■ THAILAND
"Police target teen sex
Alarmed by polls showing one in four teens will celebrate St Valentine's Day by having sex, police planned to swoop on motels, malls and parks to ensure youths behaved themselves. The annual campaign to ensure good behavior on Valentine's Day involved city officials turning on all lights at public parks in Bangkok, while parents were urged to make sure their teenagers came home early. Police and "student inspectors" from the Education Ministry were to check discrete "curtain" motels to make sure youths under the legal age of 18 were not using them for amorous interludes.
■ INDONESIA
Quake sparks tsunami alert
A strong 6.6-magnitude earthquake struck off the eastern province of Maluku early yesterday, prompting a tsunami alert that was later lifted, the meteorology and geophysics office said here. The earthquake, which struck at 2:58am, was centered 275km southwest of Maluku, some 10km under the seabed, the office said. "There is the potential for a tsunami," it said. One hour later the alert was lifted. Tsunami warnings are routinely issued in Indonesia for strong quakes occurring at a depth of 10km or less. Equipment is not currently in place to measure a change in water depth commensurate with a tsunami forming off a coast.
■ AUSTRALIA
Dozens rescued from yacht
Thirty-seven people were airlifted from a stricken yacht off the Great Barrier Reef on Tuesday in the second dramatic rescue from wild seas in two days, police said. Two helicopters were used to winch the passengers and crew from the 18m yacht stranded in the Whitsunday Islands in the northeastern state of Queensland, they said. Heavy rain, strong winds and large seas forced rescuers to abandon plans to use boats or ropes to bring the passengers to shore. Overnight police pulled a family of six, including four children, to safety after their yacht slipped its moorings in gale-force winds and smashed into rocks at nearby Airlie Beach.
■ SOUTH KOREA
Space kimchi ready to go
A specially engineered version of kimchi, the beloved pickle dish, has been cleared for a historic space mission this year, officials said on Wednesday. The bacteria-free kimchi, developed by top scientists, will blast off along with the country's first astronaut after being approved by Russian space authorities, they said. Instant noodles, cinnamon tea and uncooked organic food, all developed by the state-run food research body, have also been approved for the mission in April.
■ JAPAN
Film director passes on
Kon Ichikawa, the film director whose versatility ranged beyond well-known anti-war dramas like The Burmese Harp and Fires on the Plain to comedies and documentaries, died on Wednesday in Tokyo at the age of 92. The cause was pneumonia, said a spokeswoman for Toho, which released many of Ichikawa's more than 80 films and announced his death. Ichikawa's career reached what many consider its high point when US viewers were streaming to art-cinema houses in the 1950s and 1960s to see movies by emerging masters like Ingmar Bergman. In those years critics rated Ichikawa on a level with Akira Kurosawa. He was "once hailed as one of the world's greatest directors," Olaf Moeller wrote in 2001 in Film Comment.
■ ARMENIA
Ten hurt in plane crash
A plane carrying 21 people crashed on takeoff from the capital Yerevan early yesterday, injuring at least 10 people, the head of the civil aviation authority said.
The plane, a Canadair CRJ-100, was heading for Minsk, Belarus, when it flipped over on the runway at Zvartnots Airport and burst into flames, Avtiom Movsesian said. He said there were 18 passengers and three crew members aboard. Ten were hospitalized with injuries. An airport spokesman said none of the injuries were life-threatening. The plane belonged to Belarus' state airline Belavia.
■ SAUDI ARABIA
Divorced couple to reunite
Riyadh has promised to allow a couple who were forced to divorce by a religious court to live together again, the UN zzaz is being held in a government home for orphans with a young son because she refused to return to her family home after the divorce order. Her husband has custody of their daughter.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Rare white stag filmed
A mythical and ghostly creature has appeared in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands -- and caught on camera. The rare white stag, from the red deer species, is believed to be among just a tiny handful living in Britain, the John Muir Trust said. The conservation group is keeping the stag's location secret for fear of poachers. "To see him amongst the other stags was truly thrilling because he does look like a ghost: you do a double-take," said Trust Partnership manager Fran Lockhart, who filmed the stag.
■ GERMANY
Sex auction leads to lawsuit
A woman who became pregnant after an online sex auction has won a court battle to force the Web site that hosted the sale to reveal the names of the winners, so she can find out who's the father. Six men won Internet auctions to have sex with the woman last April and May. She only knew their online names. "She needed their contact details," the spokesman for the court in Stuttgart said on Wednesday. "Of course, if they're not willing to go along with the gene test, she'll have to take them to court." The Web site operator had refused to reveal the true identity of the men, citing a confidentiality clause in its terms and conditions. The court ruled that a child's right to know who its father was took precedence.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Curry houses in crisis
The government was urged on Wednesday to ease restrictions on Bangladeshi workers in an attempt to help avert a crisis in curry houses. At least 27,500 more workers are needed, the Immigration Advisory Service (IAS) charity said. The shortage is caused by the government's new immigration system for non-EU migrants, IAS said. Attempts to hire eastern Europeans have failed because they "have no cultural sensitivity towards or understanding of the curry industry," IAS said.
