■ Hong Kong
Long life expectancy
Men in this densely populated city have the world's longest life expectancy, despite the choking smog and unhealthy lifestyles, a news report said yesterday. Men here live for an average of 79 years, beating Iceland and Switzerland into second and third place with life spans of 78.9 and 78.6 years respectively, followed by Japan at 78.5 years, according to a Japanese government survey quoted by the South China Morning Post. Women in the former British colony of 6.8 million live an average of 84.7 years, second only to Japan where women live for an average of just over six months longer, the survey found. The city's high scoring in the survey comes despite concerns over choking smog and increased levels of obesity as people exercise less and eat more Western-style fast food.
■ China
Space burials planned
A US company that launches cremated human remains into orbit said it plans to offer the service in China, playing on growing public interest in space after two manned flights. Sun Yi (孫義), the vice general manager of Great Wall Shrine, said two people in Beijing have expressed interest in the service but declined to give details. Space Services ships either 1g or 7g of a person's cremated remains -- less than 1 percent of the remains of the average cremation. They travel in lipstick-size containers aboard commercial rockets carrying other cargo. Prices have yet to be set for Chinese customers but Chafer said they should be comparable to what is charged in the US. US customers pay US$995 for 1g and US$5,300 for a 7g package of remains. The trip can last anywhere from a few minutes to centuries, depending on what orbit the rocket is put into.
■ Thailand
Poll commissioners resign
Three jailed election commissioners resigned yesterday, their attorney said, one day after they were sentenced to four years in prison for acting illegally in supervising April's general election. "The three commissioners have already signed the resignation letters," attorney Chusak Senabunyarit said. The Criminal Court verdict on Tuesday convicting the commissioners -- Vasana Puemlarp, Prinya Nakchudtree and Virachai Naewboonnien -- was seen as a setback for Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra as he prepares to contest a new election scheduled for Oct. 15. The commissioners had come under criticism for allegedly favoring Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai party during the April polls.
■ China
Zhao verdict delayed
Authorities told lawyers for a jailed researcher for the New York Times that the verdict in the case would be delayed, even though the lawyers said the court had been required to deliver a decision on Tuesday. Zhao Yan (趙岩), the researcher, who worked in the Beijing bureau of the Times, is accused of fraud and leaking state secrets to the paper. Zhao, 44, has said he is innocent, while the Times has repeatedly called for his release. Zhao spent 22 months in detention without a hearing before his trial on June 16 at Beijing's No.2 Intermediate People's Court.
■ Hong Kong
Home violence surges
Domestic violence cases have leapt by almost a third, police said yesterday after the territory was shocked by an attempted murder-suicide case. The number of cases jumped by 31 percent in the first six months of the year compared to the first half of last year with almost a third of those murdered being the victims of domestic violence, police figures showed. Police said 719 cases of domestic violence were recorded in the first half of this year. Five of the 16 homicide cases committed during that period involved domestic violence. The statistics were released a day after a father cut his throat and threw himself to his death after leaving his daughter, 11, in a critical condition and injuring his wife in a knife attack in their apartment.
■ Japan
Potter translator in tax feud
Harry Potter's Japanese translator could use a little magic. Yuko Matsuoka, who has translated and published the global best sellers, is feuding with tax officials over nearly US$30 million in income they say she failed to declare, media reports said yesterday. Matsuoka, 62, says she is a resident of Switzerland, but tax officials say she spent more of her time here for three years from 2001, and they want her to pay more than ¥700 million (US$6 million) in back taxes, the reports said.
■ Australia
Sewage water vote set
Residents of Toowoomba in Queensland could change the course of Australian history when they vote in a weekend referendum on using recycled sewage as drinking water. A "Yes" vote would see the town becoming the first on the continent to have treated sewage pumped into the drinking water system. A "No" vote would leave the parched southeast facing depopulation as increasingly stringent water restrictions altered its lifestyle. Queensland Premier Peter Beattie said the outcome of the vote in Toowoomba would determine whether he will go to the next state election with a policy promoting recycled sewage as drinking water for the rest of the state.
■ United Kingdom
Blow-up man aids women
He fits in a car's glove box, appears at a flick of a switch and when a woman has finished using him, she can just pull the plug and he deflates. He's the "Buddy on Demand," a blow-up man launched on Tuesday with the aim of making solo female motorists feel less nervous about driving at night. According to research by the inflatable friend's creator, insurer Sheilas' Wheels, 82 percent of women feel safer with someone sitting in the car beside them and nearly a half don't like driving alone in the dark.
