Wasted Daily News

BEIJING – A college student in southern China was bitten by a panda after he broke into the bear’s enclosure hoping to get a hug, state media and a park employee said Saturday.

The student was visiting Qixing Park with classmates on Friday when he jumped the 6.5-foot (2-meter) -high fence around the panda’s habitat, said the park employee, who refused to give his name.

The park in Guilin, a popular tourist town in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, houses a small zoo and a panda exhibit. It was virtually deserted when the student scaled the fence surrounding the panda, named Yang Yang, the employee said. Read the rest of this entry →

Three vast tunnels were opened under central Berlin this month, giving a glimpse of Adolf Hitler’s megalomaniac vision of a new architectural centre for the capital of Nazi Germany.

The 16-metre (50-foot) deep tunnels were constructed in 1938 as part of an underground transport network beneath a series of bombastic buildings designed by Nazi architect Albert Speer, including the biggest domed hall the world had ever seen.

The overground plans, never completed because of World War Two, included boulevards, squares and huge buildings, such as an arch dwarfing the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and the 290-metre high Great Hall, with room for 180,000 people.

Hitler called the concept, a symbol of the power of the Third Reich, “Berlin — the capital of the world” but in recent times it has come to be known as “Germania.”

The tunnels, between 90 and 220 meters long lying beneath the Tiergarten park, would have accommodated roads and a railway line. Read the rest of this entry →

The Japanese government will have to pay damages to the parents of a sailor who hanged himself after being repeatedly insulted by his superior, in the first such court ruling involving a civil servant, media said.

The Fukuoka High Court in southern Japan ordered 3.5 million yen ($32,000) be paid to the parents of the petty officer third class, a court spokesman said, declining to give further details.

Kyodo news agency said the court recognized that the sailor’s suicide had been caused by depression, a result of stress accumulated from insults such as: “You are not qualified as a petty officer third class” and “Are you dumb?” Read the rest of this entry →

Indonesia and Malaysia will start talks in August to bridge cultural differences following a squabble last October over a popular love song, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Friday.

The southeast Asian neighbours had bickered over the song, Rasa Sayang (Feeling of Love), which Indonesians claim as their own but was used by Malaysia in a tourism campaign. The spat sparked calls for a boycott of Malaysian products in Indonesia.

Indonesia believes the song originated from its eastern islands of Maluku, as the lyrics of the Indonesian version suggest, while Malaysians say they have been singing the song since they were young.

Discordant notes creep up occasionally in relations between the two neighbours who share cultural and religious ties, speak a similar language and practise Islam.

A eminent people’s group, set up by the Indonesian and Malaysian presidents in July, will start initial discussions on August 29-30 in Jakarta to review history, misperceptions and efforts to increase people-to-people contact.

“We will listen again to their understanding of Indonesia, and our understanding of Malaysia, and why these two nations can easily be provoked over issues concerning the other,” said Teuku Faizasyah, the Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman.

“We see that our relations with Malaysia should have gone further, and should not be based on ethnic group sentimentality.”

The group of 14 diplomats and cultural experts from Indonesia and Malaysia is also considering reviving cultural programmes such as exchange visits and a TV show jointly produced by the two countries.

The programmes were forgotten after one of the initiators, former Indonesian president Suharto, stepped down in 1998.

As the biggest country in the region, Indonesia played a bigger role in the region until the 1990s, but its influence eroded after the political and monetary crisis in 1998.

(Reporting by Olivia Rondonuwu; Editing by Sugita Katyal and Valerie Lee)

South Korea’s President Lee Myung-bak has told officials to give up golf for the moment because it sends the wrong signal just as the economy has hit the rough.

“Golf is not bad but … as prices are unstable and the economic situation is not getting better, President Lee thinks they need to consider public sentiment,” Yonhap news agency quoted a presidential Blue House official as saying.

Lee, a keen tennis player, asked officials to put their clubs away at least in the run-up to the major local Chuseok holiday in mid-September.

His government, which began battling low popularity ratings almost as soon as it took office in February, has had to abandon ambitious economic growth targets for this year because of a global downturn, while fast-rising inflation has triggered mounting wage demands from the country’s unionised labour force.

Golf is hugely popular in South Korea but the high cost sees many players fly off to cheaper parts of Asia for a game.

An average club near the capital charges $250,000 (134,000 pounds) to $500,000 to join and members can expect to pay $250 per guest for a weekend round of golf.

(Reporting by Park Ju-min; Writing by Jonathan Thatcher; Editing by Jonathan Hopfner)

A 27-year-old Egyptian woman gave birth to septuplets early Saturday in the coastal city of Alexandria, family members and the hospital director said.

Ghazala Khamis was in good condition after having a blood transfusion during her Caesarean section due to bleeding, said Emad Darwish, director of the El-Shatbi Hospital where she gave birth. Read the rest of this entry →

Amsterdam police say 15 camels, two zebras and an undetermined number of llamas and potbellied swine briefly escaped from a traveling Dutch circus after a giraffe kicked a hole in their cage. Read the rest of this entry →