■ AUSTRALIA
Brothels prepare for summit
Sydney's brothels are preparing for a business boom as thousands of delegates and journalists descend on the city for a major Asia-Pacific summit this week, local media reported yesterday. One well-known bordello is offering "The Presidential Platter" with a variety of pleasures or a "United Nations" double with women from a range of countries, according to the news and gossip Web site Crikey. A former tax office auditor turned legal brothel industry lobbyist, Chris Seage, wrote that Sydney's brothels had been fielding phone calls from overseas for the past two weeks.
■ AUSTRALIA
High court to hear appeal
The highest court agreed yesterday to hear an elderly Hungarian immigrant's appeal against extradition on war crimes charges. At a hearing in the capital, Canberra, three High Court judges agreed that a panel of at least five judges will hear 84-year-old Charles Zentai's appeal against a lower court's ruling that he can be extradited to Hungary over allegations that he murdered a Jewish teenager in Budapest in 1944. Zentai became an Australian citizen after immigrating to the country in 1950. Hungary's Foreign Ministry has been investigating him since December 2004 on suspicion that he killed Peter Balazs, 18, for failing to wear a yellow star identifying him as a Jew.
■ CHINA
Officials had mistresses
Nearly all of the 16 ministry-level officials recently sacked for corruption kept mistresses, including Shanghai's former top leader who had several, state press said yesterday. Most sacked officials engaged in illicit activities including exchanging "power for money" and "power for sex," the Beijing Times said, citing a just-opened exhibition on corruption in the capital. "Among the top 16 corrupt officials, 14 kept mistresses and some even kept many mistresses, like former Shanghai Communist Party secretary Chen Liangyu (陳良宇) and former Beijing vice mayor Liu Zhihua (劉志華)," the paper said.
■ HONG KONG
Ang Lee confesses stress
Oscar-winning director Ang Lee says filming the sex scenes in his new spy thriller Lust, Caution was so intense that it nearly caused him a mental breakdown, a Hong Kong newspaper reported yesterday. Lee was quoted by the Apple Daily newspaper as saying that the scenes were so emotionally charged that he had trouble letting go afterward. "Filming the sex scenes left me on the verge of nearly breaking down," Lee was quoted saying, adding that he was moved to tears when revisiting the set after filming. "We had just filmed sex scenes in that place. When I saw the empty house in the camera monitor, I couldn't stand it. It's the first time I reacted that way on a movie set," he said.
■ MALAYSIA
Taxi driver dress code issued
Taxi drivers are being told to put their best foot forward, with a shoe on it, and a sock. Or else. Authorities have warned taxi drivers of hefty fines if they are caught without socks, shoes and other proper attire prescribed by a licensing board, an official said yesterday. The Commercial Vehicle Licensing Board has threatened to crack down on taxi drivers for violating the dress code, which requires taxi drivers to tuck in their shirts -- which have to be white, not the beige that many have been wearing.
■ ISRAEL
Daycare center evacuated
Soldiers scrambled to evacuate babies from a daycare center in rocket-scarred Sderot yesterday after a projectile fired by Palestinian militants thudded into the courtyard. None of the 15 babies at the center was hurt. But frantic parents across the city -- already furious over the government's failure to protect them and their children from the near-daily rocket fire -- pulled their children out of schools on the second day of the academic year. The army said six rockets were fired at the southern city, which lies just a few kilometers from the Gaza Strip.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Crown Jewels get new guard
A woman joined the protectors of the Crown Jewels yesterday as one of the famous Beefeaters at the Tower of London. Moira Cameron is the first woman to serve as a Yeoman Warder at the tower since the corps of Tower guards was created in 1485. Cameron, a Warrant Officer Class 2 who joined the army at age 16, was selected over five men who also applied for the vacancy. Candidates must have been a Warrant Officer or senior noncommissioned officer, have served at least 22 years in the army, Royal Air Force or Royal Marines and hold the Long Service and Good Conduct medal.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Crimes go unpunished
Thousands of crimes went unpunished in England and Wales last year because the suspects were too young to be prosecuted, it was reported on Sunday. Children under 10 were suspected of having carried out 2,840 crimes, about half of which were cases of arson or criminal damage. But there were also 66 sex offenses, some against children under 13, for which they were the main suspects. They were also thought to be responsible for harassment, wounding and burglary. The age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales is 10 and over. It has intensified the debate as to whether the criminal age should be raised or not.
