■ Japan
Eating queen prevails again
Twenty-year-old eating queen Natsuko Sone won a gorging contest on the island of Hokkaido, gobbling two boxes of sea urchins, 500 grams of salmon roe and crab meat, three squid, 10 scallops and assorted sashimi in 30 minutes, media reports said yesterday. The eating contest also included nearly four liters of rice for each of the 10 contestants. She has already won several eating contests featured on television.
■ Singapore
Orc-bashing declared sport
Killing orcs and other online monsters has received the official nod of approval as a national sport with a group set up to train players for international cyber-gaming events, organizers said yesterday. The CyberSport Association has been endorsed by Team Singapore, which overseas the national sports teams. "We are recognizing the positive contribution of cyber-athletes in doing the country proud," the Straits Times quoted Kelvin Chua, general manager of Team Singapore, as saying.
■ Japan
Cops uncover grisly crime
A man is under arrest for allegedly dismembering his mother and entombing her body parts in concrete-filled buckets abandoned in a yard in western Japan, police said yesterday. Police suspect that 37-year-old Yaoki Osawa of Kawachi Nagano City also roasted some of his mother's body parts on an electric grill before throwing them out with the garbage Kyodo News agency reported. Despite confessing that he had dismembered his mother, Osawa denies killing her, a police spokesman said. The suspect says he discovered his mother's lifeless body at home and, not knowing what to do with her, chopped her up.
■ New Zealand
Smoker saves diver
A smoker ,who went on deck aboard a cargo ferry to have a pre-dawn cigarette, saved the life of a diver missing in the Cook Strait for more than 12 hours, the Newstalk ZB radio network reported. The 30-year-old diver, who has not been named, failed to surface after a fishing expedition on Sunday afternoon. About 5am yesterday, a crewman on the cargo ship Kent having a smoke on deck heard his cries for help, the report said. The ship turned around and search lights picked up the reflective safety gear he was still wearing. The man, who had drifted nearly 13km during the night, was taken to hospital and later discharged as being fit and well.
■ China
Detained Nyima turns 17
A Tibetan youth considered by rights groups to be the world's youngest political prisoner turns 17 today, 11 years after disappearing from public view when he was named the Himalayan region's second-ranking religious figure. The whereabouts of Gendun Choekyi Nyima -- who human-rights watchdogs say has been living under house arrest since the Dalai Lama recognized him as the 11th Panchen Lama -- is one of China's most zealously guarded state secrets. Beijing picked Gyaltsen Norbu as the reincarnation of the 10th Panchen Lama, who died in 1989. The 16-year-old Norbu, who recently made his world debut at a Buddhism forum in China, is reviled by Dalai Lama loyalists as a pretender.
■ Philippines
Bus plunges, killing seven
A bus fell into a 30m deep ravine while negotiating a curvy road in the northeastern Philippines early yesterday, killing at least seven passengers, police said. An additional 64 people were taken to a hospital in nearby Pagbilao Town, about 120km southeast of Manila, police officer Ronaldo Glorioso said. He said the Manila-bound bus was trying to avoid a vehicle coming from the opposite direction when it lost control and fell off the road. It wasn't clear if the driver was among the dead, Glorioso said.
■ Philippines
Coup suspects charged
Government prosecutors yesterday filed rebellion charges against a former senator, six left-wing lawmakers and 42 others suspected of plotting a coup in February, officials said. Among those charged were former senator Gregorio Honasan, an ex-army colonel involved in coup attempts in the late 1980s; House of Representatives members Crispin Beltran, Liza Maza, Joel Virador, Rafael Mariano, Satur Ocampo and Teodoro Casino; two retired military colonels, at least four military officers and Communist guerrilla leaders, Senior State Prosecutor Emmanuel Velasco said. The lawmakers have been confined to the House building for fear of arrest since late February. Honasan has gone into hiding while some of the military suspects have been detained.
■ Hong Kong
Cast prays for better karma
The cast and director of the violent gangster movie Election and its sequel released 400 fish at sea in a Buddhist ceremony to improve their karma after filming bloody scenes, the Apple Daily reported yesterday. The daily ran a photo of director Johnnie To (杜琪峰), actors Simon Yam (任達華), Louis Koo (古天樂), Lam Ka-tung (林家棟) and Lam Suet (林雪) lined up at the back of a boat, hands clasped in prayer position. It quoted To as saying the cast also set birds free when the sequel to Election, due out in Hong Kong on Thursday, started filming. "We're just doing what we're supposed to do," To reportedly said.
■ Hungary
Budget reforms requested
Business leaders called on the Socialist government to push ahead with budget reforms quickly after it was re-elected on Sunday with an increased parliamentary majority. The Socialist-led coalition government became the first since the end of communism in 1989 to win two consecutive elections, and the stronger majority will give Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany the clout to sell economic reforms. Gyurcsany, 44, became prime minister after a Socialist party coup in 2004, and has revitalized the Socialists and their Free Democrat allies who saw their majority rise on Sunday to 210 seats from 198 in the 386-member parliament.
