■ China
Bar patrons invited to vent
Stressed-out people can now unleash pent-up anger at a bar that lets customers attack staff, smash glasses and generally make a ruckus, a Chinese newspaper reported yesterday. The Rising Sun Anger Release Bar in Nanjing employs 20 muscled young men as "models" for customers to punch and scream at. "Customers can specify how they want the models to appear -- they can even appear as women -- and then they are free to give them a sound beating," the China Daily said. The bar charges from 50 yuan (US$6.25) to 300 yuan for the pleasure.
■ China
FMD outbreak reported
A new outbreak of foot and mouth disease that sickened 230 cattle in the far west has been reported, the Agriculture Ministry said. Cattle in Gaoshi Village in Gansu Province first started showing symptoms on July 31, the ministry said in a statement posted on its Web site late on Monday. Lab tests on Friday confirmed that it was the Asia 1 strain of the disease, it said.
■ China
Drug under investigation
The government is investigating four deaths for links to a banned antibiotic treatment, state media reported yesterday, adding that more than 80 patients in 10 provinces had complained of severe adverse reactions to the drug. Beijing last week banned the use of the Clindamycin Phosphate Glucose Injection, produced by a firm in Anhui Province for treatment of bacterial infections. Four fatalities possibly linked to the drug include a six-year-old girl in Heilongjiang and a 63-year-old woman from Shaanxi who suffered a severe adverse reaction, the official China Daily reported.
■ Australia
Politician pans pool
Politician Rob Hulls said only Melbourne would name a swimming pool after a man who drowned. It's true: the baths in suburban Malvern are named after former prime minister Harold Holt, who went missing while swimming alone in the surf in nearby Portsea in December 1967. It might also be said that only downunder could a massively ugly concrete structure be given a protection order as something of intrinsic architectural importance. "It's not everybody's aesthetic," admits Chris Gallagher, who keeps Victoria's Heritage Register. "But I'd have to say that aesthetics is not the sole test." The Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Pool was put on the register because it's a fine example of the 1960s Brutalist style of architecture.
■ Australia
Row over beer-drinking sow
Most tourists who visit Tasmania's Pub in the Paddock to watch a couple of pigs swill beer think it's a hoot. After all, the alternative to life as a tourist attraction for Priscilla and understudy Priscilla Babe is death in a slaughter house. But opposition to what goes on at the 126-year-old pub in Pyengana, near St Helens, is growing. Animal lovers are ashamed that the celebrity sows have appeared on television in the US glugging down bottles of beer for an appreciative audience. "There's absolutely no reason to go letting people feed beer to pigs just because they can," Against Animal Cruelty Tasmania spokeswoman Emma Haswell told national broadcaster ABC.
■ Singapore
Heartbreak doesn't cut it
A man's claim that he was so heartbroken by his wife's infidelity that he turned to drugs and alcohol generated no sympathy in a court where he was jailed for 18 months, news reports said yesterday. Oi Bee Kee, 48, was caught driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs when his car skidded and rammed into a truck on March 14, the Straits Times said. He was later found to have taken the party drugs Ecstacy and Ice. Oi, a contractor, was quoted as telling the court that he took the drugs because he "wanted the pain to go away." Deputy Prosecutor Leong Wing Tuck said with Oi on his way home were three lounge hostesses. The court heard on Monday that police found him unsteady and reeking of alcohol at the accident scene. He was banned from driving all vehicles for 15 years.
■ Singapore
ASEAN celebrates birthday
ASEAN kicked off its 39th birthday celebrations yesterday with a film festival and a call for the 10 member countries to enhance mutual understanding through art. "Film is a direct lens with which we can see through to get the real voices and portraits of each country," said Simon Tay, chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. The premiere film was Mano Po from the Philippines. The festival, which runs until next Tuesday at the venue, will screen eight more films from the ASEAN. The group is composed of Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar.
■ Japan
Sept. 6 birth expected
Princess Kiko, who is experiencing complications in a pregnancy that could give the country a male heir, is expected to give birth around Sept. 6 by Cesarean section, reports said yesterday. The princess is expected to give birth to her third child "around Sept. 6," Jiji Press and Kyodo News reported, citing unnamed sources.
■ Germany
Stupidity pill invented
A scientist has been testing an "anti-stupidity" pill with encouraging results on mice and fruit flies, Bild newspaper reported on Saturday. It said Hans-Hilger Ropers, director at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin, has tested a pill thwarting hyperactivity in certain brain nerve cells, helping to stabilize short-term memory and to improve attentiveness. "With mice and fruit flies we were able to eliminate the loss of short-term memory," Ropers, 62, is quoted saying in the German newspaper.
■ Zimbabwe
Bus plunges off bridge
Thirty-three people, including six children, were killed in the north of the country on Monday when the bus they were traveling in plunged over a bridge and landed in a dry riverbed, state television reported. The accident occurred on Monday morning on the main road linking the capital Harare to Chirundu, Zimbabwe's border post with its northern neighbor, Zambia. As the driver was trying to overtake another bus, a tire burst and he lost control of the bus which eventually went into Chikuti River and landed on the riverbed, a police officer at the scene of the accident told the television. The driver survived.
