HONG KONG
Suitors drawn by ‘bounty’
A tycoon who offered a US$65 million “marriage bounty” to any man who can win the heart of his lesbian daughter has been inundated with applications from around the globe, a report said yesterday. Cecil Chao (趙世曾) told the South China Morning Post newspaper that around 100 would-be suitors of his 33-year-old daughter, Gigi (趙式芝), had poured into his office since he went public with his offer on Wednesday. One of the applicants, a Frenchman, wrote: “I’m really serious and [despite the fact] I am a man I think I can make this woman happy. I’m as soft as a woman.” Another appeared to offer a menage a trois: “I will win his daughter’s heart and marry her, and my Maid Marian, a gorgeous Brazilian model, will help accomplish that with me.” Gigi has dismissed her father’s behavior and all the attention she is receiving as “seriously distracting.” Chao announced the financial reward of HK$500 million after Gigi reportedly married her same-sex partner of seven years in France earlier this year.
JAPAN
Chinese crew rescued
A dozen Chinese crew members were rescued by the coast guard when their Panama-registered boat caught fire in a bay, an official said yesterday. Television footage showed thick smoke pouring from the Hao Han, a 1,999 tonne cargo vessel, as the ship listed badly in waters off Osaka. The coast guard, which has recently been heavily involved in a standoff with Beijing over disputed islands in the East China Sea, pulled the crew to safety and was tackling the blaze. “There were no injuries among the crew,” a coast guard spokesman said. The cargo vessel left Kagoshima on Friday last week and docked at two other Japanese ports before sailing for China loaded with 1,000 tonnes of scrap metal, he said. Live footage aired by public broadcaster NHK showed a fierce fire on the boat as a coast guard vessel sprayed it with water.
NORTH KOREA
German film wins festival
A German film about an English teacher’s struggle to introduce soccer at a strict school in late 19th-century Germany has won the grand prize at the Pyongyang International Film Festival.
North Korea’s official news agency reports that The Big Dream also won the festival’s award for best actor, while a joint North Korean-European film, Comrade Kim Goes Flying, won for best direction. The biennial film festival closed on Thursday after an eight-day run that offered North Koreans and foreigners the chance to see movies from North Korea as well as France, Britain, Iran, India and Russia. The film festival is the only time North Koreans and foreigners can watch films together at Pyongyang theaters.
GERMANY
Statue found to be meteorite
An ancient Buddhist statue that a Nazi expedition brought back from Tibet shortly before World War II was carved from a meteorite that crashed on Earth thousands of years ago. Elmar Buchner of the University of Stuttgart said on Thursday the statue was brought to Germany by the Schaefer expedition that set out for Tibet in 1938 in part to trace the origins of the Aryan race. The existence of the 10.6kg statue, known as “iron man,” was only revealed in 2007 when it came up for auction, Buchner said. German and Austrian scientists conducted a chemical analysis that shows the statue came from the Chinga meteorite, which crashed in the area of what is now the Russian and Mongolian border around 15,000 years ago. The Nazis were probably attracted to it by a left-facing swastika symbol on its front.
FRANCE
Iconic orangutan dies in zoo
A Sumatran orangutan believed to be the oldest reproductive specimen in captivity has died at a zoo in the western part of the country, a few weeks after celebrating his 50th birthday. Major, a 125kg father of 16 who celebrated his birthday in July, died overnight on Tuesday at the zoo in La Boissiere-du-Dore near Nantes, zoo director Sebastien Laurent said. “I saw him playing on Monday, as he often did, with his children ...” Laurent said. “And on Wednesday the guys found him dead on his bed, his body still warm. He lived at the zoo for 23 years and this is our mascot that has left us, it’s hard,” he said. He said Major’s body would be preserved and stored at the Museum of Natural History in Paris.
UNITED STATES
UN chief in comedy prank
Former victims include Bill Gates, Mick Jagger, Britney Spears and Sarah Palin. This week, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon joined the ranks of those pranked by a Quebec radio station, his office confirmed on Thursday. Montreal comedy duo Marc-Antoine Audette and Sebastien Trudel called Ban on Wednesday afternoon and pretended to be Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. “He quickly realized it was a prank ... and he took it as it was intended: as a joke,” said Eri Kaneko, associate spokeswoman for Ban’s office. Known as the Masked Avengers, the two are notorious for prank calls to celebrities and heads of state. The duo said in a news release that the world’s top diplomat was rushed out of an important meeting to speak to them. During the call, Ban appears to become suspicious when fake Harper complains he was too busy combing his hair with Krazy Glue to attend this week’s ministerial meeting of the UN General Assembly — a clear dig at the Canadian leader’s immaculate hairdo.
UNITED STATES
Police wary of neo-Nazi fest
The mayor’s office in Boise, Idaho, is fielding numerous complaints about a neo-Nazi music festival planned for early next month, the city’s police department said. Authorities have been on alert since advertisements for Hammerfest 2012 near Boise surfaced online, Sergeant Jeff Basterrechea of the police department’s gang intelligence unit said. The white supremacist group Hammerskin Nation plans to hold the event on Oct. 6, according to the flier circulating online. The gunman who killed six worshipers at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin last month described himself as a member. Former neo-Nazi skinhead Marine T.J. Leyden told a news station he previously recruited for the group with events like Hammerfest. Leyden, who famously left the movement in 1996 and has promoted tolerance ever since.
FRAUD ALLEGED: The leader of an opposition alliance made allegations of electoral irregularities and called for a protest in Tirana as European leaders are to meet Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s Socialist Party scored a large victory in parliamentary elections, securing him his fourth term, official results showed late on Tuesday. The Socialist Party won 52.1 percent of the vote on Sunday compared with 34.2 percent for an alliance of opposition parties led by his main rival Sali Berisha, according to results released by the Albanian Central Election Commission. Diaspora votes have yet to be counted, but according to initial results, Rama was also leading there. According to projections, the Socialist Party could have more lawmakers than in 2021 elections. At the time, it won 74 seats in the
A Croatian town has come up with a novel solution to solve the issue of working parents when there are no public childcare spaces available: pay grandparents to do it. Samobor, near the capital, Zagreb, has become the first in the country to run a “Grandmother-Grandfather Service,” which pays 360 euros (US$400) a month per child. The scheme allows grandparents to top up their pension, but the authorities also hope it will boost family ties and tackle social isolation as the population ages. “The benefits are multiple,” Samobor Mayor Petra Skrobot told reporters. “Pensions are rather low and for parents it is sometimes
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
CANCER: Jose Mujica earned the moniker ‘world’s poorest president’ for giving away much of his salary and living a simple life on his farm, with his wife and dog Tributes poured in on Tuesday from across Latin America following the death of former Uruguayan president Jose “Pepe” Mujica, an ex-guerrilla fighter revered by the left for his humility and progressive politics. He was 89. Mujica, who spent a dozen years behind bars for revolutionary activity, lost his battle against cancer after announcing in January that the disease had spread and he would stop treatment. “With deep sorrow, we announce the passing of our comrade Pepe Mujica. President, activist, guide and leader. We will miss you greatly, old friend,” Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi wrote on X. “Pepe, eternal,” a cyclist shouted out minutes later,
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