■ China
Chunky monkeys slim down
More than 200 Tibetan macaque monkeys in Sichuan Province that grew fat and lazy from gorging on tourist junk food have slimmed down after a strict three-year diet imposed by wildlife officials, the Shanghai Daily reported yesterday. Authorities at a nature reserve in Emei mountain region launched a diet plan for the monkeys after fears they were losing their wild instincts and becoming obese, it said. "A normal adult macaque weighs about 25kg, but many ballooned to 45kg," Hu Yongzhong, director of the monkey protection reserve, as saying.
■ China
Tycoon re-arrested
A Shanghai real estate tycoon, Zhou Zhengyi (周正義), who was released this year after serving a prison term in a stock market scandal, has been re-arrested, the Xinhua news agency said yesterday. Zhou has been in custody since October for unspecified "problems," it reported, citing a city government spokesman. "The police are currently investigating Zhou's problems," the unidentified spokesman was quoted as saying. Zhou was released in May after serving a three-year term for fraud and securities manipulation.
■ China
Top jailer of reporters
China has at least 31 journalists behind bars, making it the world's leading jailer of reporters for the eighth year in a row, according to a US-based group's survey. About three-quarters were convicted under vague charges of subversion or revealing state secrets, and more than half were Internet journalists, said a statement on the annual survey by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
■ Hong Kong
Shoppers warned about fish
Shoppers were on alert yesterday following the discovery of another cancer-causing toxin in fish. The government said that tests on samples of saltwater fish such as pompano, tiger grouper and flowery grouper sold in markets had traced small amounts of the banned antibiotic nitrofuran. In small doses nitrofuran is used to treat illnesses such urinary infections; however, larger doses are believed to be dangerous and potentially carcinogenic. "As the levels of nitrofurans detected in the fish samples were low, normal consumption should not pose any adverse health effects," said Mak Sin-ping, controller of the Center for Food Safety. "There is no cause for undue alarm." The fish are believed to have come from China.
■ Singapore
German drowns in spa
A German executive died in a whirlpool bath at an apartment after apparently being sucked to the bottom, police said yesterday. Police did not release the name of the victim, who was in his late 30s and had recently arrived in the city-state, but the Straits Times named him as Arndt Starke, the Asia finance director for Schott AG. A police spokesman said they were called at about 10pm last Friday after a man was found lying motionless in an outdoor whirlpool bath. The newspaper said the man's fiancee, who was also in the pool, had screamed for help but the suction was so powerful that four men who tried to rescue Starke could not pull him out.
■ Australia
Tourist cleared in drug case
All charges against a Canadian tourist mistakenly arrested in a multimillion dollar drug raid were dropped yesterday. Dereck Hotner of Abbotsford, near Vancouver, had been facing a life sentence on charges of importing cocaine and ecstasy, and one count of conspiracy. But prosecutors dropped all charges against him in a brief hearing before the Brisbane Magistrate's Court. The clearly relieved 36-year-old said he had simply been on holiday when he was arrested. Hotner, four other Canadians and an Australian were arrested in September after customs officers allegedly discovered drugs hidden in PC monitors that arrived from Canada.
■ South Korea
Five charged with spying
Prosecutors indicted a Korean-American and four others yesterday for allegedly spying for North Korea in what officials dubbed the biggest spy case since the beginning of reconciliation between the two Koreas. Jang Min-ho, the 44-year-old naturalized Korean-American, was charged with setting up the spy ring in 2002 at Pyongyang's instruction and passing secret information to the North. Two former and two incumbent officials of the left-leaning opposition Democratic Labor Party were also charged. Prosecutors said Jang met North Korean agents at least seven times in China and in Thailand since 1989.
■ Indonesia
Polygamy law debated
A popular Islamic cleric's decision to take a second wife has sparked a fiery debate about polygamy laws. Abdullah Gymnastiar's announcement prompted the government to consider extending a ban on officials having multiple marriages to lawmakers, a move that sent many legislators leaping to the defense of polygamy. "If the government wants to regulate polygamy, it has to do it correctly because Islam allows polygamy with some strict conditions," said Ichwan Sam, secretary general of the Indonesian Ulema Council.
