■ China
Drug traffickers jailed
A court has sentenced two men from Pakistan and Nigeria to life in prison on charges of smuggling heroin, a state-run newspaper said yesterday. Pakistani Muhammad Zubair, 54, and Nigerian Agape Emeka, 31, were sentenced at the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court on Monday, the China Daily said. Another Pakistani, Tahir Hussain Abbasi, 43, was sentenced to 15 years, it said. The report said Zubair carried 1kg of heroin on a flight from Islamabad. Four days later, Abbasi traveled to Beijing after swallowing 39 heroin pills weighing 330g.
■ China
Orchid defies gravity
Scientists have discovered an orchid that reproduces in an adverse climate by twisting its male sexual organ so that it can fertilize its female organ. In what is believed to the first known case in the plant world, a pink-flowered orchid, Holcoglossum amesianum, defies gravity by turning its anther through 360 degrees in order to insert pollen at its tip into the female cavity, the stigma. The orchid grows in tree trunks at altitudes of between 1,200m and 2,000m in Yunnan Province.
■ Hong Kong
Falun Gong criticized
A deputy director of the Chinese government's local liaison office has accused the Falun Gong of damaging the territory's social harmony and spreading lies about Beijing, news reports said yesterday. The official said members of the Falun Gong spread lies to attack the Beijing government and harass visitors at tourist spots, the Ming Pao Daily reported. "They've stationed themselves for a long time at tourist spots and bustling commercial districts to deliberately harass tourists," Wang Fengchao said.
■ Sri Lanka
Rebels to use `all means'
The political chief of the Tamil Tiger rebels said yesterday that his group would use all means necessary -- including suicide bombers -- if full-scale war erupts. The comments by S.P. Tamilselvan in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, came amid weeks of increasing violence that he blamed on the Sri Lankan military and other groups opposed to the Tigers. He denied that the separatist militants had played any role in violence in areas under government control.
■ Japan
Blood victims compensated
A court yesterday ordered the government and a pharmaceutical company to compensate hepatitis patients who contracted the disease from tainted blood-clotting products, a news report said. The Osaka District Court awarded a total of ¥256 million (US$2.25 million) to nine patients, Kyodo News agency reported. Four won compensation from the manufacturer, Mitsubishi Pharma Corp, and five won compensation from the government and the manufacturer, Kyodo reported. The court dismissed the claims of four other plaintiffs, it said. The patients contracted the disease while using defective blood-clotting medicines, mostly in the 1980s.
■ Australia
Porn blockers for all
The government announced yesterday that free filters to block pornography on the Internet would be made available to every family. The plan is part of a new A$120 million (US$89 million) government package called Protecting Australian Families, which aims to shield children from Internet predators and pornography. The filters will not be compulsory for home users and will let parents set access limits based on what they think is appropriate. They will be available through Internet service providers (ISPs) and are expected to be taken up by at least 2.5 million families over the next few years.
■ Pakistan
Chopper crash kills four
Four Pakistani soldiers were believed killed yesterday when their army helicopter crashed into a dam in a restive tribal area bordering Afghanistan, police said. Rescuers pulled three others from the water following the incident, which came shortly after the chopper took off from a base in the northwestern garrison town of Bannu, local police chief Mohammad Iqbal said. "Army divers have recovered one body from the crash site. Three others are missing, they are feared dead," Iqbal said by telephone. "Three people were rescued, they are in stable condition." The cause of the crash appeared to be a technical problem but the military has launched an investigation, he added. A security official in the adjoining tribal region of North Waziristan said the helicopter was flying from Bannu to the region's main town Miranshah.
■ Australia
Coin thief sentenced
A worker who smuggled more than A$135,000 (US$100,000) worth of coins out of the Royal Australian Mint by hiding them in his lunch box and shoes was sentenced yesterday to three years in prison. William Grzeskowiak, 48, pleaded guilty before the Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court to stealing nearly half a tonne in A$2 coins from the mint during a 10-month period. Grzeskowiak began stealing after an argument with his boss, according to court testimony, scooping an average of A$600 a day off the production line.
■ Canada
Flock cleared of bird flu
Tests have confirmed that a poultry flock in Canada has not been infected by the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of bird flu, an official at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency in Montreal said on Tuesday. When asked whether he was sure that the deadly strain of bird flu was not what killed a goose on Prince Edward Island, the official, Jim Clark said: "Absolutely." "Highly pathogenic [virus] would have completely different characteristics. "And it would have been much more obvious in other birds" in the flock, he said. Canadian officials announced Friday that the H5 virus, which is not lethal, was found on the goose from a small backyard poultry flock on the western end of Prince Edward Island. But subsequent tests have yet to confirm that the goose was infected by the less dangerous H5 virus, according to Clark. "All of the samples have completed their testing and they're all negative for avian influenza," he said in a telephone interview.
■ United Kingdom
`Sunflowers' worth millions
A masterpiece by Austrian expressionist Egon Schiele, lost for decades after World War II, has been sold at auction for 11.7 million pounds (US$21.7 million) amid a surging London art market. Wilted Sunflowers Schiele's 1914 tribute to Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" had been bought by Karl Grunwald, a Jewish Austrian friend of the artist, before being confiscated by the Nazis. The collector Grunwald escaped death but the painting disappeared and was not rediscovered until last year when an anonymous collector took it to the auctioneers Christie's for valuation. The man subsequently returned the work to Grunwald's family. The auction price was almost double the valuation, reflecting the current bullish art market. A Modigliani portrait of his muse Jeanne Hebuterne was sold for £16.3 million (US$30 million) at a London auction of Impressionist and modern art on Monday. Christie's and Sotheby's auctioneers estimate that they will take in US$600 million this week in London, which is the second largest art market after New York.
■ Chile
Jolie donates journal
Auctioneers in Chile on Tuesday opened a gift sent by Hollywood star Angelina Jolie to be put on the block to raise money for refugees. The gift: her personal journal about her visits to world refugee camps, to be auctioned on the website www.deremate.cl until June 30, to benefit refugees living in the South American country. The sale, to mark World Refugee Day, was organized by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Jolie is a goodwill ambassador for UNHCR. "Notes From My Travels: Visits With Refugees in Africa, Cambodia, Pakistan and Ecuador" carries Jolie's autograph and a handwritten note that reads "With Love," a picture on the auction Web site shows.
■ United Kingdom
Lawmaker targets skins
A British lawmaker's call to ban the Canadian black bearskins worn by royal guards gathered support on Tuesday. Conservative lawmaker Ann Widdecombe that she wanted her party to support a motion tabled by a member of the Labor party to replace the bearskins with artificial substitutes. The Defense Ministry buys 50 to 100 bearskin pelts a year to outfit its regiments. One complete bearskin hat costs £650 (US$1,197) and can last up to 40 years.
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
A team of doctors and vets in Pakistan has developed a novel treatment for a pair of elephants with tuberculosis (TB) that involves feeding them at least 400 pills a day. The jumbo effort at the Karachi Safari Park involves administering the tablets — the same as those used to treat TB in humans — hidden inside food ranging from apples and bananas, to Pakistani sweets. The amount of medication is adjusted to account for the weight of the 4,000kg elephants. However, it has taken Madhubala and Malika several weeks to settle into the treatment after spitting out the first few doses they
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