■ Singapore
Sex video spawns copies
A widely circulated sex video of a polytechnic student who lost her cellphone has sparked a flood of similar clips, news reports said yesterday. The films are now openly swapped via phones, general chat boards, online file-sharing services and even on peer-to-peer networks, according to the Straits Times. The 17-year-old Nanyang Polytechnic student identified only as Tammy lost her cellphone three weeks ago that contained a sex video she made with her boyfriend. It was picked up by someone else and gained such a level of notoriety that it was downloaded by Internet users as far away as the US. At least seven other homemade films, some more daring than the Tammy clip, are now doing the rounds. They show couples, some in groups of three, in various positions, the report said.
■ China
Blast levels building
Nine people died and four were injured when a powerful explosion leveled a three-story residential building in southern China, a local official said yesterday. The deadly blast happened at around noon on Saturday in Leye County, part of the Guangxi-Zhuang autonomous region, according to the police official. "We don't know yet what caused the accident," he said. "There's no fireworks production going on there." The state-run Xinhua news agency reported that seven people were killed on the spot and that two died later in hospital. It said the four remaining injured people were being treated in hospital. Xinhua quoted the owner of the building as saying that he had rented out rooms to a total of nine lodgers.
■ Japan
Abe remains favorite
Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe remains the public's overwhelming favorite to succeed Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi later this year, according to a poll released yesterday. Fifty-four percent of respondents backed Abe when asked who would be the most appropriate next premier, according to the poll jointly conducted by researchers and the media. Since being promoted to the Cabinet secretary's post last October, Abe has been backed by more than half of the people in various polls. Far below at No.2 was Yasuo Fukuda at 10 percent, with Foreign Minister Aso Taro third at 6 percent.
■ Australia
Queen arrives Down Under
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II was greeted with scattered cries of "God Save the Queen" on her arrival in Canberra yesterday, where her visit has sparked mild controversy over the playing of the royal anthem. Some 400 people turned out at the Fairbairn defense base to welcome the queen and her husband, Prince Philip, for a four-day visit during which she will officially open the Commonwealth Games. The games organizers upset some Australians by deciding against playing Britain's national anthem, God Save the Queen, during the opening ceremony, despite the fact that she remains Australia's head of state.
■ Malaysia
Going half the way
Kuala Lumpur says it will continue work on its "half bridge" to Singapore, local media reported yesterday, even before its neighbor has agreed to build its half. Works Minister S. Samy Vellu directed the contractor, Gerbang Perdana, to start construction three weeks ago he was quoted as saying by the official Bernama news agency. Singapore could continue to build the rest of the bridge once it agreed to do so, he said. Singapore has said that it would only agree to the construction of a full bridge to replace the existing ageing causeway if both sides stood to gain equally.
■ Australia
Underwater ant discovered
Scientists have discovered what they think is the only species of ant that can live under water. Researchers at Townsville's James Cook University said yesterday that newly discovered polyrhachis sokolova nest in submerged mangroves and hide from predators in air pockets. Simon Robson said he chanced upon the find while researching something else. He told broadcaster ABC: "I was actually working with a film crew working on insects in the mangroves and they wanted to film one of these ants and I said, `Well, lets put it on a rock in a puddle of water and that'll stop it going away and then you'll be able to film it,' and the ant promptly just leapt off the edge of the rock and swam across the water."
■ Australia
Teen charged with bomb plot
A 15-year-old boy was due to appear in court today on charges of plotting to bomb his school in Sydney and kill students who bullied him, local media reported yesterday. He was allegedly inspired by the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in the US in which two teens shot dead 12 students and a teacher before committing suicide. The youth appeared in Lidcome Children's court on Saturday where prosecutors said he had made detailed plans to acquire bomb-making ingredients from hardware stores after researching The Anarchist's Cookbook on the Internet. He had allegedly drawn up a "kill list" naming his targets.
■ United States
Friends remember activist
Friends of US peace activist Tom Fox, who was kidnapped and killed in Iraq, cited his stance against retribution on Saturday and called for the remembrance of all victims of violence around the world. Members of the Langley Hill Friends Meeting, a peace group in northern Virginia to which Fox, 54, belonged, read a statement he co-wrote in October 2004 in which he shunned violence, even to rescue him should he ever be kidnapped. "We reject violence to punish anyone who harms us," said Doug Smith, quoting Fox, in a statement read to reporters at the group's headquarters in McLean. "We forgive those who consider us their enemies ... Therefore, any penalty should be in the spirit of restorative justice rather than in the form of violent retribution."
■ French Guiana
Rocket launches satellites
A heavy-lift Ariane-5 rocket put two telecommunications satellites into orbit on Saturday, European space officials said. The rocket blasted-off from Europe's space base in Kourou, on the northeast coast of South America at 7:32pm. Twenty-seven minutes after the launch, the rocket released into a preliminary orbit the SPAINSAT, a 3.7 tonne satellite for Spain's Defense Ministry. Five minutes later, the rocket orbited HOT BIRD 7A, a 4.1 tonne satellite for Paris-based telecoms operator Eutelsat that will provide telephone, data and video transmissions across throughout Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.
■ Bahamas
Ex-detainee wins lawsuit
A Japanese man suffering from amnesia was unlawfully held in a prison and an immigration center for eight years without being charged, a court has ruled. Atain Takitota, 41, was awarded US$500,000, which includes US$400,000 "for the loss of eight years and two months of the appellant's life," the Bahamas Court of Appeal said on Thursday. Atain told officials that he arrived in the Bahamas from Japan in August 1992 and soon lost more than US$7,000 at a casino. His luggage, passport and money were later stolen. Police arrested him on vagrancy charges and he was held until October 2000. "What is particularly troubling about this case is that not once during the entire eight-year period that the appellant was incarcerated was he taken before any court at any time," the judges said.
■ United States
Frist wins straw poll
Republican Senate leader Bill Frist won a straw poll on Saturday of party activists choosing their early favorite in the 2008 White House race. Frist, who packed the home-state crowd in Memphis, Tennessee, with supporters wearing blue "Frist is my leader" buttons, won nearly 37 percent of the 1,427 votes cast by delegates to the Southern Republican Leadership Conference. Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was second with 14.4 percent, while Senator George Allen finished tied for third with President George W. Bush, whose name was added to the ballot by 10.3 percent of the delegates at the urging of Senator John McCain. The poll results could give Frist and Romney a boost heading into the 2008 campaign.
■ United States
Record mango claimed
A woman in Hawaii says she has grown the world's heaviest mango, a fruit that is roughly the size of a human head. Colleen Porter has a certificate from the Guinness Book of World Records for growing a mango that weighs 2.5kg. Picked last October, it is kept in her refrigerator.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is in “excellent health” and fit for the presidency, according to a medical report published by the White House on Saturday as she challenged her rival, former US president Donald Trump, to publish his own health records. “Vice President Harris remains in excellent health,” her physician Joshua Simmons said in the report, adding that she “possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.” Speaking to reporters ahead of a trip to North Carolina, Harris called Trump’s unwillingness to publish his records “a further example
RUSSIAN INPUT: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington’s actions in Asia ‘destructive,’ accusing it of being the reason for the ‘militarization’ of Japan The US is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ASEAN leaders yesterday during an annual summit, and pledged that Washington would continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the region. The 10-member ASEAN meeting with Blinken followed a series of confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam. “We are very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes,” said Blinken, who
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