World Briefs

Heavy rain has flooded most streets in the southwestern Chinese tourist city of Kunming and forced the closure of its airport after water submerged the runway and part of the terminal, state media said yesterday.

The downpour that started on Tuesday evening stranded cars, soaked shops and inundated low-lying neighbourhoods in the capital city of scenic Yunnan province, the official Xinhua news agency said.

"Most of the streets in the city suffered serious flooding and there were traffic jams on major roads," Xinhua said. The water was as deep as one metre in places, it said.

A total of 156 flights were delayed as of yesterday morning as the runway and the airport's departure hall were flooded, the report said.

Soldiers and airport staff had been trying to drain the water, which was waist deep at some points, Xinhua said.

Flooding is a perennial problem for much of south and east China in the summer. Floods have killed nearly 200 people so far this year.

No skimpily dressed bar staff

China's government has told discos, karaoke bars and other entertainment venues to install windows in private rooms and ensure staff dress modestly from October 1 as part of an effort to crack down on prostitution and drugs.

According to rules released on the Ministry of Public Security's website (www.mps.gov.cn), entertainment venues must install transparent partitions between rooms that ensure "the whole environment of the consumer's entertainment area in the room can be seen".

"When open for business, the transparent part of rooms and windows to rooms at singing and dancing entertainment venues must not be obstructed," the rules say.

Discos, karaoke nightclubs and other bars in China frequently have private rooms for hire, and are a favourite places for businessmen to entertain guests, sometimes with prostitutes, which is illegal in China.

Magnate leaves billions to the dogs

New York hotelier and real estate magnate Leona Helmsley left millions to her beloved dog, Trouble, but she has left billions for the care of dogs in general, The New York Times said.

Ms Helmsley left instructions that an entire charitable trust valued at €3 billion to €5 billion and amounting to virtually all of her estate, be used for the care and welfare of dogs, the newspaper said, citing two people who had seen the document and described it on condition of anonymity.

The two people who had seen the document said Ms Helmsley signed it in 2003 to establish goals for the trust that would disburse assets after her death. The first goal was to help indigent people.

Taiwan braces for Chinese tourists

The 350-room Cheng Pao Hotel near central Taiwan's Sun Moon Lake separates Chinese tourists from Japanese guests at meals to ensure those from China don't take out their nationalist aggressions on visitors from Japan.

"Japanese and Chinese guests eat at different times and in different places, in case of conflict," hotel manager Chang Tse-yen said.

The same hotel also struggles to feed eight-person Chinese tour groups on the dirt-cheap maximum of €24.6 that some are willing to pay for meals, including extra garlic and extra chili peppers. Taiwanese diners would expect to pay more. "Chinese tourists seldom travel outside China, so they may not be used to some things," Mr Chang said.

'Spiritual' effects of mushrooms

The "spiritual" effects of psilocybin from so-called sacred mushrooms last for more than a year and may offer a way to help patients with fatal diseases or addictions, US researchers reported.

They said their findings show there are safe ways to test psychoactive drugs on willing volunteers, if guidelines are followed.

In 2006, Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and colleagues gave psilocybin to 36 volunteers and asked them how it felt. Most reported having a "mystical" or "spiritual" experience and rated it positively. More than a year later, most still said the experience increased their sense of well-being or life satisfaction, Prof. Griffiths and colleagues report in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

"This is a truly remarkable finding," he said in a statement. "Rarely in psychological research do we see such persistently positive reports from a single event in the laboratory."