■ Poland
PM cancels Lithuania visit
Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski on Thursday postponed a planned visit to Lithuania to deal with a sex scandal that could bring down his government. Poland is in the grip of a sex scandal involving deputy prime minister and agriculture minister Andrzej Lepper, who leads one of three parties in the ruling coalition. The scandal erupted on Monday when a woman, Aneta Krawczyk, alleged in a newspaper interview that she had sex with Lepper in exchange for a political job.
■ United Kingdom
Drug trials regulated
Experts investigating a disastrous drug trial that nearly killed six healthy volunteers in March urged the British government on Thursday to impose strict measures to make future clinical trials safer. Professor Gordon Duff's expert scientific group presented 22 final recommendations to the government designed to spot potentially dangerous drugs before they enter trials and to minimize the risks to volunteers. The six men who received the drug suffered a massive immune reaction which caused horrific swelling and widespread organ failure.
■ Ireland
State mulls legal sex age
A proposal to lower the age of consent for sex from 17 to 16 years old has alarmed the country's Roman Catholic bishops, they said in a statement on Thursday. The bishops said they wished to register their "deep concern at the lack of any reference to the moral issues involved." Last month, an all-party parliamentary committee on child protection recommended the change on a majority vote, with three members of the centrist Fine Gael main opposition party dissenting.
■ United States
Murder conviction upheld
A New York state appeals court on Thursday upheld the murder conviction of serial killer Sante Kimes, sentenced to more than 100 years in prison for the murder of a socialite whose body was never found. Kimes and her son, Kenny, were convicted in New York in 2000 of slaying 82-year-old Irene Silverman. The mother-and-son team was convicted in California in 2004 for the murder of David Kazdin, a business associate. She and Kenny were the subject of a 2001 made-for-television movie, Like Mother Like Son, starring Mary Tyler Moore.
■ Chile
Pinochet recovering fast
General Augusto Pinochet's recovery from a heart attack is progressing so well that doctors are considering removing him from the intensive care unit, the hospital treating him reported on Thursday. ``The patient has had a quiet day during which he has completed his rehabilitation program,'' the Santiago Military Hospital said in a communique. It said the 91-year-old former dictator is now taking all the necessary medication orally. The brief communique added that doctors are considering allowing Pinochet to leave the intensive care unit where has remained since early Sunday, when he was rushed to the hospital after suffering what doctors described as an acute heart attack.
■ United States
Town mulls guns for all
A tiny town in western Pennsylvania could ask all of its residents to own guns, if a proposal being considered on Wednesday wins approval from local officials. Under the proposed law, residents of the town of Cherry Tree, Pennsylvania, would be asked to own guns and know how to use them. Cherry Tree, some 70 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, has about 400 residents. Introduced last month by resident Henry Statkowski, the measure recommends that "all heads of households maintain a firearm along with ammunition."
■ Mexico
Cota offers olive branch
The leader of the largest leftist party offered to "leave behind" the country's bitter Dec. 1 post-electoral dispute in a bid to start talks with President Felipe Calderon's party on resolving unrest in Oaxaca. The comments on Thursday were an unusual sign of flexibility from Leonel Cota, leader of the Democratic Revolution Party, who has angrily refused to recognize Calderon's presidency. "We're saying let's leave Dec. 1 behind, what happened before Dec. 1, to resolve a problem that is the responsibility of all political forces," Cota said.
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
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
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
Some things might go without saying, but just in case... Belgium’s food agency issued a public health warning as the festive season wrapped up on Tuesday: Do not eat your Christmas tree. The unusual message came after the city of Ghent, an environmentalist stronghold in the country’s East Flanders region, raised eyebrows by posting tips for recycling the conifers on the dinner table. Pointing with enthusiasm to examples from Scandinavia, the town Web site suggested needles could be stripped, blanched and dried — for use in making flavored butter, for instance. Asked what they thought of the idea, the reply
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