■ China
Satisfy your burning desire
Cemeteries are selling paper replicas of Viagra pills to be burned for dead relatives as a wish for satisfying sex in the afterlife, state media reported yesterday. Customers are snapping up the paper Viagra, as well as images of condoms and heavily made-up bar girls ahead of the annual Tomb-sweeping Festival on April 5, the Nanjing Morning News reported. People traditionally burn fake money in honor of dead relatives during the festival, believing the wealth will accrue to their ancestors in the afterlife. But a move toward a more consumer-oriented society has seen new offerings including paper televisions, mobile phones, cars and other luxury items. A commentary in the Beijing Morning Post yesterday called for a crackdown on the sex-related "vice" offerings.
■ Indonesia
Militant gets 20 years
An Islamic militant was sentenced to 20 years behind bars yesterday for ordering the beheadings of three Christian schoolgirls on the island of Sulawesi, judges said. Hasanuddin, who goes by a single name, was accused of masterminding the 2005 attack, buying the machetes and leaving a handwritten note at the scene vowing more killings. He faced a maximum penalty of death, but judges at the Central Jakarta District Court handed down a 20-year-sentence.
■ South Korea
Doctors, dentists strike
Thousands of doctors and dentists went on strike yesterday to protest government plans to reform medical services. The government has published a bill that would let hospitals provide both traditional Oriental and Western medical services, along with dentistry. Most hospitals currently offer only one of the services. The bill also calls for the introduction of doctors who can work in multiple clinics or hospitals, rather than being confined to one institution. Doctors insist the bill would lower the quality of specialists and affect public health.
■ Australia
Report pans Sydney trains
The nation's biggest city, Sydney, has the world's worst rail system, lagging far behind international counterparts in efficiency and reliability, according to a leaked report published yesterday. The Daily Telegraph newspaper said the report, prepared by experts from Hong Kong's widely-praised Mass Transit Railway (MTR), compared Sydney's CityRail network with similar transport systems worldwide. It found the network servicing Sydney came near the bottom of the comparison table on almost all measures, against the likes of Santiago, Moscow and Bangkok. "Reliability levels are well below MTR and international benchmarks," the report said. It found Sydney's trains were 10 times less reliable than Hong Kong's, seven times more expensive to run than in Europe and had double the maintenance costs of North American systems.
■ Hong Kong
Cardinal denied retirement
Cardinal Joseph Zen (陳日君) said yesterday that Pope Benedict XVI had rejected his request to retire as the head of the territory's Catholic Church. Zen, who has reached the retirement age for diocesan bishops at 75, said he has been informed that he should stay on as bishop despite his repeated requests to retire. "His Holiness Benedict XVI has decided that I carry on as the bishop of Hong Kong and, in that position, do whatever I can to participate in the concerns for the Church in China in collaboration with the Holy See until it will be arranged otherwise," Zen said.
■ Netherlands
Rockers cannot curse
Organizers of a heavy metal rock festival have been granted a permit for the open-air concert this summer on one condition: no cursing. The Elsrock festival caused an uproar last year when it was held outside the small, heavily religious town of Rijssen. Two religious political parties complained that heavy metal "is typified by lyrics about death and decay, and vocals that change between a hellish wail and deep grunts." Churches were pacified only by "the stated readiness of the organizers to make sure that no blasphemous words are used, and that the honor of God's name is not besmirched," Mayor Bort Koelewijn wrote in a letter granting the permit.
■ France
Eye-gouger gets 30 years
A man who ripped out his wife's eyes in a fit of rage was sentenced by a court to 30 years behind bars on Tuesday. Mohamed Hadfi, 31, tore out his 23-year-old wife Samira Bari's eyes following a heated argument in their apartment in the southern city of Nimes in July 2003 after she refused to have sex with him. Bari, who had demanded a divorce before the attack, was permanently blinded. Hadfi, a Moroccan, initially fled to Germany. He was finally arrested and sent back to France, where he was indicted for "acts of torture and barbarity leading to a permanent disability."
