■ China
Thousands suffer in cold
More than 10,000 households in the northwest have been without heat since Saturday and face several more days of sub-zero temperatures after a boiler failed, Xinhua news agency said. The central boiler furnace failed at a power company in the city of Urumqi due to a build-up of coal dregs more than 30cm thick on its walls, Xinhua said yesterday. Company officials said that it could be three to five days before heat was restored. The company had been forced to buy the low-quality coal from small coal mines because its main contractor could only meet 80 percent of its demand, Xinhua said.
■ Australia
Stranded divers rescued
Divers have rescued two crew who spent 15 hours on the seabed in a stranded rescue submarine off Australia's west coast, the military said yesterday. The Australian Submarine Rescue Vehicle (ASRV) Remora ran into trouble at midnight local time on Monday when a winch system failed as it was being recovered during trials. After more than half a day in 130m deep water west of Perth, the vessel was brought to within 15m of the surface and the two crew were evacuated by divers.
■ Indonesia
Sex tape lawmaker resigns
A senior politician resigned from the country's largest political party after he was featured with a popular singer on a sex tape that was widely circulated in the country, media reports said yesterday. Yahya Zaini -- who is the head of the Golkar Party's religious affairs department, which has responsibility for moral issues -- submitted his resignation from the party, which was immediately approved by its chairman, Jusuf Kalla, who is also Indonesia's vice president.
■ China
Pricey hotel slashes price
A luxury hotel near Beijing which launched what is believed to be Asia's most expensive room four months ago has dropped its prices after taking no bookings, the establishment's manager said yesterday. A night in a luxury suite at the Pingxi Royal Mansion in the suburbs of Beijing officially costs 220,000 yuan (US$28,205 dollars), although it has already had to offer discounts due to the lack of customers, the manager of the hotel said. The 6,000m3 hotel, richly decorated with fake imperial-style antiques, aims to make its customers to feel as though they were royalty, the the Beijing Morning Post quoted staff as saying.
■ China
City men love themselves
Urban men spend 8.6 minutes a day gazing at themselves in the mirror and shell out 80 yuan (US$10) a month on beauty products, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday, citing a survey. Men in Beijing and the financial centre of Shanghai were neck-and-neck on whose residents were most vain. Those in the capital spent the most money on cosmetics -- an average of 119 yuan a month -- but those in Shanghai looked in the mirror the longest -- about 17 minutes a day. The survey of men aged 18 to 60 in seven Chinese cities was conducted by Horizon Research Consultancy Group and a Shanghai fashion company, Xinhua said.
■ Cambodia
Guilty verdict upheld
An appeal court yesterday upheld the guilty verdict and life sentence handed down on a former Khmer Rouge commander for the murders of three Western backpackers in 1994. Sam Bith, 74, was the most senior of three of the ultra-Maoist guerrillas charged with abducting Briton Mark Slater, Frenchman Jean-Michel Braquet and Australian David Wilson during a train ambush in southern Cambodia. Sam Bith, who has been in and out of hospital with a variety of illnesses in the past year, denied any involvement and appealed against his conviction, handed down in 2002. His lawyer said he was in a Thai hospital at the time of the attack.
■ Malaysia
Harsh measures mulled
Lawmakers have called for foreign prostitutes to be whipped as a deterrent to others considering coming over to work in the sex industry, a report said yesterday. Mohamed Aziz, from the ruling National Front coalition, told parliament that he had met a transvestite from Brunei who said he had moved to Malaysia because the rules here were more lenient. "He told me that in Brunei, prostitutes would be whipped," he said. "If we can impose whipping for drug addicts, why can't we do the same for prostitutes," he said in a proposal that was supported by at least one other lawmaker.
