?Sharks? march in Singapore against soup delicacy

Clad in shark suits, a group of Singapore students marched yesterday to protest over the mass slaughter of the big fish to make shark fin soup, a delicacy throughout Asia. Near the end of their trek, done as part of an annual charity event, the university students staged a mock ?finning?, where a fisherman cuts off the shark?s fin and throws its body back in the sea to drown.

Shark fin soup is a prized dish widely served at Chinese weddings as a symbol of generosity and wealth. Some 40 sharks are killed to supply each wedding and a bowl of the soup can cost $100. Around 100 million sharks are caught each year for their fins and the hunting has depleted some shark populations by as much as 90 percent.

Conservationists say sharks are in danger of extinction due to their late maturity and slow reproductive rates. While their killing is legal in most countries and in international waters, the European Union, Australia and the US have banned the practice.

China court rejects appeal by fallen flower baron

A Chinese court has rejected the appeal of fallen flower baron Yang Bin, sentenced to 18 years in jail for commercial crimes in a case that emerged soon after North Korea named him the head of a planned free trade zone. The High People?s Court of Liaoning province yesterday held up Yang?s conviction in July of contract fraud, forgery, illegal use of farmland and other crimes, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Dutch citizen Yang, the orchid grower ranked China?s second-richest man by Forbes magazine in 2001, was detained last October just days after Pyongyang unveiled plans for a free-trade enclave he was to run on the Chinese border. He was the first of several tycoons to be toppled by scandal in the past year after amassing huge fortunes in the 1990s.

Vietnam War-era bomb kills five in Cambodia

A bomb left over from the Vietnam War in the 1970s and found recently in a Cambodian river exploded, killing five children who were trying to cut it up for scrap metal. An 18-year-old fisherman and his four younger brothers died instantly in the blast on Saturday afternoon in a village just south of the capital, Phnom Penh.

Local police chief said one other villager was also severely injured. The war-scarred southeast Asian nation is still littered with bombs dropped by US forces in their fight against communists in neighbouring Vietnam. Despite public education campaigns, villagers continue to forage for old ordnance and several hundred people are thus killed every year.