■ China
Lesbian hotline opened
The country has opened its first hotline for lesbians following the success of a service for gay men, state media reported yesterday. The free hotline, launched this week, operates in Shanghai, the free-wheeling financial center where social change has outpaced the rest of the country. The new line, staffed by trained counselors, would provide "real help" for lesbians, Xinhua news agency said. "Many lesbians in China are pressured into marrying men and end up living miserable lives," sociologist Li Yinhe was quoted as saying.
■ China
Yellow River runs red
Waste water contaminated with dye that was discharged into a section of China's Yellow River has turned it red for the second time in a month, state media reported yesterday. China's second-largest river turned red for more than an hour on Tuesday in Lanzhou, a city of 2 million and the capital of the western province of Gansu, the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper said. The newspaper said the polluted section was 2km long. The river was polluted by waste water discharged by a heating station, Xinhua news agency said. The discharged water likely came from boilers in which hot water was dyed red to prevent people from diverting it.
■ China
Eleven killed in bus crash
Eleven people were killed and six others injured when a bus plunged off a road in the southwest part of the country, state media reported. Xinhua news agency said 10 people died immediately when the bus fell 23m off a mountain road on Tuesday afternoon in southwest Chongqing Municipality. One of the seven injured died in hospital, Xinhua said.
■ Japan
Elderly increasingly solitary
More than 40 percent of elderly men living alone say they don't have any close friends and one in four says he has no contact with neighbors, a government survey that presents a grim picture of Japan's aging society says. The percentage of women in the same category was 22.4 percent. The study interviewed 792 men and women aged 65 or older and living alone. The group included both married and unmarried people. Among the men, 24.3 percent said they had no contacts at all with neighbors, up from 15.4 percent in a similar survey in 2002.
■ Japan
Man dies of rabies
The government yesterday urged travelers to take precautions after two nationals contracted rabies in the Philippines, with one of them dying in the first cases seen in 36 years. The two men both were infected after being bitten by dogs in the Philippines, the health ministry said. One victim died last week in the first human rabies case confirmed in Japan since 1970, the ministry said. The man, in his 60s, failed to take vaccination shots after being bitten and later showed symptoms such as delirium after returning to Kyoto. The other man was in serious condition in Yokohama.
■ Hong Kong
Introducing `eco-coffins'
They're presentable, environmentally friendly and burn faster: cardboard "eco-coffins" may just be the solution to long queues at Hong Kong's busy crematoriums, officials say. Health officials want to introduce the green coffins -- made of corrugated cardboard and said to speed up the cremation process from two-and-a-half hours to an hour -- to alleviate traffic at crematoriums, the government said on Tuesday. "With less time required for each session, we can arrange more sessions per day to cut queuing time for cremation," said the secretary for Health, Welfare and Food.
■ Pakistan
BBC journalist released
A Pakistani journalist working for the BBC was released unharmed on Tuesday, a day after he was abducted and questioned about the nature of his work by a group of unidentified men, the reporter and the BBC said. The journalist, Dilawar Khan Wazir, works for the BBC's Urdu-language service in tribal areas on the Afghan border, where security forces have been battling Islamist militants linked to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Wazirwas abducted from a taxi after visiting his brother in Islamabad on Monday. "This evening, they put me in a car and later dropped me in a forest. I don't know who those people were," he said.
■ Indonesia
Orangutans start new life
Forty-eight orangutans rescued from an amusement park in Thailand returned home to Indonesia yesterday and will soon start a new life in a jungle reserve on their native Borneo island, officials said. The animals -- who were forced to perform in daily boxing matches in Thailand before being confiscated in August 2004 -- were flown to Jakarta on board an Indonesian military transport plane. Their plight has highlighted Southeast Asia's thriving black-market animal and plant trade, which officials say generates some US$10 billion in revenue each year -- third only behind illicit arms and the drug trade.
■ Spain
Crime video backfires
A video designed to highlight rising crime under Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has backfired on the opposition People's party after television news pictures used in it turned out to have been filmed abroad or before Zapatero came to power. One scene was shown to have been filmed when the opposition party was itself in power. "I can only think that it must be an attempt at self-criticism," Zapatero quipped. Things got even worse on after one scene turned out not to have been shot in Colombia.
■ France
Climber search called off
French authorities called off the search for four French mountain climbers missing in the Nepalese Himalayas, the French defense ministry said on Tuesday. The climbers have not been sighted since last month, when they set off to scale the 5,896m Mount Paldor, located about 80km north of the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu. The foreign ministry said there was no hope of finding the climbers, who were thought to have been hit by an avalanche.
