■ China
Buddhist forum scheduled
The first major international forum on Buddhism since 1949 will be held to complement President Hu Jintao's (胡錦濤) campaign to build a "harmonious society" and burnish China's tarnished image on religious freedom. Some 1,000 monks and experts on Buddhism from about 10 countries as well as China and Hong Kong will descend on the scenic city of Hangzhou in the eastern province of Zhejiang for the World Buddhist Forum opening on April 13.
■ Japan
DNA mementos for sale
People hoping to remember deceased loved ones with something more permanent than a lock of hair or faded photo can now have a piece of their DNA saved in a pendant being offered by a Japanese company. Eiwa Industry Co, a small metalworking company, this month began selling pendants for preserving genetic mementos of deceased people, general manager Morihito Ikai said yesterday. The silver pendants cost ¥50,000 (US$428), which includes the pendant, a chain and the charge for extracting DNA.
■ Bangladesh
New polio case discovered
Authorities have discovered the first polio case in nearly six years and will resume mass vaccinations against the crippling disease next month, the health minister said yesterday. Laboratory tests confirmed that a nine-year-old girl in eastern Chandpur district has polio, Health and Family Welfare Minister Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain said. "This is an emergency and we will do our best to completely eradicate the virus," Hossain said. Bangladesh's last mass vaccination campaign against polio was in 2004, when more than 22 million children were vaccinated.
■ Hong Kong
Two die in police gunfight
A gunfight in Tsim Sha Tsui killed an on-duty police officer and an off-duty policeman, while critically wounding a third officer who was on patrol, officials said. Two of the men, found unconscious with bullet wounds around 1am, were declared dead after being rushed to a hospital, police said. The second on-duty constable, found with gunshot wounds to his face and legs, was hospitalized in critical condition. Three guns were found at the scene and at least 10 shots had been fired, they said. Local media reported one of the guns is believed to have been snatched from a policeman killed five years ago.
■ China
Jaywalkers face work woes
People who cross the street against the lights could face punishments at work, including being overlooked for a promotion and a loss of salary bonuses. A draft traffic regulation in Nanjing proposes that people repeatedly caught jaywalking or riding bikes through red traffic lights be reported to their employers, state media said yesterday. The law on road safety states that every work unit or company has the responsibility to educate their staff on traffic regulations, an official at Nanjing's traffic administration bureau told the China Daily. Nanjing already fines jaywalkers 20 yuan (US$2.50) and cyclists and moped drivers 50 yuan for crossing against red traffic lights.
■ Japan
Mad cow case confirmed
Japan yesterday confirmed its first case of mad cow disease case in cattle raised for meat, a health ministry official said. Its previous 23 cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) were all detected in milk cows aged between one and nine years. The latest case was a 14-year-old black-haired cow raised for breeding at a farm in Nagasaki Prefecture on Kyushu, the official at the ministry's food safety division said. The cow, which was killed by authorities, had given birth to 10 calves.
■ Australia
Strippers can take time off
Strippers have won the right to take time off after taking their clothes off. The Industrial Relations Commission yesterday approved new workplace rules for members of the strippers' union, the Striptease Artists Australia. "We've got rights to have public holiday pay now, which we've never had in our career before," said a union spokeswoman. "We've got rosters and set hours. We can't work more than 10 hours a shift." The award also entitles unionized strippers to overtime, rest periods, meal breaks and maternity leave, she said.
■ Germany
Injured man at work: court
Employees at office parties are considered to be at work until the boss leaves, a German court ruled in the case of an employee seeking damages for a head injury sustained at a company Christmas celebration. The case came before the social affairs court in Frankfurt after an insurance company refused to pay disability to a man who suffered severe skull damage after slipping on the steps of a restaurant at his office Christmas party. The court ruled the company's accident insurance would have to pay disability to the man because he was technically still at work, the court said in a statement on Thursday.
■ Israel
Outrage over `Hitler' prize
Holocaust survivors are furious over an award given to a high-school pupil in the south of the country who they say dressed up as Adolf Hitler, the Israeli Ma'ariv daily reported on Thursday. The embarrassed winner of the fancy-dress competition, a 12th grader in the town of Omer, near Beersheeba, said he was not impersonating Hitler, but Adenoid Hynkel, the character played by Charlie Chaplin in the 1940 classic parody of the Nazis, The Great Dictator. "I have trouble believing how the youth's parents allowed this situation to develop," Holocaust survivor Miriam Yahav said.
■ United States
Bust finds pot-laced treats
Federal agents that busted a marijuana ring on Thursday were disturbed to find pot-laced candy and soft drinks potentially tempting to children, officials said. Marijuana-infused treats and beverages were seized during a series of raids at indoor pot farms that netted 12 arrests, according to Javier Pena, a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration. Confiscated items reportedly bore labels including Stoney Ranchers, Munchy Way, Rasta Reece's, Buddafingers, Pot Tarts, Double Puff Oreo, Keef Kat, Twixed, Budtella, Puff-A-Mint Pattie, Puffsi, Bong's Root Beer, and Toka-Cola.
■ Israel
Raid boosts Olmert
The seizure of a radical Palestinian leader in a prison raid boosted interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in opinion polls published on Thursday ahead of a March 28 election they predict he will win. Pointing to a "Jericho effect," a survey on Army Radio gave Olmert's front-running Kadima party 43 seats in the 120-member parliament, a six-seat jump which the poll attributed to public support for Tuesday's West Bank operation. Opinion polls in newspapers predicted a smaller increase, to 38 or 39 seats, for centrist Kadima following seizure of Ahmed Saadat, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
■ Canada
New malaria test developed
A new assay for chloroquine-resistant malaria has been developed by Canadian and German researchers. "Currently, the detection of malaria depends upon microscopic techniques from the 1800s," which are not reliably accurate, Doctor Kevin Kain of Toronto General Hospital said. Moreover, the old diagnostic procedures "provide no information about what drugs would be most suitable to treat the infection." Kain said. The researchers developed a real-time assay based on detecting DNA from the malaria parasite known as Plasmodium falciparum, along with the genetic variations that render it resistant to the standard drug, chloroquine. The assay, Kain said, gives results in less than an hour.
