■ China
Hubbies not pleasing wives
Nearly one in four newly married women responding to a recent survey say they wish they had picked a different husband or stayed single, the China Daily reported yesterday. The survey of 1,073 couples was carried out by a dating Web site, marry5.com, the daily said. "Only 75.4 percent of wives said they would stick with their current husband if they could choose again," the paper said. It said figures for regretful husbands were "almost identical" to those of wives, but didn't give details. The average age of couples surveyed was 29.2 years for men and 27.1 years for women, the paper said.
■ Hong Kong
Plane fault investigated
An investigation was under way yesterday after a cargo plane was forced to make an emergency landing at Chek Lap Kok airport when both of its engines developed technical problems. The Shanghai-bound Dragonair flight and its four crew reported problems with both engines an hour after taking off from the airport on Wednesday and headed back. The Airbus A300B4 landed safely just after 2pm with emergency services at the airport on full alert, an airport official said. Both Dragonair and the Civil Aviation Department were conducting investigations into the incident.
■ China
Bus blast kills 11
An explosion on a bus has killed at least 11 and injured about 20 in a remote town in Tianzhu County, Guizhou Province, state TV and a local medical worker said. "Six people were killed on the spot and another five died in hospital," state TV said. It did not say what a possible cause might be or how many people were aboard the bus.
■ Japan
Child abuse figures rise
Police have investigated a record 120 child abuse cases for the first half of the year, the National Police Agency (NPA) said yesterday. The number of abuse cases between January and June was up 14.3 percent, exceeding the previous record of 105 in the same period of last year, the NPA said. Twenty-eight of the child victims of abuse died, it said. Police found 86 cases of physical abuse, 23 involving sexual abuse, and 11 cases of parental neglect.
■ Australia
Sibling rivals settle dispute
A British lottery winner has settled out of court with the sister he sued over a luxury home bought with his prize money, lawyers said yesterday. Clyde Reginald Baxter, originally from Leicester who later moved to Australia's Gold Coast, had sued his sister Virginia over the home bought in her name for A$1.3 million (US$996,191) in 2000. Baxter, 35, claimed he bought the house, intending to renovate and sell it, but his sister claimed he gave it to her. Lawyers said the pair had settled out of court. The civil trial heard that the Surfers Paradise mansion in dispute was valued at A$5 million earlier this year. When Baxter confronted his sister in 2004, wanting her to sell it as they had planned and split the profits, she allegedly told him the house was hers as she was living there.
■ India
Earthquake rocks islands
A moderate 5.1-magnitude earthquake struck on Wednesday off the Andaman and Nicobar islands, seismologists said, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage. The quake struck on Wednesday evening with its epicenter 188km west-northwest of Misha in the Nicobars at a depth of 30km, the US Geological Survey said. The Andaman and Nicobar chain of islands in the Indian Ocean was hit hard by the December 2004 tsunami.
■ Afghanistan
Fourth ISAF soldier killed
A soldier serving in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was killed yesterday in a bombing in the south of the country, bringing the ISAF's death toll to four since taking over command of the region on Monday. The ISAF said a bomb went off near the vehicle the soldier was travelling in in Kandahar province. Another ISAF soldier was injured, it said. The force did not release the nationalities of the soldiers, but the foreign troops in Kandahar are primarily Canadian. The casualties came three days after the ISAF took over command of military operations in six southern Afghan provinces from the US-led international military coalition.
■ Philippines
Send for `supermaids'
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo yesterday announced a new training program for domestic helpers. "We will be sending `supermaids,'" Arroyo said of a new training program during a discussion on efforts to evacuate Filipinos in Lebanon, most of them maids, and help them find new jobs. Augusto Syjuco, head of the government's Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, said the ``supermaids'' program includes instruction in first aid, evacuations from high-rises in case of a fire and other skills to help maids get higher pay. "They are not just maids. They are really very well trained now," he said. "If there is someone injured among the family they work for ... how to get out of a fire in a high-rise building, all these are part of our upgrading program."
■ United Kingdom
Oldest woman dies
Family and friends on Wednesday remembered Britain's oldest woman who died at the age of 111 after living in three consecutive centuries and experiencing two world wars. Emmeline Brice, whose daily nip of whiskey was seen as the secret of her longevity, died peacefully last week at a nursing home in Bedfordshire, southeast England. Brice was named the country's oldest living woman earlier this year -- a feat that she, her two daughters, two grandchildren, five great-grandchildren and five great-great-grandchildren took in their stride.
■ Ireland
US$400K for pee by the sea
A ramshackle public toilet could fetch 300,000 euros (US$384,000) -- the price of a new house -- if politicians get their way. The town of Lahinch reckons property-hungry buyers will snap up the dilapidated, out-of-order toilet because of its great location -- a surfing beach on the country's rugged Atlantic coast. "You could leave the toilet block and be in the sea in less than 40 seconds," local politician Martin Conway said, but admitted: "It's quite remarkable that an old toilet block would fetch 300,000 euros." The average cost of a home in Ireland is 299,929 euros. Property auctioneer Nicola Leyden said the site was "breathtaking."
