■ China
Most foreign booze fake
Nearly 60 percent of "foreign-brand" liquor found in four major Chinese cities is fake, according to a random check carried out by the State Administration for Industry and Commerce. The administration inspected 40 bottles, mostly cognac and whisky, in 19 retail outlets and found 23 with Hennessy, Remy Martin, Martell and certain Scotch whisky labels were fake, the Beijing Daily Messenger reported yesterday. The counterfeit products were filled with substandard spirit and their packaging, including the "fake-proof" laser certificates, was realistic enough to fool ordinary consumers, the newspaper said.
■ Hong Kong
City gets bad air crown
Satellite pictures have confirmed Hong Kong's status as one of the world's most polluted cities, with stratospheric levels of smog, a news report said yesterday. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University has teamed up with the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration to give researchers access to daily satellite images of the region and the world, the Hong Kong Standard reported. "What surprised us is that when we compared pollution in Hong Kong on a normal day, it was always higher than other cities like Taipei, Paris and Washington," associate professor Janet Nichol told the paper.
■ Philippines
Fire rages through slum
A huge blaze destroyed about 1,500 shacks in a slum in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao overnight but there were no reports of any deaths or injuries, city and fire officials said yesterday. Nearly 5,000 people were left homeless after the seven-hour fire, sparked at about 6:30pm by an unattended candle, ripped through the shanty town's narrow streets in the port of Zamboanga City. "It was an inferno," Zamboanga City mayor Celso Lobregat told reporters, saying blocked streets and low water pressure failed to contain the flames from spreading quickly to houses made of light materials.
■ China
Tibet to get new roads
With an historic train line to Tibet about to open, China is now planning to spend around US$700 million on a vast new road network for the Himalayan territory, state press reported yesterday. China will this year spend 5.7 billion yuan on road construction in Tibet as it starts building 21 highway projects, the Xinhua news agency said. Part of the money will pay for upgrading the highway connecting the Himalayan kingdom of Nepal with Tibet, a mountainous region which has long had poor roads.
■ Netherlands
Drug, rape scandal hits navy
Dutch naval personnel re-enacted the abuse of prisoners committed at the US prison at Abu Ghraib near Baghdad as a joke and took photographs of the scenes, the Telegraaf newspaper reported yesterday. The incident mimicking the notorious photographs took place aboard the supply ship Amsterdam, the national daily said. The report was published a day after revelations of sexual abuse, including rape, aboard another Dutch vessel, the frigate Tjerk Hiddes. Crew members acknowledged alcohol abuse, snorting cocaine and participating in acts of sexual abuse against women crew members.
■ France
Non-stop arousal studied
A health journal yesterday described a newly identified syndrome affecting women -- non-stop sexual arousal that can last for months and cannot be satisfied regardless of the number of orgasms. The paper, which appears in the International Journal of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and AIDS, tentatively calls it Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome, or PSAS. It seems to affect only a small minority of women, but the true extent is unclear. The study says that, despite the sniggering or smart remarks this condition may cause, the state of endless arousal can cripple a woman's life.
■ Ireland
Brides grieve over gowns
Angry, tearful brides-to-be had to be held back by police on Thursday after one of the country's top bridal designers declared bankruptcy and shut its doors without warning -- and with about 180 dresses undelivered. Lawmakers in the southwest city of Cork demanded answers from the management of the Wedding Dress Shop, where furious customers tried to get into the locked business to collect their dresses, which had been ordered months in advance and cost anywhere from US$2,500 to US$8,500. "Customers are currently in a state of panic, not knowing if they will be able to wear their dream dresses at their upcoming wedding," said Kathleen Lynch, a Cork lawmaker.
■ Cameroon
Fishermen seek survivors
Fishermen deputized as rescue workers searched the seas off Cameroon on Thursday, but officials feared 127 people missing were dead after the sinking of a ferry. Gregoire Mvombo, a top official in the region, cited survivors, of whom there were 23, as saying 150 people from Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast were aboard. It was unclear what caused the accident or even when it may have occurred. Mvombo had no more details.
