■ China
Olympic con man jailed
A man who conned dozens of farmers out of 2 million yuan (US$250,400) to grow trees he said would be used in the 2008 Olympics has been jailed for 12 years. Liu Lutang duped more than 50 farmers into buy buying maple saplings for 20 yuan (US$2.50) each, promising them he would buy them back at a higher price after six months. Liu convinced the farmers the trees would sprout six to eight branches in a year and that he would pay them 8 yuan (US$1) per branch, the paper said.
■ Hong Kong
Shops to get `smart mirror'
Researchers have come up with the perfect solution for indecisive fashion shoppers -- a magic mirror. The mirror is in fact a screen which recognizes the clothes in hand and displays them on a model on screen so buyers can see exactly what the outfit they have picked from the store looks like. The invention is the work of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University's Institute of Textiles and Clothing. Italian fashion chain Mitu will be the fist to use the smart mirror in Hong Kong in the autumn.
■ Malaysia
Police bust huge drug ring
Malaysian police said they busted a major international drug syndicate yesterday, seizing amphetamines worth nearly US$4 million bound for Australia, Japan and Hong Kong. The director of the Federal Narcotics Department, Najib Abdul Aziz, said 21 people were arrested on Sunday in northern Kedah and Penang states. "It is quite a big group involved with international connections, because they have these members from Taiwan and Hong Kong, and the production is going to be distributed to other parts of the country and the world," Aziz said.
■ Thailand
Cops nab `Dr Ozone'
Police have arrested an Austrian national, dubbed Dr Ozone by the local press, on charges of committing fraud in the suspected killing of an unknown number of Western patients with his "liquid ozone" treatment, police said on yesterday. Hellfried Sartori, 67, was arrested on Sunday in Chiang Mai for allegedly killing an Australian patient by means of the treatment. Australian police alerted their Thai counterparts to Sartori's activities following the death of Kathleen Preston, who died at a Chiang Mai hospital on July 26, last year. An autopsy revealed Preston had a lethal amount of potassium in her blood, and suspected Sartori of injecting the woman with what he called "liquid ozone."
■ India
Farmer calls `ghost busters'
When farmer Sunil Das phoned police claiming that malevolent ghosts were stealing his chickens and torturing him at night, they laughed at what they thought was a joke, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported yesterday. But a judge in the northeastern state of Assam saw little humor in Das' allegation that ghosts controlled by his neighbors were making off with his poultry at night. Instead of laughing, the judge ordered police to get to work and find the culprits, the Times reported. In his complaint, Das accused his neighbors of using their ``obedient but malevolent'' ghosts, ``subjecting me to physical and mental torture,'' it said. Das said his neighbors were notorious for using black magic against people they had a grudge against.
■ Singapore
Officer `aided' impersonator
A policewoman belonging to an elite squad has been charged with helping a male friend impersonate her, news reports said yesterday. Staff Sergeant Ervinna Kuan Sui Khuan, 32, was charged with handing her pistol and 10 bullets to Lai Chin Yeong, 32, on March 22. She was also charged with transmitting a false message to police headquarters on March 25, the Straits Times said, alleging that two Bangladeshi men had taken her gun. Kuan was accused of helping Lai impersonate her by allowing him to use her credit card to buy a S$2,790 (US$1,765) gold chain in March.
■ malaysia
`Dead' man fights for his life
A man appealed for help on Monday after authorities ruled him dead more than four years ago, saying he was unable to work because of the mistake. According to official records, Minggu Mang anak Madang died from head injuries in the town of Bintulu in the eastern state of Sarawak on Jan. 18, 2002, and was buried. But Minggu Mang, 40, said he was alive and had been fighting for years to prove to authorities he was not dead. Minggu Mang said he had found out about the mistake when he went to renew his driver's license on Dec. 19, 2003. "There seems to be no clear indication when the investigations will end. I know the police are doing their best but I have a life to live," he said.
■ India
Three die in minibus attack
Three people were killed and several wounded yesterday in a grenade attack on a minibus in Kashmir's main tourist district, police and witnesses said. "So far three tourists have died and eight others are injured," a police spokesman at Srinagar's control room said. The grenade was hurled by suspected rebels near the busy Dalgate area of the mountain-ringed Dal Lake in Srinagar, he said. A spate of attacks on Indian tourists in Kashmir over the past two months has left six dead and 50 others injured.
■ Nigeria
Kidnappers free oil worker
A government official said hostage takers in Nigeria released a Dutch oil worker on Monday who was kidnapped by unidentified gunmen last week in the nation's oil-rich southern delta. Michael Loss, an employee of Westminster Dredging, was handed over to his employers in the city of Yenagoa after officials and local leaders secured his release, said Ekiyor Welson, a spokesman for Bayelsa State. Loss was seized on Thursday by armed men in a speedboat while working on a Royal Dutch Shell gas plant in the Niger Delta's Gbaran field. Welson described the men in military uniform who had snatched the oil worker as "criminals who want money."