■ MONACO
Nelson Mandela honored
Nelson Mandela was honored on Sunday at an unusual auction in Monaco, where Prince Albert II hailed the anti-apartheid icon as a "beacon" for humanity. Among items listed for sale were the jersey Carl Lewis wore when winning one of his nine Olympic gold medals, soccer shoes worn during last year's World Cup -- and a piece of rock from Robben Island, where Mandela was imprisoned by the apartheid government of South Africa for 18 years. Proceeds from the auction, organized by Sotheby's, will go to humanitarian organizations the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund and Amade Mondiale.
■ YEMEN
Riot police kill two civilians
Two civilians were killed and more than 20 injured when riot police fired bullets to disperse a second day of protests held by retired officers and soldiers wanting to rejoin the army, local officials said. Nasser Ba Qazqaz, head of the opposition Tagammu Union Party in the southern province of Hadramawt, said the police killed two unarmed civilians and wounded 22 on Sunday in the southern city of al-Mukalla, 560km southeast of the capital, Sanaa. The Interior Ministry, however, said only one person was killed and five others wounded when ordinary civilians opened fire on the demonstrators, trying to protect their property.
■ UNITED STATES
Quake rocks S California
A magnitude 4.7 earthquake shook southern California, but no injuries or damage were reported, authorities said. The jolt on Sunday morning was centered near Lake Elsinore, about 80km southeast of Los Angeles, the US Geological Survey said. It was felt as far away as San Diego. "There was a lot of shaking in the shop for a few seconds. All my co-workers looked at each other and said `earthquake!'" said Myong Kim, an employee at the Latte Express coffee shop in Lake Elsinore. "It was a little scary but no damage."
■ UNITED STATES
Girl dies in mine shaft fall
A 13-year-old girl who fell into a brush-covered Arizona mine shaft while riding an all-terrain vehicle was found dead at the bottom, and her 10-year-old sister was rescued with serious injuries, authorities said. The girls, 13-year-old Rikki Howard and 10-year-old Casie Hicks, were out for a holiday weekend ride on Saturday when their father, who was riding ahead of them on a dirt bike, noticed they were missing. "They were driving along and they went into the mine. It was a total accident," Mohave County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Sandy Edwards said.
■ UNITED STATES
Firefighters contain blaze
A wildfire that has been burning for two months in Los Padres National Forest was fully contained, officials said. The California fire burned 971km2 of wilderness since being ignited by sparks from equipment used to repair a water pipe on July 4. Although the blaze is contained, it still is not fully controlled, meaning it is possible that some embers might blow across the containment line, officials said. Higher humidity and cooler weather helped firefighters gain on the fire in recent days. More than 1,300 firefighters and 10 aircraft were still working on the fire on Sunday.
■ UNITED STATES
Woman delivers sextuplets
Wearing six hospital ID bracelets, proud father Ben Byler unfolded an envelope on Sunday and read out the names of the sextuplets his wife gave birth to the night before. Brady Christopher. Eli Benjamin. Ryan Patrick. Jackson Robert. Charlie Craig. MacKenzie Margaret. Those are the first and middle names of the Byler Six, the first sextuplet birth on record in Florida. The five boys and one girl, weighing between 0.9kg and 1.36kg each, were born to 29-year-old Karoline Byler of Wesley Chapel, Florida. "This has been quite the Labor Day weekend for Bayfront Medical Center," hospital spokeswoman Kanika Tomalin said.
■ UNITED STATES
Beached shark dies
A 1.5m-long shark that washed up on a crowded New York City beach this weekend -- and was pushed back into the sea by beachgoers -- is dead. The shark frightened crowds at Rockaway Beach in the borough of Queens on Saturday morning when it splashed to shore. The thresher shark was not believed to pose any threat to humans, but it sent hundreds of swimmers scrambling out of the water. After the shark came ashore, several beachgoers pushed the fish back into the water. "It was like freaking out. Its tail was flopping everywhere," 10-year-old McKenzie Pontieri said in Sunday editions of the Daily News. The dead fish washed ashore further up the beach early on Sunday, city officials said.
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
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