■ Russia
Gang abducts pensioner
A Moscow gang abducted a 60-year-old handicapped pensioner and held him for two weeks with the aim of forcing him to sign away his flat in one of the city's suburbs, police said on Monday. The three abductors took their victim to a notary, who was possibly involved in the crime, to have him sign the necessary documents in his presence. The police said they had had no difficulty in overwhelming the gang, all former paratroopers from the Russian army, once they became aware of the situation. The gang members were all drunk when police stormed the building on a Russian national holiday. Prices for residential property in Moscow have risen fivefold since 2000.
■ Netherlands
Man creates floating bed
A young Dutch architect has created a floating bed which hovers above the ground through magnetic force and comes with a price tag of 1.2 million euros (US$1.54 million). Janjaap Ruijssenaars took inspiration for the bed -- a sleek black platform, which took six years to develop and can double as a dining table or a plinth -- from the mysterious monolith in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 cult film 2001: A Space Odyssey. "No matter where you live all architecture is dictated by gravity. I wondered whether you could make an object ... where another power dictates the image," Ruijssenaars said. Magnets built into the floor and into the bed itself repel each other, pushing the bed up into the air.
■ Germany
Modern Fagan confesses
A 38-year-old man who faces long jail terms in both Germany and Italy admitted on Monday to a court in the southwestern city of Pforzheim that he ran a gang of children who broke into homes and stole jewelry. Judges told the Croatian national, who uses a wheelchair, that he would likely face a six-year term in Germany when the sentence is pronounced in one week's time after more evidence is heard. Both the defence and prosecution told the court that would be fair. He was indicted on 19 counts of burglary of goods worth 160,000 euros (US$205,000).
■ United States
Hefner denies illness report
Hugh Hefner says he's doing just fine. "I've never felt better," the 80-year-old Hefner told The Associated Press when asked about a report he was in ill health. A newspaper gossip item said the Playboy empire founder had a mini-stroke. But Playboy spokesman Rob Hilburger insisted on Monday the report was "completely untrue." Then Hefner got on the phone with assurances he was OK. "We had a lingerie party Saturday night and I went up a little early because [girlfriend] Holly [Madison] had a cold. I am in very good health," Hefner said. Hefner hosted his "Midsummer Night's Dream" party at his mansion on Saturday night and a movie-night gathering the following night, Hilburger said.
■ Colombia
Mexican cartels in Peru
Peruvian President Alan Garcia said on Monday that Mexican drug cartels have gained major footholds in the Andean country and made Peru an important source of narcotics. Garcia made his remarks from Bogota, where he was attending the reinauguration of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. "In Peru, where up until now we had not had solid, important and international cartels, it seems that we have been chosen as a camp by Mexican cartels, and the so-called Tijuana cartel has already appeared in full strength," Garcia said.
■ United States
Satanist to be executed
A self-described Satan worshiper set to die for stabbing, stomping and kicking to death three people would be the youngest person executed in Ohio in 44 years. Darrell Ferguson, 28, was to visit again with relatives before his lethal injection yesterday morning. Ferguson would be the fourth inmate executed in Ohio this year, the 23rd since the state resumed executions in 1999 and the youngest since 1962. Ferguson was convicted of three counts of aggravated murder in the Christmas Day, 2001, killing of Thomas King, 61, and the deaths of Arlie Fugate, 68, and his wife Mae, 69, the next day.
■ United States
Influential psychiatrist dies
Jean Baker Miller, a psychiatrist who disputed traditional notions of social roles and developed a theory that serves as a foundation for treating women's depression and other disorders through the building of fruitful relationships, died on July 29 at her home in Brookline, Massachusetts. She was 78. The cause was respiratory failure, her family said. Miller developed her premise under what she called relational-cultural theory and explained it in an influential book, Toward a New Psychology of Women (1976). The theory holds that isolation is one of the most damaging human experiences and is best treated by reconnecting with other people.
■ United States
Comedian sues over remake
Comedian Jerry Lewis filed a US$2.3 million lawsuit against two entertainment firms, claiming he is owed money over a proposed remake of his 1961 movie The Errand Boy. The lawsuit said Lewis and JAS Productions Inc entered into an agreement with Hollywood Pictures in 1996 that gave the film company an option to remake The Errand Boy. Lewis was to act in the film and serve as a consultant and executive producer if the option was exercised, the lawsuit said. Between 1999 and 2001, Hollywood assigned its rights to Spyglass Entertainment Group, which never made the movie but prepared a screenplay and hired script writers, according to the lawsuit.
A colossal explosion in the sky, unleashing energy hundreds of times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. A blinding flash nearly as bright as the sun. Shockwaves powerful enough to flatten everything for miles. It might sound apocalyptic, but a newly detected asteroid nearly the size of a football field now has a greater than 1 percent chance of colliding with Earth in about eight years. Such an impact has the potential for city-level devastation, depending on where it strikes. Scientists are not panicking yet, but they are watching closely. “At this point, it’s: ‘Let’s pay a lot of attention, let’s
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
CHEER ON: Students were greeted by citizens who honked their car horns or offered them food and drinks, while taxi drivers said they would give marchers a lift home Hundreds of students protesting graft they blame for 15 deaths in a building collapse on Friday marched through Serbia to the northern city of Novi Sad, where they plan to block three Danube River bridges this weekend. They received a hero’s welcome from fellow students and thousands of local residents in Novi Said after arriving on foot in their two-day, 80km journey from Belgrade. A small red carpet was placed on one of the bridges across the Danube that the students crossed as they entered the city. The bridge blockade planned for yesterday is to mark three months since a huge concrete construction