■ Madagascar
Fifty feared dead after storm
About 50 people are feared dead after a cyclone hit the Indian Ocean nation, which is reeling from a disastrous series of storms, authorities said on Tuesday. Cyclone Indlala became the 12th cyclone of the season to slam into Madagascar last Thursday. The National Office for the Management of Risks and Catastrophes said that 37 people were dead and 12 still missing after the cyclone. Some 16,000 people were made homeless -- in addition to the 283,000 who had lost their homes in earlier storms.
■ United States
Holocaust claims paid
An international commission wrapped up its work on Tuesday after more than US$300 million was paid on tens of thousands of claims by Holocaust victims and their families in the past decade. According to the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims' (ICHEIC) final report, "US$306.24 million was offered or awarded to more than 48,000 claimants." "I fully recognize that no amount of compensation can redress the suffering inflicted during the Holocaust," said the commission's chairman, former US secretary of state Lawrence Eagleburger. "Nevertheless, I believe that ICHEIC has achieved its goal of bringing a small measure of justice to those who have been denied it for so long," he said in a statement.
■ Romania
Castle returned to ex-king
The government returned a picturesque castle in the Carpathian mountains to its former king, who was chased out by the communist regime 60 years ago. The Peles castle, now hosting a museum and an art collection, has become a popular tourist attraction since opening to the public after the execution of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989. According to a memorandum signed by the representatives of the former monarch Michael, the castle will be sold back to the country if authorities agree to keep it as a museum. A lawyer for the royal house said the king will get as much as 30 million euros (US$40 million) for the estate.
■ United States
Girl wins stinky shoes prize
Thirteen-year-old Katharine Tuck's sneakers smell as bad as they look. Now, at least, the Utah seventh-grader can afford some new ones. On Tuesday, she outranked six other children to win US$2,500 in the 32nd annual National Odor-Eaters Rotten Sneaker Contest, stinking up the joint with a pair of well-worn one-and-a-half-year-old Nikes so noxious they had the judges wincing. "I'm so proud of the little stinker,"her mother, Paula Tuck, said. Ah, the foul smell of success. Katharine has used the sneakers to play soccer and basketball, hiked in them, even waded into the Great Salt Lake, where they were infiltrated by brine shrimp.
■ United States
Butcher found guilty
A butcher who hacked his wife to death on a street in New York because he believed she was cheating on him was convicted of second-degree murder on Tuesday. The jury in Manhattan's state Supreme Court took less than two hours to convict Sergio Parra, who was accused of fatally slashing and stabbing Jahaira Parra in their Washington Heights neighborhood on Sept. 16, 2004. Parra faces a maximum 25 years to life in jail when Justice Michael Obus sentences him on April 6.
■ United States
Arson suspect charged
A judge on Tuesday ordered a man accused of setting a wildfire that killed five California firefighters to stand trial on charges of murder and arson. Raymond Lee Oyler, 36, faces 22 counts of arson and 17 counts of use of an incendiary device for allegedly setting nearly two dozen fires between May 16 and Oct. 26 last year. He was also charged with five counts of first-degree murder. Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Prevost's decision concluded a two-day preliminary hearing to determine whether there was enough evidence to proceed to trial.
■ United States
P&G not a devil worshipper
A US court ruled that Procter and Gamble Co (P&G) does not worship Satan. The ruling revolves around a decades-old urban myth targeting the world's biggest consumer goods company. P&G said on Monday it had won US$19.25 million in a civil suit brought against four former Amway distributors, who were accused of spreading false rumors. Last Friday's jury award in Salt Lake City represents the latest in a long line of court battles between P&G and direct-seller Amway over the devil-worshipping claim. According to urban legend, P&G's logo contains a "666" symbol, its bosses have appeared on television talk shows to declare their love of Beelzebub, and part of its profits go to the Church of Satan.
■ United States
Veto threatens DC vote
The White House is threatening a presidential veto of legislation to give Washington's delegate in the House of Representatives a vote, possibly prolonging the District of Columbia's two-century-long wait for representation in Congress. The White House said in a statement on Tuesday the bill violates constitutional language that says the House should be made up of representatives chosen by the people of the states. The House is to vote tomorrow on the legislation that would give a vote to the Washington delegate while creating, until the 2010 census, a new at-large seat for Utah. The proposal would increase House membership to 437, with the seat from overwhelmingly Democratic Washington offset by the extra vote from Utah, a predominantly Republican state.
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
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
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
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,
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