■ Netherlands
Rollerblader hitches ride
A 20-year-old man on rollerblades hitched a ride from a car at breakneck speed in the southern city of Roermond, touching 80kph to 90kph, police said on Sunday. A police spokesman said the ride had been about 5km, adding he wasn't sure how the man had managed to hang on to the car at these speeds. Police detained the man for endangering traffic and later found he still needed to serve almost 30 days for an unrelated offence, the spokesman said. The driver of the car he had been trailing was not found.
■ Zimbabwe
Politician arrested
Police arrested an opposition parliamentarian in connection with an attack on the country's only white female MP, state television reported late on Monday. Timothy Mubawu, an MP of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for the Tafara and Mabvuku townships, handed himself in to police earlier in the day after police announced they were looking for him. Trudy Stevenson, a member of a breakaway faction of the MDC, was attacked last week and left with a deep gash to her head, broken arm and wrist bones and a fractured cheek bone. The attack on Stevenson, Zimbabwe's only white female MP, has been deeply damaging to the opposition.
■ Ethiopia
Wolfowitz prods G8
World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz said on Monday the G8 countries meeting in Russia later this week should not forget promises they made to Africa a year ago to provide increased aid, trade and debt relief. Wolfowitz, speaking to reporters on arrival in country at the start of a seven-nation African tour, said he would take a break from the trip to attend the summit of the G8 leading industrialized nations starting this Saturday. G8 leaders pledged last year to double aid to Africa by 2010 to some US$50 billion, increase trade by lowering tariffs and cancel the debts of some of the poorest countries. "We must deliver on the promises made last year to this great continent," he said.
■ United States
Preventing AIDS with a cut
Circumcising men across Africa could prevent AIDS, World Health Organization researchers and colleagues reported in Washington on Monday. They analyzed data from trials that showed men who had been circumcised had a significantly lower risk of infection with the AIDS virus, and calculated that if all men were circumcised over the next 10 years, some two million new infections and around 300,000 deaths could be avoided. Researchers believe circumcision helps reduce infection because the foreskin is covered in cells the HIV virus seems able to easily infect.
■ United States
Lawyers appeal bus stop ban
Lawyers were due to head to federal court yesterday for a hearing that could decide the future of Georgia's new state laws that bar sex offenders from living within 300m of school bus stops. US District Judge Clarence Cooper issued an order last month that temporarily blocks the state from enforcing that part of the law. At yesterday's hearing, civil rights lawyers were expected to ask Cooper to prolong the ban. The Southern Center for Human Rights filed a federal lawsuit last month contending that the bus stop provision would render vast residential areas off-limits to Georgia's roughly 11,000 registered offenders.
■ United States
Depressed kids in sex link
Sexually experienced middle-and high-school teenagers with higher levels of depressive symptoms are more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior, a new study shows. "It is important for parents to encourage and actively support their teens in seeking mental health care when needed," Dr Jocelyn Lehrer, the study's lead author, said. As many as 20 percent of adolescents may experience major depression, Lehrer and her team note in this month's issue of the medical journal Pediatrics. Half of new cases of sexually transmitted infections occur in adolescents, while teens also face a disproportionate risk of contracting HIV.
■ United States
Illegal immigrant killed
Cuban migrants crowded aboard a speedboat in an attempt to reach Florida insisted on racing away from an approaching Coast Guard vessel, one of the migrants said. About 30 migrants squeezed onto the speed boat pleaded with three men accused of smuggling them not to stop, Juliet Escandon Hernandez said on Monday. "When they were behind us, the man on the boat said that we had to stop, because the Coast Guard were yelling that they were going to kill us. But we told them not to stop, to keep going, because freedom was right in front of us," said Escandon. Another passenger, identified by relatives as 24-year-old Anei Machado Gonzalez, died on Saturday when the boat ignored orders to stop and attempted to ram the Coast Guard vessel, authorities said. The Coast Guard fired two shots into the vessel's engine to disable it.
■ Canada
Suspect bites police dog
A man in a desperate bid to evade capture bit a police dog in British Colombia, Victoria police Sergeant Brad Fraser said on Monday. The man rammed a police truck with a stolen car and then tried to run away, Fraser said. The three-year-old German shepherd, named Pago, gave chase and when he caught up with the suspect, an altercation ensued. The man kicked, punched and bit the dog, Fraser said. "It's quite a foolish thing to do because a dog will bite back and much harder ... In this case, it was tit for tat." Both the suspect and Pago suffered minor injuries.
■ Canada
Press group demands probe
Reporters Without Borders on Monday called for a proper investigation into the death of photojournalist Zahra Kazemi while in Iranian custody. Kazemi, 54, died in July 2003 after spending two weeks in custody in Tehran following her arrest for photographing a demonstration outside a prison. "There has been no progress in this case since the acquittal on 16 November 2005 of Reza Aghdam Ahmadi, the only person ever to be formally accused, and the Kazemi family lawyers have run into a wall of silence from the Iranian judicial authorities," the group said in a statement.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
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