned out to be a real bust. Crowds gathered outside the Zip Feed Mill -- the state's tallest building -- to watch officials demolish the nearly 60m tall building. But things didn't go as planned. "It took the first floor out and it is leaning at about a 30-degree angle," said Regan Smith, a risk emergency manager. Prior to the event, residents raised US$100,000 to fight multiple sclerosis by selling T-shirts saying "BOOM!" A wrecking ball may be have to be used this week to bring down the building to make room for office and retail space.
■ Brazil
Heiress weds equestrian
Athina Roussel, billionaire heiress to the late Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis' fortune, married Brazilian equestrian champion Alvaro Affonso de Miranda in a sumptuous wedding held behind tight security in Sao Paulo on Saturday night. Up to 1,300 guests from around the world attended the event. The couple exchanged vows around 10pm and the party lasted until 4am on Sunday. Divorced Miranda, 32, who is known by his nickname Doda, was heard whispering "You are everything to me," to his bride.
■ United States
San Diego drops `finest' title
America's Finest City? For San Diego, not anymore. One of its congressmen admitted taking US$2.4 million in bribes, the FBI investigated city hall, the mayor resigned, a US$1.37 billion pension shortfall damaged the city's credit rating and fueled talk of bankruptcy, and two councilmen were convicted of taking bribes from a strip club owner. So the city has quietly dethroned itself and dropped the self-proclaimed title "America's Finest City" from its official Web site. "We couldn't stake that claim anymore," said Gina Lew, the city's director of public and media affairs. "We were taking too many hits." The San Diego Union-Tribune asked readers to coin a new slogan. Some of the 500 responses: "Scandalicious," "An Eruption of Corruption," "All Major Unmarked Bills Accepted Here," and "Bunglers by the Bay."
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,
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
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
Thailand has netted more than 1.3 million kilograms of highly destructive blackchin tilapia fish, the government said yesterday, as it battles to stamp out the invasive species. Shoals of blackchin tilapia, which can produce up to 500 young at a time, have been found in 19 provinces, damaging ecosystems in rivers, swamps and canals by preying on small fish, shrimp and snail larvae. As well as the ecological impact, the government is worried about the effect on the kingdom’s crucial fish-farming industry. Fishing authorities caught 1,332,000kg of blackchin tilapia from February to Wednesday last week, said Nattacha Boonchaiinsawat, vice president of a parliamentary
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