■ JAPAN
Patch measures pet stress
Wondering if your dog or cat is stressed? Just stick a special patch on the bottom of its paw and you'll be able to tell, according to a Medical Life Care Giken. The patch purports to measure the stress level of dogs and cats by detecting excessive sweat secretion -- believed to be a sign of stress -- the Nikkei Weekly reported on Sunday. The round, pin-sized patch is applied to the center pad of the animal's paw and changes color depending on how sweaty the pet is, the Nikkei said.
■ CHINA
Zhou dynasty tomb found
Archeologists have found a 2,500-year-old tomb in Jiangxi Province containing 40 coffins that could provide rare clues to life in the region at the time, state media reported. The number of coffins found in the tomb is unusual for that period in history, Fan Changsheng (樊昌生), director of the Jiangxi Provincial Institute of Archeology, told Xinhua news agency on Sunday. Experts are wondering why so many were buried together and whose remains are contained in the coffins, he said. The tomb in Lijia village in Jing'an County is believed to date back to the Eastern Zhou dynasty (770BC to 221BC). A team of specialists will begin the delicate process of opening the coffins this month.
■ THAILAND
Militants kill two Buddhists
Suspected Muslim militants beheaded a Buddhist man, shot dead his nephew and set both bodies on fire in the rebellious far south, police and soldiers said yesterday. The 30-year-old man and his 14-year-old nephew were killed in a Muslim village in Pattani, one of the three southern most provinces hit by three years of separatist violence in which more than 2,100 people have been killed. The head was found 5km away at a government school where three bombs were planted at the entrance, police Lieutenant Colonel Yuthakan Plienpoe said. "They wanted to trap us with these bombs," Yuthakan said by telephone.
■ SOUTH KOREA
Hanwha boss faces arrest
Hanwha Group chairman Kim Seung-youn faces formal arrest after police questioned him for 11 hours about a revenge attack for an assault on his son, news reports said yesterday. Police plan to seek an arrest warrant for Kim, 55, on charges relating to the abduction and beating of Seoul bar employees last month, Yonhap news agency said. Police officials said Kim was released early yesterday after 11 hours of questioning, but refused to comment on a possible arrest warrant. The incident sparked a media outcry because of perceptions that leaders of the country's mighty conglomerates, or chaebol, are sometimes above the law. The presidential Blue House, in an unusual intervention, has asked police for a thorough investigation.
■ INDIA
Speeches sent via mobiles
Six politicians awaiting trial on murder or abduction charges in lawless northern Uttar Pradesh state have been using mobile phones to campaign for re-election from prison, police said on Sunday. The politicians call their supporters who broadcast the speeches live to rallies from their mobile phones, using a microphone hooked up to a public address system, police spokesman Surendra Srivastava said. "It is not a hush-hush affair. The meetings are well organized and at the stipulated time the leaders address their supporters using mobiles," Srivastava said. Indian law only bans people from serving in public office if they have been convicted of an offense.
■ Greece
Murders raise concerns
Concern is growing over security at remote monasteries after the murder of two elderly Greek Orthodox nuns at a hillside convent in what police say was probably a robbery that went wrong. The nuns, Theodora Mayniakoura, 86, and Maria Vlahaki, 63, were buried on Sunday as police hunted for their killers in a case that has shocked the nation. For decades the sole inhabitants of the monastery of the Assumption of the Virgin in the Peloponnese, the nuns were suffocated in their sleep by robbers believed to be after a crucifix encrusted with wood allegedly from the cross on which Jesus died.
■ IRAN
Police warn barbers
Police have warned barbers against offering Western-style haircuts, applying make-up or plucking the eyebrows of their male customers, a newspaper said on Sunday. The front page report of the reformist Etemad daily, which could not be immediately confirmed, appeared to be another sign of the authorities cracking down on clothing and other fashion deemed to be against Islamic values. "Western hair styles ... have been banned," Etemad said. Iranian young men have in recent years started paying more attention to the way they look and dress, especially in affluent parts of Tehran.
