■ AUSTRALIA
Fatter `posties' allowed
The postal service has increased the maximum weight for mailmen and women by 15kg in an attempt to attract more "posties," media reported on Tuesday. Australia Post had a weight limit of 90kg for "posties" because its 110cc motorcycles had a safe working limit of 130kg -- 40kg for letters and up to 90kg for mailmen and women fully clothed. But after talks with motorcycle manufacturer Honda it was agreed the bikes could safely carry a "postie" weighing 105kg, said the Daily Telegraph newspaper. The union representing mailmen and women said the 90kg limit had caused recruitment headaches, but the company denied it had staffing problems.
■ AUSTRALIA
Pricasso aims high
A cheeky artist who uses his penis as a brush has entered a racy self-portrait for a top art prize. Tim Patch, who calls himself Pricasso, who usually exposes his talents at sex product fairs, has entered a painting for the Archibald Prize for portraiture. Patch uses his penis, not brushes, to apply paint to the canvas. "I had to use my bum to paint in the background, because you have to have the occasional break," Patch told the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday. His entry depicts himself nude, holding a blank canvas to hide his "brush." Finalists for the prize will be announced next month.
■ CHINA
Pokemon ban extended
SpongeBob SquarePants, Mickey Mouse and Pokemon are officially persona non grata on prime time. Beijing is extending a ban that virtually locks out all foreign cartoons from airing between 5pm and 9pm in a bid to protect its fledgling domestic cartoon industry. According to a ruling yesterday by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, no foreign cartoons or programs introducing foreign cartoons can be shown during "the golden hours" on all domestic cartoon channels and children channels starting on May 1. The move is intended to "spur the domestic cartoon industry," the agency said.
■ NEPAL
Police kill protester
Security forces shot dead a demonstrator during protests that have caused shortages of fuel and essential supplies and cast a shadow over upcoming elections, police said yesterday. Police opened fire late on Tuesday after anti-government protesters began throwing stones in Siraha, a town in the southern Terai plains bordering India that are home to half the country's population. The protesters are demanding greater autonomy for the Terai and its ethnic Madheshi people, who have closer linguistic and cultural links with northern India than with Nepal's hill people. It is the second death since Madheshi groups called an indefinite strike and began blockading roads last week to demand greater power and government job allocations.
■ SOUTH KOREA
Helicopter crash kills seven
An army helicopter crashed into a mountain near Seoul early yesterday, killing all seven people on board, an army official said. The UH-1H went down in Yangpyong, about 40km east of Seoul at around 1:40am, army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Ko Dong-hun said. Two pilots, two medical officers and three soldiers died when the aircraft crashed while returning to base after transporting an emergency patient to a military hospital, he said. The bodies were sent to a military hospital in Seongnam, just south of Seoul, after being recovered from the mountain where the chopper was broken into two.
■ GERMANY
Man puts out relationship
A virulent anti-smoker was so angry when his girlfriend lit up he emptied a fire extinguisher to put out the cigarette, caking her and their apartment in powder. "My colleagues said it looked like a bomb had gone off in there," said a spokesman for police in the city of Bielefeld. "He managed to put the cigarette out though." After the woman ignored his request not to smoke, the 42-year-old sprayed the contents of the extinguisher all around the flat shouting abuse, police said. "He said he wasn't bothered by the damage it caused," the spokesman said. "And that he's through with his girlfriend."
■ Latvia
Urinating Briton jailed
A British man was sentenced to five days' detention on Tuesday for urinating on one of Latvia's most treasured monuments and one of the country's ministers called such people "pigs." A court official said the Briton, who denied the charges, would serve his detention in a police cell after being found guilty of urinating on the Freedom Monument. Erected in 1935, the monument is a 42m high symbol of the Baltic state's resistance to foreign rule. News agency LETA quoted Interior Minister Maris Seglins as saying: "These English people are pigs ... One filthy bunch of pigs."
■ UAE
BBC DJ jailed for four years
A Dubai court sentenced British DJ Raymond Bingham, better known as Grooverider, to four years in jail on Tuesday, three months after he was caught in possession of marijuana. The 40-year-old disc jockey was arrested at Dubai airport on Nov. 23 when customs officials found a transparent bag containing 2.16g of marijuana in his luggage. Grooverider, who co-hosts a weekly "drum and bass" music show on BBC Radio 1, was not in court for sentencing. He remains in custody and has two weeks to appeal. Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates federation, has a zero tolerance drug policy. Bingham was key to the development of "drum and bass" music in the 1990s.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Teacher outsmarts clowns
A teacher has designed a chair that is impossible to tip backwards in the hopes of getting students to sit still and prevent accidents. Tom Wates quit his teaching post to design the "Max" chair to stop students from clowning around. "You would get into the flow of the lesson, the kid would fall off the chair, everyone would laugh and you would have to start again," he said. The new chair provides more support in the lower back, forcing kids to sit up, and its rear legs are splayed outwards, preventing tilting. Wates has already received orders for 1,500 chairs from 18 schools.