■ France
Euro confetti angers town
A lavish wedding where newlyweds were sprinkled with shredded euro-note confetti has provoked outrage, a newspaper reported on Tuesday. Liberation said angry locals in the southern town of Sete scrambled on the ground to scrape up the bits of 5, 10, 20 and 50 euro notes scattered at the July 8 nuptials. "People chucking money away in the street for everyone to see, when there are so many struggling to get by!" said Frederic, a resident quoted by the newspaper. Around 200 people attended the ceremony, which included a fireworks display estimated to have cost 40,000 euros (US$51,000), the paper said.
■ United Kingdom
Labour letter-bomb probed
Police in southeast England launched an investigation on Wednesday night after a small explosive device was sent to an office of Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour Party. A police spokeswoman said the contraption was found in a package delivered to the office in Cambridge after a member of staff raised the alarm. No one was hurt. "We analyzed the package and discovered that it did contain a small explosive device," the police spokeswoman said. "Had it gone off, someone would have been hurt," she added. Police were expected to give more details about the incident at a press briefing yesterday.
■ United Kingdom
`Muslim fun day' called off
The nation's biggest theme park has called off the country's first "National Muslim Fun Day" because of a lack of interest, the park said on Wednesday. Alton Towers in central England was to open on Sept. 17 for Muslims -- with halal food, a strict dress code and prayer areas. Music, gambling and alcohol were to be banned for the day and theme park rides such as "Ripsaw," "Corkscrew" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" all segregated by sex. But the park said the event's organizers, Islamic Leisure, who rented the park for the day and were marketing the event, had called it off due to "insufficient ticket sales."
■ United States
Rabbit fees up to avoid stew
Fees to adopt rabbits from Los Angeles animal shelters have multiplied. The city council approved a plan on Wednesday that nearly triples adoption fees for rabbits from US$15 to US$40 at the city's six animal shelters. The hike would help pay for sterilization services and bring the city's fees in line with rates charged by local nonprofit animal rescue agencies. Councilman Herb Wesson said he was surprised to learn recently that some people adopting rabbits purchase them for food. "People buy rabbits for 15 bucks and they cook them and eat them," Wesson said. "So, by increasing the price, you're hopeful that individuals are actually doing this because they want to have a pet."
■ Mexico
Eleven killed in landslide
At least 11 people were killed, five of them small children, and 12 injured in southern Mexico when a landslide buried their homes on Wednesday, authorities said. Heavy rains over the last few days were to blame for the landslide in Santa Maria Chilchotla in the southern state of Oaxaca, according to civil defense officials.
■ Brazil
Term limit plan progresses
Congress has taken the first step to change the Constitution and bar the president from running for re-election. The Senate's justice and Constitution commission unanimously approved a proposal on Wednesday that would also apply to governors and mayors and would go into force for the 2010 elections. The constitutional change that allowed executives to run for re-elections was enacted in 1997 during the presidency of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, whose Brazilian Social Democracy Party was accused of buying votes in Congress with money and job offers. A year later, Cardoso became the first president in Brazil's history to be elected to a second term.
■ United States
Texas set to execute abuser
Condemned inmate William Wyatt Jr was set to be executed yesterday in Huntsville, Texas. He was convicted of sexually abusing three-year-old Damien Willis, the son of his girlfriend, smothering the boy at his home nine-and-a-half years ago and trying to cover up the death by disguising it as a bathtub drowning. His execution would be the 17th this year and the first of four this month in the US' busiest capital punishment state. Wyatt's lawyers were in the US Supreme Court trying to stop the lethal injection, arguing he received improper legal advice at his trial.
■ United States
Man defends sex with kids
A man accused of sexually assaulting nine boys with physical or mental disabilities told a judge that having sex with children is a sacred ritual protected by civil rights laws. Phillip Distasio, who said he is the leader of a church called Arcadian Fields Ministries, represented himself at his pretrial hearing on Wednesday. He is charged with 74 counts including rape, pandering obscenity to minors and corrupting another with drugs. "I'm a pedophile. I've been a pedophile for 20 years," he said in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court on Wednesday. "The only reason I'm charged with rape is that no one believes a child can consent to sex. The role of my ministry is to get these cases out of the courtrooms." Distasio said some of his congregants are among the victims named in this case.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
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,
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
SUPERFAN: The Japanese PM played keyboard in a Deep Purple tribute band in middle school and then switched to drums at university, she told the British rock band Legendary British rock band Deep Purple yesterday made Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s day with a brief visit to their high-profile superfan as they returned to the nation they first toured more than half a century ago. Takaichi’s reputation as an amateur drummer, and a fan of hard rock and heavy metal has been well documented, and she has referred to Deep Purple as one of her favorite bands along with the likes of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. “You are my god,” a giddy Takaichi said in English to Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice, presenting him with a set of made-in-Japan
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