■ ITALY
Train attack suspects found
TV and news agencies reported on Sunday that police had detained two suspects in connection with the killing of a young commuter who was stabbed in the eye with an umbrella at Rome's main train station. Throughout the day news programs played video from surveillance cameras from Rome's Termini rail station. Newspapers ran front-page photos of the two suspects, dressed in white pants and white jackets, walking up a station staircase after the attack. State TV and Italian news agencies reported that the two women were tracked down by police at a house in the small town of Tolentino, about 250km from Rome, in east central Italy. There was no answer at the Carabinieri paramilitary station in Tolentino.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Reid wants new phones
Home Secretary John Reid is to approach Apple Inc and Sony Corp to join a summit to help fight crime in Britain. Reid wants manufacturers of mobile phones and MP3 players to concentrate as much on anti-crime functions as on other design features. Gadgets like mobile phones and MP3 players are highly prized by criminals and crime figures released last week showed the number of street robberies rose 8 percent to 26,600 during the final quarter of last year. "We already have a close working relationship with mobile phone manufacturers," a Home Office spokesman said on Sunday.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
N Ireland goes smoke-free
Northern Ireland yesterday became the third part of Britain to go smoke-free, as a ban on lighting up in enclosed public spaces came into force. Smoking was banned in Scottish cafes, pubs, restaurants and work places in March last year while Wales introduced similar measures on April 2 this year. England will be the last place in Britain to outlaw smoking, when a ban comes in on July 1. Smokers who flout the ban in Northern Ireland will be fined ?50 (US$99.60), while businesses face fines of up to ?2,500 if they fail to enforce the restrictions.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Iran soldiers back on ship
Eight British Royal Navy sailors held by Iran for about two weeks a month ago have re-joined their colleagues aboard the HMS Cornwall, the Sun reported yesterday. A spokeswoman for the defense ministry declined to confirm any specific names, or the number of people who had resumed work aboard the frigate, but said that "some of them are returning to their ship." "They went back to work last Monday, and they've been having debriefing since then," the spokeswoman said. The HMS Cornwall is currently in the Gulf, the spokeswoman confirmed.
■ Russia
US rejects moonbase help
The chief of Russia's space agency said that the US has rejected a proposal by Moscow to explore the moon jointly, a Russian news agency reported. NASA announced in December that it would establish an international base camp on one of the moon's poles, permanently staffing it by 2024. Officials with Russia's Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos, later said they had hoped to join NASA's program with Russian technology and experience. But Roscosmos chief Anatoly Perminov was quoted by the Interfax news agency on Sunday as saying that the US had rebuffed the offer. "We are ready to cooperate but for some reasons the US has announced that it will carry out the program itself," he was quoted as saying.
■ UNITED STATES
Four dead in mall shooting
At least four people were killed on Sunday, including the assailant, when a gunman opened fire at a shopping mall in Kansas City, Missouri, police said. The gunshots sent shoppers scrambling for cover at the Ward Parkway Center, a popular shopping plaza in Missouri, witnesses said. Police captain Rich Lockhart said the gunman shot and killed a man and a woman in the outdoor parking lot of the mall. The shooter then ran inside the mall carrying a "long gun" and was gunned down by police. "The gunman was shot by police inside the mall," he said.
■ CANADA
Gore slams `green' plan
Former US vice president Al Gore says Canada's environmental plan put forth by the Conservative government is a "complete and total fraud" that is "designed to mislead the Canadian people." The government announced a proposal on Thursday to reduce Canada's level of current greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent by 2020. The Conservative government strategy focuses on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving air quality. Gore said he was surprised to see that the Conservative plan employs the concept of "intensity reduction," which he said is a poll-tested phrase developed in Houston by the so-called think tanks financed by Exxon Mobil and some other large polluters.
■ IRAQ
`Aiding enemy' probe begins
A formal investigation began yesterday to decide if a US Army officer accused of "aiding the enemy" while he ran a US detention center in Iraq should face a court-martial. Lieutenant-Colonel William Steele, commander of the 451st Military Police Detachment, ran the detention facilities at Camp Cropper, near Baghdad international airport, where insurgents and former senior aides to former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein are held. He is charged with fraternizing with a detainee's daughter, having an improper relationship with a translator, providing unmonitored mobile phones to prisoners, unauthorized possession of classified information and keeping pornographic videos.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
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