Asia Beat: Mar 27 2008
Fri, March 28 2008
BEIJING, China - China recorded an average of 5.1 road accident deaths for every 10,000 motor vehicles in 2007, the highest in the world the second China Traffic Safety Forum said. The world average for the year under review was two deaths per 10,000 vehicles.
Road accidents claimed 81,649 lives in China last year, 7,806 fewer than the year before. In 2007, the nation produced 8.88 million motor vehicles and sold 8.79 million. According to the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), there are more than 1.2 million road deaths worldwide annually, with more than 50 million injuries.
HANOI, Vietnam - A Vietnamese pharmaceuticals company is to begin testing an avian influenza vaccine on humans . Nguyen Thu Van - director of Vabiotech, a subsidiary of Vietnam's National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology - said human trials would run for eight months.
Vabiotech has contracted Vietnam's Military Medical Institute to conduct the trials, the first in Vietnam for a human bird-flu vaccine. Bird flu has infected 106 people in Vietnam, killing 52, since it first appeared in the country in late 2003. Other countries have tested bird-flu vaccines in humans but have not brought them to the production stage.
SEOUL. S.Korea - South Korean police said they had arrested a woman accused of telling her six-year-old daughter to steal some US$140,000 from a bank. The girl took cash and cheques from a small safe under the desk in the VIP room of a bank in the southern island of Jeju, they said. The room was temporarily empty apart from the child. The mother was arrested the same day after a closed-circuit TV clip showed the child near the safe. Police seized the money and cash as evidence.
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Bengal Tiger |
KHULNA, Bangladesh (PIX)- Tigers stalking into Bangladesh villages around Sundarbans mangrove forests have killed six people and mauled 12 others over the last two months, forest officials said.
The Sundarbans is a Unesco World Heritage site and home to the Royal Bengal tiger.
The victims were attacked while they were either fishing or farming near the forests. Forest officials said tigers sneaking into villages mainly at night has increased after a deadly cyclone hit Bangladesh coasts late last year.
At least 60 percent of the 6 000 sq km mangrove swamps within Bangladesh, home for more than 400 Royal Bengal tigers, was devastated by the cyclone.
HUBEI, China - A Chinese bride burned her new husband to death after he got into bed after a drunken argument without washing his feet, state media reported. "Wang and his wife, Luo, were married on February 2. The couple, however, frequently fought over trivial things while still on their honeymoon," the official Xinhua news agency quoted a local newspaper as saying.
The couple, from the central province of Hubei, had another fight on the night of March 4, "and in frustration they together drank a bottle of liquor to ease their anger". "At about 10pm, Luo watched her husband get into bed without cleaning or washing his feet. In a fit of anger and intoxication, she set fire to the sheet he was sleeping in," the report said.
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Swedish mother
Maria Elfversson
offers a $10,000 reward |
BANGKOK, Thailand (PIX)- A Swedish woman has offered a US$10,000 reward for anyone in Thailand or Cambodia who can tip off police to the whereabouts of her 6-year-old daughter, allegedly abducted by her own father last year.
Maria Elfversson, 35, from Gothenburg, Sweden, announced the reward for the return of her daughter, Alicia, at a press conference in Bangkok in the hopes that her story would be publicised in the local press.
She claimed that her former husband, Norwegian national Torgeir Nordbo, 47, abducted their daughter on June 4, 2007 and took her to either Thailand or Cambodia, where he owns property.
HONG KONG - A Hong Kong man was rescued by firefighters after being caught in an illegal animal trap set on a hillside of the former British colony, police said. The incident, the second involving a person being injured by an animal trap in the last two weeks, prompted a warning to Easter hikers to take care on hillsides. The traps are believed to be set to catch wild boar that are relatively common in Hong Kong's countryside, which covers more than 70 per cent of its 1,078 square kilometres, much of it densely foliated and mountainous.
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Manny Pacquiao |
MANILA, Philippines (PIX)– Filipinos took to the streets in joy after the WBC super featherweight victory of Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao over Mexican Juan Manuel Marquez. Filipinos watched the 12-round fight in the malls, their homes and public gyms where huge screens were set up by local officials.
Throughout the country, crowds burst into cheers when it was announced that Pacquiao was the new WBC super featherweight champion by a split decision. The Philippine military even declared a seven-hour unilateral ceasefire with communist rebels to give troops time to watch the fight, while politicians also took the day off.
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Barack Obama |
JAKARTA, Indonesia (PIX)- While the US presidential campaign is raging, many Indonesians have made up their minds that candidate Barack Obama would make a great president, with his childhood time in the country making him a local favourite.
Obama, 46, was enrolled in two primary schools in Jakarta in the late 1960s. Obama, who was born in the US state of Hawaii, moved to Indonesia at age 6 after his American mother, Ann Dunham, married Muslim Indonesian Lolo Soetoro following the end of her marriage to Obama's Kenyan father.
A group of about 20 of Obama's former Indonesian school friends early this month formed an Obama fan club as a way of showing their support for the Illinois senator. Obama also has a following among the current generation of Indonesian school children.
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