■CHINA
Woman wins jackpot at last
A businesswoman who blew US$6.8 million in the gaming haven of Macau in two years scooped a slot machine jackpot just as she was threatening to sue the casino, a report said yesterday. The woman won a HK$5 million (US$640,000) slot machine payout on Monday at the Wynn Macau, part of the gaming empire of US tycoon Steve Wynn, the Standard newspaper reported. It was the second-highest slot machine payout in Macau’s history, the report said. Her win came a day after she threatened to sue Wynn Macau, claiming that payout rates on the machines are too low.
■MALAYSIA
Fireflies may be in trouble
A dazzling firefly population that is one of the country’s top tourist attractions faces destruction within months because of large-scale land clearing, a lawmaker said yesterday. “If we do not do anything, the lights will go out for the fireflies by the end of the year,” said Elizabeth Wong, who heads tourism and environmental affairs in Selangor. Wong said environmental groups had alerted the state government to the “impending destruction” of the riverside firefly colony, which lies about 90 minutes’ drive from Kuala Lumpur. Tour operators say the number of insects has fallen sharply because of development in the area.
■MALAYSIA
Stray dogs left on island
Villagers caught more than 300 stray dogs and dumped them on a mangrove island, driving the canines to cannibalism after weeks of starvation, animal welfare activists said yesterday. The plight of the dogs ignited outrage after activists released photographs showing dogs eating the carcasses of ones that had died. Residents of a fishing village on Pulau Ketam, another island, caught the dogs last month and took them to Pulau Tengah island. The villagers said they never intended to be cruel and believed the dogs could feed on wildlife. Volunteers from the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals are helping the dogs.
■REUNION
Cult leader recaptured
Police recaptured a cult leader jailed for child abuse after he escaped last week from a prison in a helicopter. Dozens of police clad in bullet-proof vests raided a building on Wednesday in Saint-Denis, less than 2km from the prison where Juliano Verbard and two of his jailed followers escaped on a tourist helicopter hijacked by accomplices on April 27. The official announcement of the recapture came from Paris, where secretary of state for overseas affairs Yves Jego hailed “the remarkable work of the police and gendarmes on the island of Reunion.” Verbard, the leader of the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary sect, was serving a 15-year term for raping and sexually assaulting children. His escape triggered a manhunt involving more than 1,800 police.
■AUSTRALIA
Giant spiders scare locals
Saucer-sized spiders are frightening the locals by turning up in parks in the far-north town of Bowen, news reports said yesterday. “They normally never venture out too far, but obviously, these ones have been flushed out for some reason,” Bowen pest controller Audy Geiszer told the Townsville Bulletin. Queensland Museum arachnid expert Robert Raven identified the animals as eastern tarantulas, the continent’s biggest spiders. The spiders are venomous but not deadly. They can kill a dog, but humans get away with feeling ill for a few hours.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Mayor backs museum plan
Death masks, murder weapons and other macabre crime scene artifacts could be put on public display under a plan backed by the mayor of London. A local politician said on Wednesday that the exhibits from Scotland Yard’s notorious Crime Museum — long closed to the public — would draw huge crowds to the recession-hit capital. But police were cautious, saying they were wary of treating an educational resource like a theme park. “It would be a huge money spinner for London,” said Brian Coleman, a member of London’s Assembly. “I think we’ll have the teenage boys queuing around the block.” Opened in 1875 and stocked with items taken from crime scenes or confiscated from prisoners, the Crime Museum — colloquially known as the “Black Museum” — has been geared toward training law enforcement officials in forensics, pathology and investigative techniques. A few select others have been allowed a peek — including members of the British royal family, escape artist Harry Houdini and Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. While the Crime Museum would remain closed, items from the collection could stock a new museum planned to honor London’s police and emergency service workers. Although that institution is still on the drawing board, the idea of displaying the crime collection has been backed by London Mayor Boris Johnson.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Breakfast crisps win vote
The sizzling bacon and fried eggs of the classic English cooked breakfast won a competition on Wednesday to find a new flavor of crisps. Emma Rushin, a 27-year-old trainee midwife, dreamed up the concoction, calling it “Builder’s Breakfast” after the cholesterol-heavy meal that is still the favorite start of the day for manual workers across Britain. She won the £50,000 (US$75,000) first prize in a competition run by crisp manufacturer Walkers and will see her flavor go into mass production. Her blend of bacon, buttered toast, eggs and tomato sauce received more than 232,000 votes of more than 1 million cast by the public, putting it ahead of flavors like Onion Bhaji, Cajun Squirrel and even Chilli and Chocolate.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Executive caught speeding
A senior executive at a speed camera firm was banned from driving for six months on Wednesday after admitting speeding at more than 160kph on a 110kph limit dual carriageway. Tom Riall, a divisional chief executive at Serco, was recorded driving at 166kph in his blue Volvo in Newmarket, Suffolk, just before 1pm on Jan. 4. Riall was sentenced at a hearing at Sudbury Magistrates’ Court. Riall is head of Serco’s Home Affairs division, which has installed Gatso speed cameras at around 4,500 sites around Britain since 1992.
