China will ban all entertainers from overseas, Hong Kong and Taiwan who have ever attended activities that "threaten national sovereignty", the government said yesterday, after an outburst by Icelandic singer Bjork.
Earlier this year, Bjork shouted "Tibet! Tibet!" at a Shanghai concert having performed her song Declare Independence, which she has used in the past to promote independence movements in other places such as Kosovo.
China has ruled Tibet with an iron hand since its troops marched into the Himalayan region in 1950, and swiftly condemns any challenge to its authority there.
"Any artistic group or individual who have ever engaged in activities which threaten our national sovereignty will not be allowed in," the Ministry of Culture said in a statement on its website (www.ccnt.com.cn).
Immigrants caught in army barracks
Five illegal immigrants were caught at a British army barracks after they hid on board trucks in a military convoy, British police said yesterday.
The convoy was shipping military Land Rovers back from Kosovo, the Sun newspaper said. "They all seemed very jovial and quite happy.
"They did not seem concerned they had jumped into an army barracks," Army Captain Giles Cutter told the paper. "Fortunately there was a squadron on duty and a few burly Fijian soldiers wrestled the first two to the ground."
The men were spotted jumping from two lorries inside the military base in South Cerney in Gloucestershire in western England on Tuesday evening.
Police said the men, two from India, two from Afghanistan and an Iranian, aged between 15 and 26, were taken to a local police station before being handed over to immigration officials and taken to a detention centre.
Apes departing Hollywood
Filmmakers looking for an ape may be left scratching their heads after Hollywood's sole supplier of orang-utans decided to quit renting them out and send six of them to an Iowa sanctuary, the facility's owner said on Wednesday.
Steve Martin's Working Wildlife of Los Angeles has said it will stop providing the fast-disappearing creatures to the entertainment industry, a practice that conservationists have long condemned, according to the Great Ape Trust of Iowa.
"Using non-human primates in entertainment venues like films, television and advertisements certainly doesn't enhance public attitudes towards their conservation, and doesn't get across the message about their precarious situation in the wild," said Lori Perkins of Atlanta's zoo, who heads the Orang-utan Species Survival Plan.
Condom adverts in isle dispute
Japan's largest condom maker was forced to take down advertisements from South Korean subway cars as tensions rise between the two countries over islands claimed by both, officials said yesterday.
Earlier this week, South Korea recalled its ambassador to Japan and lodged formal complaints in response to fresh territorial claims made by Japan over the islands called Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese.
"Having condom ads in a public space might not be acceptable for some people. Secondly, there is an anti-Japanese sentiment brewing among citizens over the Dokdo issue," a spokesman with Seoul Metro said.
Knife baked into sandwich
A New York man claimed in a lawsuit filed on Wednesday that he found a knife with an 18-centimetre blade baked into the bread of his foot-long "Cold Cut Trio" Subway sandwich.
John Agnesini, 26, a magazine designer, said he had already taken a few bites from the sandwich in late June when he spotted the knife jutting out from the bread's crust. The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan state court, seeks $1 million.
"If I didn't look at it, I don't know what would have happened," said Mr Agnesini. "That's the last thing you think about when eating a sandwich."
Helping environment by staying at home
The dark clouds of the credit crisis may have an unexpected silver lining for the environment - a smaller carbon footprint from investment bankers.
Mergers and acquisitions advisers jetting around Europe emitted 98,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide over the past year, the equivalent annual average emissions of 8,000 British citizens, to work on cross-border deals, a study showed. They also used more than 112 million pages of A4 paper, the equivalent of more than 10,000 trees.
With M&A volumes grinding to a halt as a result of the credit crisis and banks trying to keep a lid on travel expenses, the impact on the environment is bound to be less severe this year, research commissioned by Merrill DataSite indicates.
Submarine loaded with drugs seized
Mexican troops seized a small submarine smuggling drugs in the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday. A navy plane spotted the craft about 225 kilometres south of the tourist resort of Huatulco, setting off a three-hour chase.
The green-coloured submarine, carrying what was believed to be cocaine, was about 10 metres long and appeared to be a makeshift or modified vessel.
"The submarine travelled almost at the surface of the sea and when it came up we took advantage," said Captain Benjamin Mar, a navy spokesman. Special forces troops swooped on the submarine from a helicopter and subdued the crew of four, he said.