Sat, Nov 21, 2009 page7

• World News Quick Take

  • AGENCIES
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  ■NEW ZEALAND

  Droop-eye Santa gets lift

  A Santa with a droopy eye has received a US$100,000 face-lift in the run-up to Christmas so that his aging face does not scare children. The 20m tall fiberglass Santa has been among the festive decorations in Auckland since 1960, but in recent years began to struggle with one of his eyes that was made to wink and a mechanical finger that moved in a welcoming gesture. “There was a concern the guy did look a little creepy. It was the finger and the Sad Sack, winking, droopy eye,” Heart of the City chief executive Alex Swney told local media. The Santa, which stands on a street corner in the city center, has undergone extensive facial work over the past four months at a cost of over US$100,000. His face remains bandaged ahead of a public unveiling tomorrow, but his mechanical finger has been replaced with a static digit.

  

  PHOTO: REUTERS

  ■HONG KONG

  Master beat up mistress

  A kung fu grandmaster, who trained under the same teacher as martial arts star Bruce Lee (李小龍), has been jailed for assaulting his mistress, a court report said yesterday. Leung Ting (梁挺), the founder of the internationally known Wing Tsun Association, which has tens of thousands of members, was sentenced to two months for the assault on Rita Lip Sik-ying (聶式盈), 45, his lover of five years. The prosecution said the assault occurred in March after the couple rowed over a matter relating to Leung’s former wife. Lip told the court Leung pushed her down, banged her head on the floor, kicked her in the stomach and boxed her ears, a report in the South China Morning Post said. Leung, 62, pleaded not guilty, claiming a hysterical Lip had banged her own head against the floor because he would not give her money.

  ■AUSTRALIA

  Second twin waking up

  A second Bangladeshi twin began returning to consciousness yesterday, three days after being separated from her conjoined sister in a landmark operation, the hospital said. Krishna was opening her eyes and slowly becoming more alert as she came out of an induced coma, a statement said. Her sister, Trishna, was already awake and talking after the surgery that doctors have hailed as a success. “Krishna is waking up slowly. She is more alert, starting to breathe more and opening her eyes,” the statement from the Melbourne Royal Children’s Hospital said. “Trishna continues to do well. Both girls are in a serious but stable condition.” A team of specialists worked for 32 hours on Monday and Tuesday to divide the two-year-olds’ connected skulls, brains and blood vessels in a procedure that took two years of planning and preparatory operations.

  ■INDIA

  Men want equal rights

  A group of husbands tired of being harassed by their wives are demanding the local government create a male protection society to address their grievances. The men, who said they had enough of their “nagging” wives, dressed up in clothes traditionally worn by grooms and paraded through Lucknow this week to ask for a National Commission for Men. “We are asking for equal rights. We want somebody to listen to the grievances of men,” said Subhash Dube, a medical doctor who described himself as a victimized husband.

  ■UNITED KINGDOM

  Swine flu shots expanded

  Healthy children between six months and five years old will be vaccinated against swine flu, the Department of Health in London has confirmed. The expansion of the British government’s inoculation programme was revealed as the latest weekly bulletin showed a sharp rise in patient deaths in England and the number of children being admitted to hospital. The overall number of new cases showed a second successive weekly fall. Health officials estimate there were 55,000 new cases this week in England compared with 64,000 last week. There was a slight drop in Scotland. The number of people who have died from swine flu in the UK has reached 214.

  ■RUSSIA

  Ice-breaker escapes ice

  A Russian ice-breaker cruise ship carrying more than 100 people, mostly British tourists, broke free of Antarctic ice and was on its way to Argentina after days of entrapment, the ship’s operator said yesterday. “The Kapitan Khlebnikov ice-breaker with tourists on board broke free of the ice prison into clear water,” the Far Eastern Shipping Company said in a statement. The ship was bound for the Argentine port of Ushuaia, a 1,225kmvoyage that will take the ice-breaker less than three days, the operator said. The Kapitan Khlebnikov was trapped at the northeastern extremity of the Antarctic Peninsula, next to Snow Hill island, a landmark in the area.

