Around Asia

They Are So Out Of Date

Gasoline ration coupons to be ditched
The government will discard billions of obsolete gasoline ration coupons printed after the 1970s oil crises and stored at an overall cost of more than 1 billion yen.

Following the two oil crises of 1973 and 1979, the government printed 7.2 billion coupons to prepare for the possibility of a suspension of oil imports, according to the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy.

After Almost 40 Years Why Trash Them Now?

But I Need My

U.S. at Work on Strangling Kim Jong-il's Cash Flow
The U.S. envoy charged with UN sanctions, Philip Goldberg, is still trying to block North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's cash flow, even as Washington has agreed to talks with Pyongyang aimed at persuading it to return to nuclear negotiations.

North Korea invited U.S. North Korea envoy Stephen Bosworth on Aug. 4, when former U.S. president Bill Clinton was in Pyongyang to win the release of two American journalists.

Porn, Whiskey and Imported Gourmet Food While the Nation Starves

Who Was That Masked Man

Koda's dad claims son locked up by taxmen
NEW DELHI: Former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda's father, Rasika, has approached finance , has approached finance minister Pranab Mukherjee claiming his son,daughter-in-law and their two-year-old child were locked in their house by investigating officers and all their external contacts were disrupted.

"I have not been able to communicate with him even on telephone as all his phones are either switched off or are not being picked up," Rasika Koda said in a letter to the FM. The senior Koda said people visiting his son were denied access on the ground that interrogation was being conducted.

He Sure Wasn't a Superhero But He May Have Been a Republican

Talk About

Teen muggers zap man in buttocks
Two teenagers have been arrested after they stole a man's mobile phone and then shot him with a stun gun in Melbourne's west last night.

The male youths, both aged 17, and three other teens allegedly approached the 28-year-old victim in St Albans and demanded he hand over his phone.

The Brighton man, who was walking with two friends along Victoria Crescent just before 9.30pm, complied but was then shot with a stun gun on the buttocks, police say.

A Real Pain In The.....