■ Austria
Roo takes cops on a hop
A kangaroo led police in southern Austria on a snow chase Thursday after it jumped the fence of its cage and decided to explore its wintery surroundings. The marsupial -- discovered on a country road about 5km outside the town of St. Veit in the province of Carinthia -- kept hopping away from perplexed police trying to rein it in, local police officer Joerg Fortin said. In the end, a local veterinarian, helped capture the animal using a stun gun. The kangaroo -- which belongs to a breeder in Tirol -- was in southern Austria for treatment by Georg Rainer, another local veterinarian.
■ Canada
TV wins over sex: survey
A new study suggests the nation's baby boomers are more likely to fall asleep watching television than to have sex with their partner at night. The Ipsos-Reid survey published on Thursday found Canadians between 40 and 64 years old dedicate an average of just 15 minutes a day to sex and romance. They said they were too stressed or too tired or simply did not have enough time for a romp in bed. But, the protagonists of the sexual revolution said they spent about four or five hours per day watching TV or surfing the Internet, more than 30 hours per week in total.
■ United Kingdom
Charles wins partial victory
Prince Charles won a partial victory on Friday in a legal battle to keep his diaries private but may yet suffer the embarrassment of seeing more extracts appear in print. The heir to the throne was suing the Mail on Sunday for publishing parts of a journal covering a trip to Asia for the 1997 handover of the colony of Hong Kong to China during which he referred to Chinese officials as "appalling old waxworks." The ruling in London's High Court bans the newspaper from printing more of the so-called Hong Kong journal, but there must now be a hearing in respect of possible publication of extracts from seven other journals. Lawyers said the new hearing would be a "technicality," but the judgment raised the possibility of further embarrassing revelations from the journals emerging in court.
■ United States
Airport security fails
Security screeners at 21 US airports failed to find bomb-making materials during recent government tests, NBC Nightly News. reported on Thursday. Federal agents carrying materials that could be used to make bombs escaped detection in airport screening during tests conducted between October and January, NBC said, citing government sources. "In all 21 airports tested, no machine, no swab, no screener anywhere stopped the bomb materials from getting through. Even when investigators deliberately triggered extra screening of bags, no one stopped these materials," the report said.
■ United States
`Snakehead' gets 35 years
A businesswoman in New York's Chinatown, described as one of the most successful "snakeheads" of all time, was sentenced on Wednesday to 35 years in prison for operating an immigrant-smuggling ring. Cheng Chui Ping, 57, also known as "Sister Ping," was the mastermind behind a multi-million dollar operation that led to the "Golden Venture" ship disaster in 1993. Ten people died when the freight ship crammed with illegal immigrants ran aground off New York's Rockaway Beach. Ping was convicted last June on charges that included conspiracy to commit alien smuggling, money laundering and trafficking in ransom proceeds.
Crowds in Bangladesh are flocking to snap photographs with an unlikely social media star — an albino buffalo with flowing blond hair nicknamed “Donald Trump” that is due to be sacrificed within days. Owner Zia Uddin Mridha, 38, said his brother named the 700kg bull over its flowing helmet of hair resembling the signature look of the US president. “My younger brother picked this name because of the buffalo’s extraordinary hair,” he said at his farm in Narayanganj, just outside the capital, Dhaka. Mridha said that a constant stream of curious visitors — social media fans, onlookers and children — have come throughout
It began as a satirical online project. Now millions of young people in India are flocking to it as an outlet for their frustration. A parody political party called the Cockroach Janta Party, with the insect as its symbol, has exploded across India’s social media by turning absurdist humor into protest. Memes and short videos mocking corruption, joblessness and political dysfunction have flooded social media sites, where millions of users are embracing the cockroach — known for its ability to survive harsh conditions — as a tongue-in-cheek symbol of endurance. The online movement’s rise has been unusually rapid. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)
HOTTER: While Indians are accustomed to summer heat, climate change has caused northwestern India to warm faster than other parts of the country, an academic said Roads and markets have emptied during afternoons and some farmers have switched to nighttime work to avoid scorching temperatures as a heat wave grips large parts of India. The India Meteorological Department forecast maximum temperatures for yesterday of about 45°C in the capital, New Delhi, where authorities have opened temporary “cooling zones” to help people cope. The weather department warned that conditions would likely persist across several northern regions in the coming days, with temperatures staying well above seasonal averages. Authorities urged people to stay indoors during the hottest hours and take precautions against heat-related illnesses. India declares a heat wave whenever maximum temperatures
BIGGER ROLE: Beijing has said it maintains an impartial stance on the war in Ukraine, but by training Russian troops, China is far more involved than previously known China’s armed forces secretly trained about 200 Russian military personnel in China late last year, and some have since returned to fight in Ukraine, according to three European intelligence agencies and documents seen by Reuters. While China and Russia have held a number of joint military exercises since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Beijing has repeatedly said that it is neutral in the conflict and presents itself as a peace mediator. The covert training sessions, which predominantly focused on the use of drones, were outlined in a dual-language Russian-Chinese agreement signed by senior Russian and Chinese officers in Beijing on
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