■GREECE
Thieves steal vacation home
Police in Greece say robbers near Athens have stolen everything, including the kitchen sink, lifting a prefabricated home off its foundation and spiriting it away. Police say the owner went to visit his 70m² vacation home on Monday in the coastal area of Rafina, 25km east of Athens, and discovered it was missing, along with its contents. Police said on Wednesday they think the thieves used a crane to load the structure onto a trailer. They have been unable to locate the missing building. Thousands of Athenians, including Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, have vacation properties in Rafina.
■CANADA
Sex Party shakes up vote
A fringe political party in the west is looking to shake up current political discourse by campaigning on this unusual theme: “Sex is good. Let’s make it better!” The so-called Sex Party has no illusions about winning a seat in the British Columbia legislature in general elections on May 12. Rather, its candidates are taking advantage of the election campaign to defend their unconventional ideas about sexuality, which they lament are not broached by mainstream politicians. “We’re not running to get elected. Obviously it’s impossible, especially in a first-past-the-post system that discriminates against small parties,” said John Ince, a Vancouver sex shop owner and leader of the Sex Party. The party’s platform touts the benefits of a healthy sex life for personal growth and the betterment of society. It proposes revamping the provincial education program to gradually encourage students’ sexual activity, whereby extensive sexual experimentation would precede first intercourse.
■UNITED STATES
Escaped cow may live
A cow has escaped from a New York City slaughterhouse and may have a new lease on life. Police say the black heifer bolted on Wednesday afternoon from Musa Hala Inc, which butchers animals based on religious restrictions. It wandered in Queens for nearly 2km before police captured it an hour later and took it to an Animal Care and Control center, where it was nicknamed Molly. Officials there are looking into whether Molly can be placed at a farm sanctuary or must be returned for slaughter.
■CANADA
Vulcans get sneak peek
About 300 Vulcans were beaming up to Calgary for a sneak peek at the newest Star Trek movie on Wednesday. The residents of the southern Alberta town of Vulcan were to see the film two days before today’s worldwide release. They will also get the chance to meet Canadian actor Bruce Greenwood, who plays Captain Christopher Pike in the film. The town, which shares a name with the home planet of popular Star Trek character Spock, had made a pitch to host the film’s Canadian premiere. They were turned down, but actor Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock in the original TV series and several movies, intervened and was able to arrange a private screening for them.
■UNITED STATES
Beachcombers find cocaine
Beachcombers found more than seashells while strolling on a Texas beach: two dozen neatly wrapped packages of cocaine. Jefferson County Sheriff’s Lieutenent Troy Tucker said drug smugglers have been known to use freighters and the cocaine may have been kicked overboard to avoid detection. The sheriff’s department was working with federal agencies on Wednesday to try to determine the source of the 24kg of cocaine, worth about US$500,000. KFDM-TV reported the cocaine was found Tuesday west of Sea Rim State Park, in the Sabine Pass area.
■CUBA
Cigar roller smokes record
A cigar roller broke his fourth world record on Wednesday, creating a 43.38m long stogie that doubled his previous best. Sixty-five-year-old Jose Castelar smoked his own 2005 record of a 20.41m long cigar, and vowed to continue to roll record-breaking creations. “I’m going to continue until I do one that is the length of the Malecon,” he said, referring to Havana’s famous 10km seafront promenade.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
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