Starbucks to source coffee from China

Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O: Quote, Profile, Research), the world's biggest coffee-shop chain, said it planned to source coffee from China for the first time as it expands in a country with more than 5,000 years of tea-drinking culture. Starbucks has been working with coffee farmers in China's southwestern Yunnan province to help them meet sourcing standards and has sent coffee shipments to the United States for testing, Starbucks China President Wang Jinlong said at the Reuters China Century Summit on Tuesday. "China does produce some quality coffee," Wang said at the summit, held at the Reuters office in Shanghai. He added that sourcing coffee from China would start "very soon, maybe in a couple of years". Some analysts say import tariffs as high as 20 to 60 percent are the reason why companies such as Starbucks are considering sourcing coffee from China. However, Starbucks' Shanghai-based spokeswoman, Caren Li, said the aim was to add new flavors, not to avoid tariffs.

Dog days in New York

If behavior therapists, designer outfits and gourmet food aren't enough to keep pampered pooches happy, owners can now try swimming lessons. The class for puppies is one of the latest ways New Yorkers are pleasing their pets in a city famed for owners indulging their dogs. "We teach them how to swim, how to get in the pool," said Stacy Alldredge, whose Manhattan dog spa houses the swim classes and pool, complete with built-in dog steps. "It's about becoming socialized." Salty learned to swim by wearing a life jacket and having his paw held, but now he shows off his aquatic skills by constantly leaping into a pool. Four months after his first lesson, the miniature schnauzer is the envy of his classmates, who excitedly bark and sniff the water but don't dare jump in without the instructor's help. While some New Yorkers worry about whether their pet is sporting the latest fashions, other owners want their dogs exercised and healthy, said Alldredge. "If you think that getting your dog to do fun things, giving them a great diet and making sure they are happy is spoiling them, that is wrong," said Alldredge, a canine nutritionist and behavioral consultant. At a recent class, owners paid about $15 to let a swim therapist hold their puppy and encourage it to swim solo to the pool's edge. Several owners soothingly willed their puppies into the water or shouted "good girl!" upon a successful swim. Other pooches just wanted to make friends in the class that began last year. But don't dogs instinctively know how to swim? "That's a myth. Dogs don't naturally know how to swim, although some dogs do," said Alldredge, citing breeds such as labradors or golden retrievers." Other breeds "feel awkward" and need help, she said. "The Dog Run" facility she runs also offers swim hydrotherapy and massage for aging or injured dogs. Salty's owner, Valerie Cortes, said it was all part of growing up. "I mean, only in New York, but man, thank God. He loves it!"

"Lion" roars spook residents, spark hunt

Roars from an unidentified feline have scared residents of a mountainous Caracas suburb and triggered a hunt for the capture of what neighbors are convinced is a lion. But Venezuelan authorities, who have scoured the woods on horseback where the bellowing comes from, could only confirm the presence of some type of feline after finding the carcasses of small animals including a half-eaten armadillo. "One of the people that saw this animal talks about a lion," said Juan Fernandez, mayor of the affected Las Salias municipality, in an interview with local radio Monday. "We cannot say if (the animal) is a lion, a tiger, a puma or a little spotted cat," he said. Venezuelan jungles and mountains are teeming with exotic fauna but encounters with dangerous wild animals are rare around the South American nation's crowded capital that is typically clogged with noisy traffic. Local media reported two lions had escaped years ago from a nearby zoo, but Fernandez said the institution has denied any of the predators were missing.

Fashion war on taxi slobs

Malaysia is cracking down on shabbily dressed taxi-drivers, fining them for not tucking in their shirts or for wearing shoes of the wrong color. Malaysia's lowly paid tax-drivers are supposed to wear white shirts, dark trousers and black shoes, but in reality passengers are happy if they can just persuade them to use the meter. But the Commercial Vehicle Licensing Board is out to make a fashion statement, the Star newspaper said Monday, quoting its chairman as saying drivers had to present a professional image. Taxi-drivers have been fined 100-300 ringgit ($29-$86) -- or up to three days' average wages -- for wearing an off-white shirt or getting behind the wheel without socks, angering the drivers and reducing one of them to tears, the paper added. "I actually saw a taxi-driver crying over having to pay a fine of 200 ringgit when I was at the (licensing board's) office recently," Abdul Jalil Maarof, president of the Klang Valley Taxi Owners Association, told the Star.

Three bears, now lion, try to leave zoo

A lion escaped from its cage at a Kazakh zoo over the weekend, the second such incident in a month, news media reported Monday. The six-year-old lion called Adam sneaked out of his cage through a door that had been accidentally left open, Kazakhstan Today news agency reported. The lion roamed around freely for half an hour before zoo workers lured it back to safety. Just a month ago, three bears broke out of their enclosure in the same zoo in southern Kazakhstan.