■ Israel
Poll exposes racism
A poll of attitudes among Israel's Jews towards their country's Arab citizens has exposed widespread racism, with large numbers favoring segregation and policies to encourage Arabs to leave the country. The poll found that more than two-thirds of Jews would refuse to live in the same building as an Arab. Nearly half would not allow an Arab in their home and 41 percent want segregation of entertainment facilities. The survey also found 40 percent of Israel's Jews believe "the state needs to support the emigration of Arab citizens," a policy advocated by some far-right parties in the run-up to next week's general election. The poll was conducted by a respected Israeli organization, Geocartographia, for the Center for the Struggle Against Racism, founded by Arab-Israeli academics.
■ Italy
US warns tourists
The US government stoked an angry row in Italy on Thursday when it warned American tourists of the threat of violence and terrorism in the run-up to next month's general election. In an unusual intervention that set the two leading election candidates at loggerheads, the US state department said Americans should avoid large crowds and remain aware that demonstrations could quickly degenerate into violence. Romano Prodi, the opposition leader who is challenging Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in the April 9-10 poll, said he was startled at the US message and called it unnecessary and alarmist.
■ United States
Is nowhere safe?
Texas has begun sending undercover agents into bars to arrest drinkers for being drunk, a spokeswoman for the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission said on Wednesday. The first sting operation was conducted recently in a Dallas suburb where agents infiltrated 36 bars and arrested 30 people for public intoxication, said the commission's Carolyn Beck. Being in a bar does not exempt one from the state laws against public drunkeness, Beck said. The goal, she said, was to detain drunks before they leave a bar and go do something dangerous like drive a car.
■ United States
Dummy fetches US$15,000
A makeshift mannequin that failed to fool police monitoring the high-occupancy vehicle lane on a highway has fetched US$15,000 in an auction on eBay, with proceeds going to charity, the buyer announced. A company called Video Professor bought the Styrofoam head, coat hanger, and clothing stuffed with newspapers from carpool-lane scofflaw Greg Pringle, 53, said Brian Olson, a spokesman for the company. Olson said the computer tutoring company would take Tillie to various events and later auction her off again for charity in June. As part of his sentence handed down earlier this month, Pringle agreed to donate any profits from a Web site -- launched to free "Tillie" after she was impounded by police -- and the auction to a driver safety awareness program.
■ United States
Office workers slack off
A quarter of workers who use a computer admit using it to hunt for a new job on company time, according to a survey released on Wednesday. Among workers who believe their Internet use is monitored by their bosses, one-quarter use their work computer for job-hunting, according to research conducted for professional staffing company Hudson Highland Group Inc. "It's one of the ways employees deal with work-life balance issues," said Robert Morgan, chief operating officer at Hudson Talent Management, one of the company's divisions. "Because we're spending so much time at work, that's the only time we have to schedule some of those appointments."
■ United States
Fetal tissue is evidence
Doctors performing abortions on girls younger than 13 years old would be required to preserve a sample of the fetal tissue for law enforcement under a bill passed by the state Senate on Thursday. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation could use those samples for DNA tests to help prosecute rapists, said Democratic Senator Roy Herron, the bill's sponsor. "Whoever has sex with a child 12 years of age or younger is committing rape, whether force is involved or not, and they ought to be prosecuted," he said.
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
Filipino farmers like Romeo Wagayan have been left with little choice but to let their vegetables rot in the field rather than sell them at a loss, as rising oil prices linked to the Iran war drive up the cost of harvesting, labor and transport. “There’s nothing we can do,” said Wagayan, a 57-year old vegetable farmer in the northern Philippine province of Benguet. “If we harvest it, our losses only increase because of labor, transportation and packing costs. We don’t earn anything from it. That’s why we decided not to harvest at all,” he said. Soaring costs caused by the Middle East
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