■ Bulgaria
Bases opened to US
The government has agreed to open three military bases to permanent use by 2,500 US troops who would be available for combat in the Middle East and other nearby regions, the Washington Times reported yesterday. Citing unnamed US and Bulgarian officials, the newspaper said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will seal the deal when she visits the country this week. Rice, who left on a trip to the Balkans yesterday, is expected to sign a broad defense-cooperation agreement with the new NATO ally that would authorize the stationing of foreign forces on its soil for the first time in its 1,325-year history.
■ Vatican City
Condom statement expected
The Vatican will soon publish a statement on the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS, an issue highlighted by a call from a leading cardinal to ease its ban on them, a Catholic Church official said. Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, the head of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care, declined to reveal the contents of the document in an interview published in Sunday's la Repubblica newspaper, but said Pope Benedict had asked his department to study the issue. The former archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, who was standard bearer for a moderate minority in the conclave that elected the Pope last year, called for a reform in an interview published in Italy on Friday.
■ Sierra Leone
Chimps kill driver
A group of chimpanzees attacked and killed a driver on Sunday and injured two American visitors and one Canadian at a wildlife sanctuary, a police spokesman said. Paramilitary police and forest rangers were searching dense jungle to see if they could capture the chimpanzees after the attack at the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary on the outskirts of the capital, Freetown. "The driver was killed on the spot while the three surviving victims, the Americans and the Canadian, sustained serious wounds," said Sergeant John Kamara, an officer at the Regent Police Post.
■ United States
Serial killer earns privileges
Good behavior has earned the self-styled BTK ("bind, torture and kill") serial killer the privilege to watch television, listen to the radio, read and draw in his prison cell. Prosecutors in Kansas had sought restrictions on such activities, saying images of women and children and news accounts of his murders would allow Dennis Rader to relive his grisly, sex-fueled fantasies. But Rader earned the privileges through a system designed to encourage good behavior.
■ United Kingdom
Women prefer chores to sex
The good news for lazy British men is that women find domestic chores "mentally therapeutic" -- the bad news is that many prefer house cleaning to making love, according to details of a survey published yesterday. The Independent daily reported that "even in an age when women are making economic strides and excelling in the workplace, the one thing that gives the majority a sense of empowerment is a good go around the house with the vacuum cleaner -- followed by some cleaning and dusting." The online study, commissioned by the Discovery Home and Health Web site, found the average woman between 18 and 80 spent nine years, two months and 25 days of her waking life cleaning and tidying.
■ United States
House collapse kills man
It was like a scene from a horror film: A 27-year-old California man plummeted into a gaping hole that suddenly opened beneath a house, trapping him beneath foundation rubble and killing him. Authorities say the home, built in the 1980s, may have been sitting atop a decades-old underground mine. Recent rains could have softened the ground under the home, in an isolated area near Lake Alta. "It's unbelievable," Placer County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Dena Erwin said. "From the front of the house, it's absolutely normal. Then, in the middle of the house, is this enormous hole," she said. The victim was awake and on the ground floor about 9:30pm last Friday when the concrete foundation near the kitchen gave way, sending him plunging into to the ground, Erwin said.
■ United States
Ground Zero help requested
A US senator representing New York has asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to send an elite military unit to search for human remains at "Ground Zero" after hundreds of new bone fragments were found at an adjacent building in recent months. The White House has said previously that it would let local authorities handle the recovery of remains, but Senator Charles Schumer, a Democrat, said on Sunday that the recent "miraculous" discovery of so many new bone fragments warrants more extensive recovery efforts.
■ Russia
Official heads to China
Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov was set to fly to China yesterday for three days of meetings including talks with defense ministers from a regional security body, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The visit comes amid strengthening political and military ties between Moscow and Beijing. The two nations held unprecedented military exercises in northern China last August and China is now the largest buyer of Russian military hardware and a growing consumer of Russian oil. Ivanov will meet with counterparts from the Russia- and China-dominated SCO.
■ United Kingdom
Officers to entrap pedophiles
Police officers will trawl online chatrooms posing as children to entrap pedophiles as part of a plan launched yesterday to tackle child abuse over the Internet. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center -- which will work in partnership with the recently-set up Serious Organized Crime Agency -- will operate 24 hours a day. The new unit, staffed by specialist police officers, computer experts and child welfare officials, will also create fake Web sites that will pretend to offer child porn.
Packed crowds in India celebrating their cricket team’s victory ended in a deadly stampede on Wednesday, with 11 mainly young fans crushed to death, the local state’s chief minister said. Joyous cricket fans had come out to celebrate and welcome home their heroes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after they beat Punjab Kings in a roller-coaster Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket final on Tuesday night. However, the euphoria of the vast crowds in the southern tech city of Bengaluru ended in disaster, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra calling it “absolutely heartrending.” Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said most of the deceased are young, with 11 dead
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has
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