■JAPAN
Commuters list complaints
Taking the train and want to avoid annoying fellow passengers? Keep conversation to a whisper, turn down your iPod and put your cellphone on vibration mode, a recent survey by the railway association showed. Many foreigners who ride on the country’s vast network of subways and commuter trains complain about the pushing and shoving that accompanies getting into the train and the reluctance to give up seats for senior citizens and pregnant women. But for Japanese commuters, noise is the biggest issue, with loud conversation and music from headphones the top two offenders and cellphone ringtones in fourth place, a survey by the Association of Japanese Private Railways showed.
■MALAYSIA
Hotel tip unmasks fraudster
Police arrested a Lebanese man allegedly carrying fake currency with a face value of US$66 million after he tipped hotel staff with a US$500 note, an official said on Friday. The largest US note currently in wide circulation is a US$100 bill. But police found bundles of US$1 million, US$100,000 and US$500 notes in the man’s hotel room in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday, said Izany Abdul Ghany, head of the city’s commercial crime unit. Hotel staff alerted police after a housekeeper received a US$500 note tip and found out it was fake when she tried to convert it to local currency at a money changer, Izany said.
■NEW ZEALAND
Police get odd calls
Police are getting hot under the collar over emergency calls including a woman whose husband didn’t spray air freshener after using the toilet and another complaining of pressure to attend a family wedding. The Dominion Post newspaper reported yesterday that police in the North Island town of Wairoa responded to an emergency call from a 51-year-old woman who hung up after police answered the phone. When police arrived at her house, she complained her husband had forgotten to spray the toilet with air freshener after a visit, police said. The police restored harmony in the household and did not lay charges over the call.
■MARIANA ISLANDS
Inmate called in for massage
The governor of the US-administered islands is feeling the heat after ordering the temporary release of a jailed suspect to give him a massage. Benigno Fitial, the most senior politician in the western Pacific territory, demanded that Chinese masseuse Qing Mei-cheng be set free on Jan. 8 to treat him for back pain. The masseuse was taken from the local prison, where she was being held on people smuggling charges, to the governor’s mansion before being returned to jail. “I made this request because this was an unusual situation where I needed to address the extraordinary pain I was experiencing,” Fitial said in a statement received yesterday.
■CANADA
‘Chinese’ Buffett broke
A man who dubbed himself a “Chinese Warren Buffett” and who allegedly defrauded investors of millions of dollars is now broke and will need legal aid to defend his fraud charges, his lawyer said on Thursday. Tang Weizhen (唐煒臻), 51, made a brief court appearance on Thursday, but his lawyer said he would not be representing Tang for long since his client did not have the funds to pay him. Tang was taken into police custody late on Wednesday after returning to Toronto from China. Toronto police had issued an arrest warrant for Tang, who had made arrangements to surrender to authorities last month, but did not show up.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Handbags get lighter: study
Technological advances have led to a sharp fall in the weight of women’s handbags, research from department store chain Debenhams has revealed. Women’s handbags now weigh an average of 1.5kg, 57 percent less than the average of two years ago, Debenhams said in an e-mailed statement on Thursday. A new generation of smaller, lighter multipurpose gadgets such as Apple’s iPhone and Research in Motion’s Blackberry have replaced heavy laptops, old-fashioned mobile phones, music players and organizers, Debenhams said.
■RUSSIA
Porn on road show
Drivers in downtown Moscow squinted in disbelief as an electronic highway billboard blazed a two-minute pornographic video instead of its regular advertising clips. Late-night traffic on one of the capital’s busiest roads slowed on Thursday as a couple’s explicit escapades appeared on the 9m-by-6m display. Some people took pictures of the sight with their mobile phones and posted them on the Internet. Passerby Alyona Prokulatova said she was “so shocked that I couldn’t even shoot video or take a picture of it.” The screen’s owner, 3 Stars, said that a hacker attack was likely to blame. Police were investigating the incident.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Ski center snowed in
A ski center in the Scottish Highlands was forced to close on Friday because of too much snow during Britain’s coldest winter in 30 years. The CairnGorm Mountain ski center had to bring in diggers to clear the deep drifts that had built up on the slopes and approach road during two days of blizzards. Scotland, which does not always have the most reliable snowfall for its winter sports, has been one of the nation’s worst hit areas during a freezing few weeks. “It’s a bit like buses,” said Barry Gromett, a Met Office forecaster. “You wait for a number of winters for skiing snow without any luck, and then it all arrives at once.”