■ South Korea
Palace gate relocated
A US$30 million, three-year project was launched on Monday to move the main gate of an ancient royal palace by approximately 15m in order to right a wrong it sees as being caused by Japan's colonial occupation. Workers in downtown Seoul began the delicate process of taking apart and demolishing parts of Kwanghwamoon (brightness) gate, which was moved during Japan's 1910 to 1945 occupation of the Korean Peninsula because it blocked the view from a Japanese administrative office. The gate burned down in the early stages of the Korean War and was rebuilt in 1968.
■ Poland
Minister faces sex scandal
The government faced pressure on Monday to dismiss a deputy prime minister after a woman accused him and other members of his party of recruiting employees in return for sex. The Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper published a front-page story accusing Andrzej Lepper, one of two deputy prime ministers and the leader of the leftist Self-Defense party, of giving a job in his party to a woman on condition that she had sex with him. Lepper denied the allegations and called for an investigation. A senior Law and Justice party official said there would be no official comment until more information was available.
■ Netherlands
City birds speed up songs
Songbirds change their tune when they move to cities, according to new research. Scientists found that great tits adapted to urban living by singing faster, shorter songs that were at a higher frequency. Rapid urbanization around the world and the subsequent increase in ambient noise has proven problematic. For birds in particular, city noises can mask the exchange of vital information and prevent males from attracting mates. Hans Slabbekoorn of Leiden University recorded the songs of great tits in 10 European cities including Amsterdam and London. Results showed that songs were markedly different in an urban setting.
■ United States
Fox sued over `Borat'
A judge told lawyers who filed a US$30 million lawsuit accusing the makers of the hit movie Borat of misleading residents of a remote Romanian village that they must make specific allegations in their lawsuit. The lawsuit alleges that 20th Century Fox Film Corp and others involved in the film exploited residents of Glod, telling them the film was a documentary about extreme poverty in Romania that would fairly depict their lives, living conditions, occupations, community, heritage and beliefs.
■ Peru
Al least 45 die in bus crash
A passenger bus drove off a cliff in a remote part of southeastern Peru yesterday, killing at least 45 people and injuring two, local police said. The bus was speeding when it went off the 400m cliff at dawn near the town of Macusani, in the tourist area of Puno, according to early police statements. The government recently launched a program to stem the wave of accidents on the country's roads, after more than 40 people were killed in road accidents in October. The safety measures include roadside controls that inspect passenger buses and trucks for roadworthiness.
■ Ireland
Scissor sisters sentenced
Two women, nicknamed "the scissor sisters" after being found guilty of the gory killing of their mother's Kenyan boyfriend, received lengthy jail sentences on Monday. Charlotte Mulhall, 23, a mother of one from south Dublin, who was found guilty of murder, received a mandatory life sentence at the Central Criminal Court. Her sister Linda, 31, a mother of four, was given 15 years for manslaughter. Police began their murder investigation in March last year after a leg was spotted in a canal. Other body parts were later recovered by police divers. His penis and head have never been found. The sisters claimed the man had raped and beat their mother, who is believed to have fled the country.
■ Paraguay
Former president convicted
Former president Luis Gonzalez Macchi was convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison for concealing a Swiss bank account dating to his time in office that prosecutors said contained more than US$1 million, a tribunal announced. Gonzalez Macchi, who served from March 1999 until August 2003, was taken into custody but vowed to appeal Monday's ruling, saying he felt "defrauded" by the justice system. "I wasn't expecting this," he said. "I believe I am a victim of politics at this moment in Paraguay." The three-judge tribunal announced it had convicted Gonzalez Macchi of illegal enrichment and providing false testimony about the Swiss account.
■ United States
Man confesses to 23 killings
A man has confessed to strangling or suffocating 23 men during an eight-year killing spree and dumping their bodies in remote spots, police said. Ronald Dominique, 42, was charged with nine additional counts of murder on Monday, bringing the total to 11 counts against him -- 10 for first-degree murder and one for second-degree murder. Terrebonne, Louisiana, Parish Sheriff Jerry Larpenter said Dominique confessed to killing 23 men, all males between the ages of 16 and 46, between 1997 and last year. "He stated how, when and where they were killed," Larpenter said.
