BEIJING, China

Beijingers are spitting and queue jumping less but their manners are still not good enough to show off to the world at this year's Olympics, according to a survey published in the state press. The bizarre "civic index" claims to record with minute detail the frequency of residents' cultural faux pas and thus judge the effectiveness of high-profile government efforts to "civilise" the people of Beijing. According to the survey, the frequency of littering dropped from 5.6 per cent in 2006 to 2.9 per cent last year, while queue-jumping fell from six per cent to 1.5 per cent.

 

Three Myanmarese fishermen who were adrift on a bamboo raft in the Bay of Bengal for over three months have been rescued by fishermen off India's eastern coast. The three fishermen set out on November 11 last year on a fishing trip from the Myanmar capital. They were cast away after their boat was hit by Cyclone Sidr in the Bay seven days later. They survived by eating raw fish and turtles, police officials said adding the men were given food, clothes and a haircut after being rescued.

 

 

A Hong Kong man has died and nine others needed hospital treatment after taking an unregistered impotence drug. The 53-year-old man and the others, aged between 44 and 86, all became ill with low blood sugar after taking a pill said to treat erectile dysfunction. The men had taken pills labelled "Nangen" which they had bought from a street hawker at a shop in the mainland border city of Shenzhen. Lab tests showed the presence of unregistered ingredients including a medication called glibenclamide which is used for lowering blood sugar in diabetics.

 

Interpol red corner notices have been issued against 54 Non-Resident Indian (NRI) husbands who are wanted by the state police in dowry related and desertion cases. Of these, extradition procedures have already begun in 15 cases. The Interpol New Delhi desk is in the process of giving red corner notices against another 35 persons, most of whom live in the United States and the United Kingdom. Since 2003, 89 cases were booked against NRI men wanted in various cases, 90 per cent of these pertaining to desertion of wives and dowry harassment. The number of cases has been on the rise for the past five years. In 2003 only two cases were booked and in 2007, the number rose to 82. This year, in one month alone 17 cases against NRIs were booked.

 

Roadside entrepreneurs in Thailand are cashing in on Chinese Year of the Rat celebrations, serving rat meat, uncooked or ready to eat, which customers are snapping it up for 150 baht ($4.82) a kilogram. Roadside sellers — who are quick to point out that the rats are field rodents and not garbage-can city dwellers — say the hip and liver are the best cuts. The rats are drowned, boiled and their noses and legs chopped off, while their heads and tails are retained to prove they are plump paddy rats and not urban vermin.

 

 

Publishing house Harlequin Mills & Boon, owned by Torstar, Canada's biggest newspaper publisher, is making a romantic foray into India with a bid to tap into the country's long standing love affair with rose-tinted story lines. The romance giant aims to fete its 100th anniversary by giving India a "new guilty pleasure" — printing its steamy love stories for the first time in the morally conservative nation. The world's leading publisher of romantic fiction said it hopes India, with an estimated 300-million English readers, would become one of its biggest — if not the biggest — markets.

 

 

University of Tokyo researchers are developing a light weight space shuttle able to escape the worst of the friction and heat that heavier shuttles face on re-entry to the atmosphere. . . because they're made out of paper. The aerospace engineering team plans to launch its 20-centimetre prototypes from the International Space Station to see if they make it back to Earth. The origami shuttles are made from a special paper chemically treated to resist heat. The team says the technology might one day be used for unmanned spacecraft.

 

 

Singapore Zoo's most famous icon, an orang-utan that once hobnobbed with Britain's Prince Philip, pop star Michael Jackson and actress Elizabeth Taylor, has died. Ah Meng, a female orang-utan from the Indonesian island of Sumatra who had served as a "poster girl" to highlight the plight of the endangered apes, died of old age — she was 48 years old, 95 in human years. Zoo staff said a "memorial service" will be held today to allow the public to view the body before it is buried.

 

 

Indonesian commuters riding on the roofs of trains will be sprayed with coloured liquid so that security officers can identify and arrest them. Electric trains linking the Indonesian capital and its neighbouring towns are packed with passengers during rush hours, with many sitting on the roofs due to a lack of space inside or to avoid paying. After several failed attempts to discourage roof riders over years, and 53 roof rider deaths since 2006, the state owned railway company PT Kereta Api said it's time for harsher measures. The effect water may have on electric trains was not mentioned.