■ Israel
Racy posters scrapped
Forget the anti-Semitic jokes, it's the racy publicity for the film Borat that bothers Israel's censors. Posters showing comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's boorish Kazakh alter ego in a skimpy posing pouch were scrapped in the Jewish state on the grounds of decency, the newspaper Haaretz reported on Tuesday. Instead, the star will be shown wearing his trademark suit. The movie is a box office hit in the US and Europe despite debate over the racist and sexist views of its faux hero. It opens in Israel next Thursday. British-born Baron Cohen, 35, is Jewish and has an Israeli mother.
■ Netherlands
Rescue helicopter crashes
A helicopter carrying 17 people crashed into the North Sea near the Dutch port of Den Helder, but rescuers managed to pull everyone out of the wreckage and the water on Tuesday, a Coast Guard official said. The rescued passengers and crew were alive and well and were put onto a rescue boat to be transferred to shore. The rescue helicopter, a twin-engined Super Puma, crashed into the sea shortly before midnight. The helicopter had flown to evacuate 13 staff from a North Sea oil platform after the platform suffered a power failure, and was on its way back when it crashed.
■ Israel
Many settlements illegal
A domestic human rights group produced figures on Tuesday showing that 39 percent of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are built on private Palestinian land. The claim by Settlement Watch,represents a potentially serious challenge to the government because courts have ruled that settlements must not be built on confiscated private Palestinian land. The report is based on a leaked 2004 database from the civil administration, the government body in charge of settlement building. "It is clear that the settlement enterprise has, since its inception, ignored Israeli law and undermined not only the collective property rights of the Palestinians as a people, but also the private property rights of individual Palestinian landowners," the group wrote.
■ Chile
Abortion bill rejected
The lower house of Congress on Tuesday rejected a bill that would have legalized abortion in limited circumstances. Lawmakers voted 61-21 not to discuss the measure, which House Speaker Antonio Leal called unconstitutional "because our Constitution guarantees the right to life." The bill would have permitted abortions when the mother's life was at risk, in cases of rape and until 12th week of pregnancy. Those performing or receiving abortions can faces prison terms ranging from three to five years. Officials say an estimated 130,000 abortions are performed annually and 32,000 cases end up at hospitals due complications.
■ United States
Muslims kicked off flight
Six Muslim religious leaders were taken off a US Airways flight at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport on Monday evening and held for several hours after some passengers and crew members complained of "suspicious behavior," including praying at the gate, officials said. The men, who had attended a conference in Minneapolis of the North American Imams Federation, were handcuffed and led off the flight to Phoenix, Arizona, by police. One passenger slipped a note to a flight attendant that began: "six suspicious Arabic men on plane," the police report said. After being detained for five hours and questioned by the FBI, the Secret Service and the US Marshals, the six men were released, an airport spokesman said.
■ Argentina
Bush daughter robbed
US and Argentine media reported that one of President George W. Bush's 24-year-old twin daughters had her purse stolen while being guarded by the Secret Service during a visit. ABC News, citing unidentified law-enforcement reports, reported on its Web site on Tuesday that Barbara Bush's purse and cellphone were taken while she was dining in a Buenos Aires restaurant. La Nacion newspaper, citing anonymous government sources, said in its online edition yesterday that one of Bush's daughters had her purse taken on Sunday afternoon in the popular tourist district of San Telmo. A pair of thieves removed the purse from under a table while Secret Service agents stood guard at a distance, La Nacion said.
■ Brazil
Cat-puppy claim debunked
Blood tests have refuted a woman's claim that her cat had given birth to three puppies, geneticist Adil Pacheco said on Tuesday. Cassia Aparecida de Souza, 18, said last Friday that her cat Mimi had given birth to the three puppies as well as three kittens, which did not survive. "People who aren't experts often imagine things," said Pacheco, director of the Institute of Biological Sciences of the University of Passo Fundo. Pacheco was asked by a newspaper to conduct a chromosome test to check the claim which gained wide media attention.
■ United States
Online date seeker nabbed
A man wanted for a double homicide in Arkansas was arrested on Sunday in Wisconsin after he posted his name, picture and address on an online dating Web site, police said on Monday. Calvin Bennett, 26, has been charged with the killings of Pierce Odell, 79, and his wife, Mary, 78, who were found shot to death on Oct. 30 outside their home in Nashville, Arkansas. "He was taken into custody shortly before noon on Sunday, less than 12 hours after his picture was broadcast on America's Most Wanted [TV show]," an Arkansas State Police spokesman said.
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
Three sisters from Ohio who inherited a dime kept in a bank vault for more than 40 years knew it had some value, but they had no idea just how much until just a few years ago. The extraordinarily rare coin, struck by the US Mint in San Francisco in 1975, could bring more than US$500,000, said Ian Russell, president of GreatCollections, which specializes in currency and is handling an online auction that ends next month. What makes the dime depicting former US president Franklin D. Roosevelt so valuable is a missing “S” mint mark for San Francisco, one of just two
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