■ United Kingdom
`StreetWars' worries police
Londoners began a city-wide role-playing game on Tuesday where people roam the capital to shoot each other with water pistols as police warned that contestants might be committing criminal offenses. On their Web site, tournament organizers describe "StreetWars" as: "A three week long, 24/7, watergun assassination tournament." Participants are handed a manila envelope containing the details of their "target," including their name, home and work addresses, along with a picture, and are tasked with "assassinating" them with a watergun.
■ Ireland
Ancient book found in bog
The national museum on Tuesday hailed what it said was one of the most significant discoveries in decades -- and perhaps centuries -- after an ancient prayer book was found by chance in an Irish bog. The museum said fragments of what appeared to be an ancient Psalter or Book of Psalms, written around 800AD, were uncovered by a bulldozer in a bog in the south Midlands. "In discovery terms this Irish equivalent to the Dead Sea Scrolls is being hailed by the Museum's experts as the greatest find ever from a European bog," the museum said in a statement.
■ Zimbabwe
Mugabe slams UK
President Robert Mugabe said on Tuesday that his government had defeated what he called attempts by Britain to scupper the nation's ailing economy and overthrow him. Critics accuse Mugabe of plunging the country into its deepest crisis since independence from Britain in 1980 through controversial policies that the World Bank says have made its economy the fastest shrinking outside a war zone.
■ United Kingdom
Freak waves not so freakish
Freak ocean waves that rise to a height of 10-story buildings may be sinking ships in accidents that are attributed to nothing more than poor weather. Once dismissed as a nautical myth, freak or "rogue" waves have been recorded by shipping vessels and more accurately measured from oil and gas platforms at sea. The waves arise by chance when others combine, leading to giant walls of water that momentarily tower above the rest of the ocean, at heights in excess of 30m. Research at Imperial College, London, shows that, far from being rare events, rogue waves can emerge frequently.
■ United States
Rubber sidewalks catch on
Pounding the pavement is getting a little easier on people's knees in many cities. For reasons of safety and ease of maintenance, Washington and dozens of other communities are installing rubber sidewalks made of ground-up tires. The rubber squares are up to three times more expensive than concrete slabs but last longer, because tree roots and freezing weather won't crack them. That, in turn, could reduce the number of slip-and-fall lawsuits filed over uneven pavement. The shock-absorbing surface also happens to be easier on the joints of joggers, and more forgiving when someone takes a spill.
■ United States
`Smart' bikini set for market
Canadian company Solestrom has come up with a new bikini that goes on sale next month with a UV meter built into its belt and an alarm that beeps to tell wearers when to head to the shade. "There's so much concern about sun exposure and skin cancer that we saw the demand and designed something to be safe for the wearer," Solestrom spokeswoman Emily Garassa said. Garassa said the meter on the US$190 bikini displays a level of UV intensity on a scale from 0 to 20. A person's sensitivity to UV depends mainly on skin type, but generally three to five would be considered moderate strength, 8-10 very high and anything above 11 extreme.
■ Bolivia
Morales slams Church brass
President Evo Morales said some members of the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy are behaving as if they were in "the times of the Inquisition" on Tuesday as he defended his government's plan to remove Catholicism as the sole religion taught in schools. Morales comments came a day after Education Minister Felix Patzi referred to Catholic "monsignors" as "liars" and said they have been serving the oligarchy for the 514 years since Spain colonized the country. "I want to ask the [Church] hierarchies that they understand freedom of religion and beliefs in our country," Morales told reporters.
■ United States
Bush meets Darfur rebel
President George W. Bush met on Tuesday with a rebel leader from the Darfur region in western Sudan in an attempt to widen support for a peace settlement. Minnie Minawi, head of a Darfuri rebel faction, signed a peace deal two months ago with the Khartoum government. Leaders of other Darfuri rebel factions have refused to sign the accord, raising concerns that Darfur could fall back into a full-scale civil conflict. The Sudanese government has resisted US pressure to allow deployment of UN peacekeepers to augment an African Union force already in Darfur. Washington accuses Khartoum of backing militias responsible for atrocities during three years of fighting.
■ United States
Death row inmate suspected
Los Angeles police are investigating whether a photographer already on death row for killing two women is actually a serial murderer responsible for dozens of deaths over two decades ago. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has posted on a website photographs of 54 young women whom they say "may have been victims of foul play between 1977 and 1984." The pictures were found more than 20 years ago in the home of William Richard Bradford after he was arrested for the 1984 murder of two women whom he had invited to have their pictures taken. Bradford was sentenced to death in 1988 for the two murders, and is San Quentin prison.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
RSS