■ Canada
No more free tattoos
The government is scrapping a pilot program that provided tattoos for prisoners in an effort to stop the spread of diseases such as hepatitis and AIDS, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said on Monday. The program, set up by the previous Liberal government, offered free tattoos to prisoners in six of Canada's 58 federal prisons. The Liberals lost in January to the Conservatives, who promised to crack down on crime. "Our government will not spend taxpayers' money on providing tattoos for convicted criminals," Day said in a statement. "Our priority is to have an effective federal corrections system that protects Canadians, while providing inmates with access to acceptable health care and treatment programs."
■ Canada
Suspected spy to be deported
A man authorities accused of being an elite Russian spy will be deported, a court decided on Monday after the 45-year-old admitted he was not Canadian and had been in the country illegally. A Federal Court judge found that a security certificate issued against a man claiming to be Paul William Hampel was reasonable, clearing the way for his deportation. The man, whose real identity was kept secret, did not contest the security certificate on Monday, despite insisting the previous week that he was a Canadian-born citizen. He never admitted to being a spy.
■ Canada
Woman gets 16 months
Frenchwoman Nathalie Gettliffe was sentenced on Monday to 16 months in jail for kidnapping her two children by her former Canadian husband and holding them for five years. A Vancouver judge called the case of Gettliffe, a professor of English at a French university and mother of four, one "of the most tragic circumstances I have ever had to deal with." The judge added three years of probation under strict conditions to the jail sentence for the 2001 kidnapping, in which Gettliffe took her son and daughter away from her former husband and flew them to France, hiding them with members of her family.
FRAUD ALLEGED: The leader of an opposition alliance made allegations of electoral irregularities and called for a protest in Tirana as European leaders are to meet Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s Socialist Party scored a large victory in parliamentary elections, securing him his fourth term, official results showed late on Tuesday. The Socialist Party won 52.1 percent of the vote on Sunday compared with 34.2 percent for an alliance of opposition parties led by his main rival Sali Berisha, according to results released by the Albanian Central Election Commission. Diaspora votes have yet to be counted, but according to initial results, Rama was also leading there. According to projections, the Socialist Party could have more lawmakers than in 2021 elections. At the time, it won 74 seats in the
EUROPEAN FUTURE? Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama says only he could secure EU membership, but challenges remain in dealing with corruption and a brain drain Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama seeks to win an unprecedented fourth term, pledging to finally take the country into the EU and turn it into a hot tourist destination with some help from the Trump family. The artist-turned-politician has been pitching Albania as a trendy coastal destination, which has helped to drive up tourism arrivals to a record 11 million last year. US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, also joined in the rush, pledging to invest US$1.4 billion to turn a largely deserted island into a luxurious getaway. Rama is expected to win another term after yesterday’s vote. The vote would
CANCER: Jose Mujica earned the moniker ‘world’s poorest president’ for giving away much of his salary and living a simple life on his farm, with his wife and dog Tributes poured in on Tuesday from across Latin America following the death of former Uruguayan president Jose “Pepe” Mujica, an ex-guerrilla fighter revered by the left for his humility and progressive politics. He was 89. Mujica, who spent a dozen years behind bars for revolutionary activity, lost his battle against cancer after announcing in January that the disease had spread and he would stop treatment. “With deep sorrow, we announce the passing of our comrade Pepe Mujica. President, activist, guide and leader. We will miss you greatly, old friend,” Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi wrote on X. “Pepe, eternal,” a cyclist shouted out minutes later,
Myanmar’s junta chief met Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) for the first time since seizing power, state media reported yesterday, the highest-level meeting with a key ally for the internationally sanctioned military leader. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing led a military coup in 2021, overthrowing Myanmar’s brief experiment with democracy and plunging the nation into civil war. In the four years since, his armed forces have battled dozens of ethnic armed groups and rebel militias — some with close links to China — opposed to its rule. The conflict has seen Min Aung Hlaing draw condemnation from rights groups and pursued by the
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