■SPAIN
Man leaves riches to royalty
A businessman who died last year has left his fortune to members of the royal family, a source in the royal palace said on Friday. In his will, Juan Ignacio Balada Llabres asked that his estate be divided into two parts, with 50 percent going to the eight grandchildren of King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia and the rest to Crown Prince Felipe and his wife Letizia to create a foundation, the source said. Llabres died on Nov. 18 on the island of Menorca, and his executor contacted the members of royal family earlier this month to notify them of his wishes. The source said Prince Felipe and his wife had “never had any contact” previously with Llabres.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Wild boar trash for food
Some of the first wild boar to roam free in England for 300 years have been raiding rubbish bins, attacking dogs and digging up green spaces in villages scattered around England’s first national forest park. Recent snow and icy weather has interrupted rubbish collection service in the Forest of Dean, leaving tempting treats in local bins that have attracted the boar, which ordinarily forage for shoots, leaves, bulbs, worms and carrion. Some areas in the forest have not seen garbage collection since before the Christmas holidays. Ecologist Martin Goulding said that scavenging was a natural activity for wild boar and that a rich harvest of food from the bins will encourage more boar to target trash cans.
■CUBA
Patients’ death sparks probe
Twenty-six patients at a Havana psychiatric hospital have died as a result of cold weather in the past week, prompting an investigation into possible negligence, the government said on Friday. “We have seen an increase in deaths among patients in the last week,” a government statement said. “They are related to the long spell of cold weather that has occurred.” A Health Ministry commission that investigated the deaths identified “various deficiencies related to the lack of timely adoption of measures.” Those responsible were to be prosecuted. Hospital employees who asked not to be named said the patients lacked food and blankets because they had been stolen.
■UNITED STATES
Dennis Hopper to divorce
Cancer-stricken actor Dennis Hopper has filed for divorce from his wife of nearly 14 years, court records showed on Friday. Hopper, 73, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer last year, filed his petition to divorce Victoria Hopper in Los Angeles Superior Court on Thursday. The couple married on April 12, 1996, and separated on Tuesday, the petition said, citing “irreconcilable differences” for the split. Hopper is seeking joint legal and physical custody of the couple’s daughter, Galen, 6.
■URUGUAY
Iglesias says no to sex
Julio Iglesias may have a reputation as a famous lover, but he told a concert audience he hasn’t had sex in 15 years. During a performance in Punta del Este, he said that when he first performed there at age 24, he was “like a rabbit.” The singer said he had a “superstition, a quirk or whatever, that I couldn’t go on stage to sing if I didn’t make love first.” But the 66-year-old singer said “I gave that up completely 15 years ago.” Iglesias’ publicist, Paula Montoli, didn’t comment on whether the singer was celibate, but said his comments were intended to be lighthearted and “ironic.”
■UNITED STATES
Hunters cause nuclear scare
A pair of fowl hunters sparked a brief lockdown of a Texas nuclear weapons plant on Friday, officials said. “They were just doing what people do around here,” Carson County Sheriff Tam Terry said. The sheriff’s office got a call around 7:20am from an employee of B&W Pantex who saw two men getting out a vehicle dressed in camouflage and carrying guns a couple of kilometers from the plant. The men were found in a nearby field setting up goose decoys and a blind. They provided identification showing that they were Pantex employees, Terry said. No charges will be filed and it appears that the men had permission from the owner of the land to hunt there.
■UNITED STATES
Sea turtles going home
Hundreds of endangered sea turtles are being released back into the Atlantic Ocean now that Florida’s weather has warmed enough. Officials rescued nearly 3,000 turtles from frigid waters in the past week, plucking them from the ocean, lagoons and rivers as air temperatures dipped to nearly 0ºC along the coast. The turtles — which weigh up to 180kg — were found across Florida as the chilly temperatures sent them into a cold stress, leaving them stunned and largely motionless, the perfect prey for predators. Now, after a week of treatment, including soakings in heated pools and oxygen therapy, the turtles are headed back to the wild. Trucks full of turtles arrived on Thursday at several Florida beaches, where they were hand-placed in the surf for their journey home.
‘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
STICKING TO DEFENSE: Despite the screening of videos in which they appeared, one of the defendants said they had no memory of the event A court trying a Frenchman charged with drugging his wife and enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her screened videos of the abuse to the public on Friday, to challenge several codefendants who denied knowing she was unconscious during their actions. The judge in the southern city of Avignon had nine videos and several photographs of the abuse of Gisele Pelicot shown in the courtroom and an adjoining public chamber, involving seven of the 50 men accused alongside her husband. Present in the courtroom herself, Gisele Pelicot looked at her telephone during the hour and a half of screenings, while her ex-husband
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
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