■ VENEZUELA
"US court backs ExxonMobil
A New York federal judge on Wednesday affirmed a freeze of US$300 million in assets owned by Venezuela's state oil company following a legal challenge by US oil major ExxonMobil. "All the conditions have been met to confirm the attachment," said Judge Deborah Batts, who presided over a review of the affair at a New York federal court. The escalating legal battle relates to ExxonMobil's bid to secure compensation after Venezuela nationalized key oil fields in the Orinoco basin, including two ExxonMobil operations. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro took McCormack's statement as proof that the squabble was political in nature. "The US government is nothing more than the direct representative of the multinational oligarchy ... who operates through political power," Maduro said in Caracas.
■ NICARAGUA
Protest filed with Colombia
Nicaragua protested formally to the Colombian government on Tuesday after saying a ship from Colombia's navy confronted Nicaraguan fishermen in waters both countries claim as their own. The protest note, handed to Colombia's ambassador to Managua, marks the latest confrontation between the two countries, which both claim three isolated Caribbean islands and their surrounding waters. On Tuesday, Managua said that a Colombian frigate had intimidated a fishing boat trawling for lobsters earlier in the week in what it described as Nicaraguan waters.
■ UNITED STATES
Police callers get sex pitch
People calling a Michigan state police post got an unexpected pitch for phone sex. Calls to the Bridgeport post's main number were met on Wednesday morning with a recorded message saying, "Indulge yourself with the most exciting conversation imaginable." That was followed by a telephone number for a phone sex line, the Saginaw News reported. The phones were working properly by midmorning, Sergeant Alan Renz said. The mix-up was an "internal issue that has nothing to do with the phone company" and an investigation is under way, he told the newspaper.
■ UNITED STATES
Jewelers reject Pebble Mine
Five of the leading US jewelers have sworn off gold that could some day come from the Pebble Mine, a huge deposit near the world's most productive wild sockeye salmon stream. The jewelers, including Tiffany & Co, Ben Bridge Jeweler and Helzberg Diamonds, pledged on Tuesday not to knowingly sell jewelry made from gold that might be extracted from the proposed mine near the Bristol Bay watershed in southwest Alaska. Northern Dynasty Mines Inc is developing the prospect in partnership with Anglo American PLC. Northern Dynasty spokesman Sean Magee said he was surprised that none of the companies contacted Northern Dynasty before signing the pledge. He said they would be contacting the retailers this week to describe Pebble Mine and the approach to the project.
■ UNITED STATES
Web site marks dead affairs
A Web site is offering the lovelorn a way to bury memories of an old love affair -- by writing an obituary. Relationshipobit.com is the brainchild of Kathleen Horan, a 38-year-old reporter for WNYC public radio. She says she has no idea where her "reverse social networking" Web site might lead her but for now views it as a social experience. "Time heals," she says, "but you want to know what the heck other people" do to mend their hearts.
PARLIAMENT CHAOS: Police forcibly removed Brazilian Deputy Glauber Braga after he called the legislation part of a ‘coup offensive’ and occupied the speaker’s chair Brazil’s lower house of Congress early yesterday approved a bill that could slash former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence for plotting a coup, after efforts by a lawmaker to disrupt the proceedings sparked chaos in parliament. Bolsonaro has been serving a 27-year term since last month after his conviction for a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 election. Lawmakers had been discussing a bill that would significantly reduce sentences for several crimes, including attempting a coup d’etat — opening up the prospect that Bolsonaro, 70, could have his sentence cut to
A powerful magnitude 7.6 earthquake shook Japan’s northeast region late on Monday, prompting tsunami warnings and orders for residents to evacuate. A tsunami as high as three metres (10 feet) could hit Japan’s northeastern coast after an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.6 occurred offshore at 11:15 p.m. (1415 GMT), the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said. Tsunami warnings were issued for the prefectures of Hokkaido, Aomori and Iwate, and a tsunami of 40cm had been observed at Aomori’s Mutsu Ogawara and Hokkaido’s Urakawa ports before midnight, JMA said. The epicentre of the quake was 80 km (50 miles) off the coast of
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
A passerby could hear the cacophony from miles away in the Argentine capital, the unmistakable sound of 2,397 dogs barking — and breaking the unofficial world record for the largest-ever gathering of golden retrievers. Excitement pulsed through Bosques de Palermo, a sprawling park in Buenos Aires, as golden retriever-owners from all over Argentina transformed the park’s grassy expanse into a sea of bright yellow fur. Dog owners of all ages, their clothes covered in dog hair and stained with slobber, plopped down on picnic blankets with their beloved goldens to take in the surreal sight of so many other, exceptionally similar-looking ones.
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