  ■CHAD

  Cambodia sends troops

  A group of Cambodian soldiers have arrived as part of a UN peacekeeping mission, the UN said on Thursday. The 42 peacekeepers arrived in Abeche, the eastern capital, on Tuesday and will remain there for a year. Their arrival brings the total number of troops under the command of the UN Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad (MINURAT) to 2,749 of a target of 5,200. It is the second time Cambodia has taken part in a peacekeeping operation, its first being in Sudan in 2006. The UN Security Council established MINURAT “to help create the security conditions conducive to a voluntary, secure and sustainable return of refugees and displaced persons.” The country hosts 72,000 refugees from the Central African Republic and 168,000 internally displaced people, the UN said.

  ■ITALY

  Police capture video suspect

  Naples police say they have detained a suspect in a gangland-style slaying that was captured on a surveillance camera. The video was made public last month by prosecutors in hopes citizens might recognize the killer. Paramilitary Carabinieri police said on Thursday they had detained Costanzo Apice in the countryside. They declined to say how they found him but did say they were not tipped to the 28-year-old man’s whereabouts by a citizen who saw the video. Last May, a man fired shots into the back and head of a man smoking a cigarette outside a coffee bar on a Naples street.

  ■MOLDOVA

  New flu remedy: onions

  The army is feeding its soldiers onions and garlic to help them ward off swine flu. Defense Ministry chief doctor Colonel Sergiu Vasislita says about 25g of onions and 15g of garlic will be added to each soldier’s daily diet. That roughly corresponds to a small onion and a couple of garlic cloves. Onion and garlic are traditional remedies in the country, where they are widely believed to boost the immune system.

  ■UNITED STATES

  Church fund paid for Botox

  A New York pastor accused of using church funds to pay for plastic surgery has been ordered to serve five years probation. The Reverend William Blasingame also must pay back US$84,537 to St Paul’s Memorial Episcopal Church on Staten Island. Prosecutors said he paid for personal luxuries, including tens of thousands of dollars worth of plastic surgery and Botox treatments, with money earmarked for the needy and the upkeep of church grounds. Defense attorney James Hasson said on Wednesday that Blasingame planned to sell land he owns in Georgia to cover the restitution, the Staten Island Advance reported.

  ■UNITED STATES

  NY grants gay rights

  New York’s top court ruled on Thursday that gay couples legally married elsewhere are entitled to some government benefits, boosting stalled legislative efforts to legalize same-sex marriage in the state. The Court of Appeals rejected a Christian legal group’s argument that same-sex marriage was akin to incest and polygamy, although the court avoided declaring that gay couples are entitled to all the rights of other married couples. The 4-3 decision was on the narrow question of benefits; the court did not address whether the state must recognize same-sex marriage but encouraged the legislature to settle the issue.

  ■CANADA

  Pteropods at risk: scientists

  Melting of the Arctic sea ice because of global warming is diluting surface waters and this is endangering some species of shellfish that need minerals in the water to form their shells and skeletons, scientists have found. In a paper published in Science, they warned that this has serious implications for ecosystems in the Arctic. “Organisms that are likely to be affected are from the family of pteropods, also mussels and clams on the sea floor,” said Fiona McLaughlin, research scientist at the Institute of Ocean Sciences’s department of fisheries and oceans. Pteropods are minute swimming sea snails. “It puts the food chain at risk. These organisms are a food source for fish that are a food source for seals and bears. The food chain in the Arctic is quite a short one, so it’s quite vulnerable,” she said by telephone.

  ■UNITED STATES

  Spray offers sex solution

  A spray that numbs the penis can help prevent premature ejaculation, doctors reported on Thursday, and drug maker Sciele Pharma Inc, a division of Japan’s Shionogi, plans to file for US approval next year. Tests on more than 500 men suffering from premature ejaculation showed they were more satisfied and less distressed when they used the spray, the researchers told a meeting in San Diego of the Sexual Medicine Society of North America. The drug, called by the experimental name PSD502, is a combination of the numbing agents lidocaine and prilocaine.

  ■COLOMBIA

  Caracas ‘blows up’ bridges

  The Colombian government said on Thursday Venezuelan soldiers blew up two small pedestrian bridges that stretch across their border in the latest incident to test diplomatic ties between the Andean neighbors. Colombian Defense Minister Gabriel Silva told reporters that uniformed men apparently from the Venezuelan army blew up the bridges with explosives in what he described as a violation of international law. “Uniformed men, apparently from the Venezuelan army, arrived in trucks on the Venezuelan side at two pedestrian bridges that link communities on both sides ... and then proceeded to dynamite them,” Silva said.
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