■ Russia
Spokesman justifies chains
A prison service spokesman on Tuesday justified the use of bed-chains on a jailed former Yukos oil executive, who is receiving treatment for cancer and AIDS in a Moscow hospital, following a complaint from his lawyers. "Such measures are taken when his guard has to leave the room, notably during treatment," Alexander Sidorov said. "This option is provided for under Russian law." The defense team for Vasily Aleksanian complained on Monday about the presence of a round-the-clock guard in his room, the fact that he is chained to his bed and that his handcuffs are only removed before visits by his lawyers.
■ UNITED STATES
Indict Castro, lawmaker says
A Cuban-American lawmaker called on Washington to indict Cuba's ailing President Fidel Castro after his decision to step aside, over the fatal shooting down of two airplanes in 1996. "Now that Fidel has formally stepped down as head of state, it clears the path for immediate legal action to be taken by the US government," Republican Florida congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement. She said she was asking for an indictment against Castro for his alleged role in the death of four people -- two of them US citizens. They died on planes belonging to the anti-Castro group Brothers to the Rescue that were shot down by Cuban aircraft over the Florida Straits in 1996.
■ UNITED STATES
Wal-Mart sorry for comment
Wal-Mart Stores apologized to a Muslim woman who said she was mocked because of her face veil. "Please don't stick me up," a cashier told the shopper on Feb. 2, according to The Council on American-Islamic Relations. Wal-Mart apologized on Monday in a letter signed by Rolando Rodriquez, a vice president and regional general manager. It was released on Tuesday by the council's Nevada chapter. Rodriguez said employees at the Riverdale store would undergo "sensitivity training," specifically in the Islamic faith and Muslim culture.
■ UNITED STATES
Blast kills war relics seller
A man who sold Civil War relics that included munitions was killed by an explosion, and neighbors were kept out of their homes on Tuesday as experts looked for more explosives. Samuel White, 53, was found in his backyard on Monday, Chesterfield County police said. Police Captain Steve Neal said that what exploded was military ordnance, possibly dating from the Civil War. Police found unexploded ordnance at his house, and on Tuesday they were still collecting and detonating explosives. White's business, Sam White Relics, advertised relics, including Civil War artillery shells, cannon balls and bullets. His Web site also says he "will disarm, clean, and preserve your Civil War period and earlier military ordinance" for about US$35 each.
■ UNITED STATES
DVD blocks bullet
A South Carolina man is thankful for a DVD that ended up taking a bullet for him. Colleton County Fire and Rescue Director Barry McRoy says he was leaving a restaurant in the town of Walterboro on Saturday morning when two men ran in fighting over a gun. Police say a bullet hit one of the struggling men, shattered a window and then hit McRoy. The bullet hit a DVD McRoy was carrying in his pocket. He suffered a bruise, but didn't realize he had been shot. As he told a police officer what happened, he noticed a bullet hole in his jacket, the shattered DVD case and a piece of the bullet.
■ UNITED STATES
Whistleblower site closed
A Web site designed to let whistleblowers publish sensitive documents has been ordered shut down by a federal judge at the request of a Swiss bank, court documents showed on Monday. US District Judge Jeffrey White in California ordered the shutdown of Wikileaks.org. He ruled in favor of Julius Baer & Co Ltd, saying that "immediate harm will result to [the bank]." Wikileaks was launched last year with the help of Chinese dissidents to help users post sensitive documents without being traced. The suit came after the site posted documents relating to offshore activities of Julius Baer.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
TIGHTENING: Zhu Hengpeng, who worked for an influential think tank, has reportedly not been seen in public since making disparaging remarks on WeChat A leading Chinese economist at a government think tank has reportedly disappeared after being disciplined for criticizing Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in a private chat group. Zhu Hengpeng (朱恆鵬), 55, is believed to have made disparaging remarks about China’s economy, and potentially about the Chinese leader specifically, in a private WeChat group. Zhu was subsequently detained in April and put under investigation, the Wall Street Journal reported. Zhu worked for the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) for more than 20 years, most recently as the Institute of Economics deputy director and director of the Public Policy Research Center. He
CHINESE ICBM: The missile landed near the EEZ of French Polynesia, much to the surprise and concern of the president, who sent a letter of protest to Beijing Fijian President Ratu Wiliame Katonivere called for “respect for our region” and a stop to missile tests in the Pacific Ocean, after China launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). In a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York on Thursday, Katonivere recalled the Pacific Ocean’s history as a nuclear weapons testing ground, and noted Wednesday’s rare launch by China of an ICBM. “There was a unilateral test firing of a ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean. We urge respect for our region and call for cessation of such action,” he said. The ICBM, carrying a dummy warhead, was launched by the
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
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