Baby panther adopted by dog

A 15-day-old female panther named Milica has been adopted by a Rhodesian Ridgeback after her mother refused to feed her and tried to kill her in the Belgrade zoo. "The mother panther has killed all her cubs since 1999," zookeeper Dragan Jovanovic said. "We believe she has been traumatized by the sound of NATO bombs" during airstrikes in the Serbian capital intended to stop former President Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown against ethnic Albanian separatists in 1999, he said. Now Milica fights with several newborn puppies over milk from her adopted mother. She also appears to enjoy every bit of attention she gets from her new family

Starbucks finds imperial palace a forbidding market

A controversial Starbucks coffee shop in the Forbidden City, the former imperial palace at the heart of Beijing, has closed its doors after years of opposition. A campaign for its closure has been brewing since early this year, when a television anchor complained that the American chain's presence in the symbol of the Chinese nation was trampling on Chinese culture. The outlet opened in 2000 prompting a media backlash so severe that the museum authorities considered revoking its lease after a couple of months. It has operated without the usual outward corporate Starbucks bunting in recent years. "Starbucks shouldn't be here. Why bring something so Western to an ancient place like this?" steamed an Australian tourist who gave his name as Justin. The shop closed on Friday. By Saturday morning, newspapers covered the windows while a crew of workers set up a souvenir shop inside. Eden Woon, Starbucks vice-president for Greater China, said the museum management had decided to introduce its own branded stores and merchandise after a year-long review. Starbucks was offered the option to revamp the outlet as a "coffee shop" selling domestic coffee and other beverages alongside its own brew, but decided it wanted to maintain its own brand. "We have always been in touch and on good terms," Woon said. "My understanding is the decision was amicable and not aimed at Starbucks."

BETTER LATTE THAN NEVER "It's a shame. I would have enjoyed a coffee if they had it," said Sarah from Texas, touring the palace on a cloudy summer weekend. The rectangular Forbidden City, formally known as the Palace Museum, covers 74 hectares (183 acres) surrounded by a moat to the north of Tiananmen Square and has a fabled 9,999 rooms. It was listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1987. Its outer courtyards are lined with stalls selling trinkets, Olympics souvenirs and drinks, with a makeshift basketball court tucked to one side. The Starbucks store was located inside the vast complex, where the museum management also operates cafes and eateries selling coffee, tea and beer. "I don't have a problem with Starbucks, because all the other coffee shops here already make it kind of commercial," said Wu Haiying, who had traveled to Beijing to show the palace to her seven-year-old son. "Why shouldn't we adopt Western things that are good?"

Master of magic comes up with own Hogwarts

A top Indian magician is set to open a version of Harry Potter's fictional Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, hoping that a master's degree in magic will help keep the ancient art form alive.

P.C. Sorcar Jr., famous for astonishing thousands by making the Taj Mahal "vanish," said he plans to give away the secrets behind his illusions, perfected by his family over eight generations. "The over 2,000-year-old craft of street magicians was passed on through word of mouth before," Sorcar Jr. said. "It would be a loss for Indian magic if this art was not preserved." The 61-year-old magician, who is known for mammoth illusions, substituting traditional tricks such as pulling a rabbit out of a hat with producing a horse out of an empty bag, said it was important to nurture this unique tradition. Magic has entertained Indians through the ages and formed a vibrant part of many social occasions. However, the advent of television and the Internet has forced magicians to hone their craft to meet the needs of a generation hooked to video games and Western sitcoms. Veteran magicians say it is still a lucrative career if the government could do its bit by giving some funds and infrastructure to train youngsters. "DRAMAGIC" The Masters degree course in "Dramagic" -- as Sorcar Jr. calls it due to the dramatic illusions that will be taught -- will begin next year at the renowned government-run Visva-Bharati University in eastern India.

As part of the syllabus, the illusionist plans to bring in street magicians and performers known as "madaris" to teach students the tricks of their trade. "For thousands of years foreign tourists spoke of Indian magic in their travelogues," Sorcar Jr. said. "They said they saw men at street corners make a rope dance to the music of their flute or rise straight up in broad daylight with no apparent support. In 2000, Sorcar Jr. led thousands of spectators to believe the Taj Mahal had disappeared for nearly 90 seconds. He later explained light rays had been refracted to create the illusion. His other famous tricks include disappearing after being sealed in a box which was crushed by a road-roller and cycling smoothly through the busy streets of London and San Francisco with his eyes bandaged and plastered. Sorcar Jr. said he and his daughter Maneka, who is also a magician, had initially planned an illusion to ride a bicycle across the Red Sea, but later abandoned the plan fearing it could hurt religious sentiments. He now plans to recreate the illusion on Dal Lake, in India's scenic Himalayan state of Kashmir, where a 17-year separatist insurgency has hurt tourism. "It will be good for Kashmir's tourism," he said.

Ice cream stick ship's Atlantic bid

A 15-metre replica of a Viking ship made from five million ice cream sticks has set sail in preparation for crossing the Atlantic Ocean. The ship named "Thor" was glued together by Robert McDonald, his son and more than 5,000 children from 18 schools in the Netherlands . It's taken four years to complete.

Plane returns after drunken brawl on board

A Russian plane flying from St Petersburg in Russia to Doloman in Turkey had to turn back midflight after a drunken brawl over a young woman spun out of control, police said in a statement Friday. Three young Russians boarded the plane drunk Thursday and "continued their party on board." "One of them took a fancy to a girl but she did not want to socialize with the new admirer," police said. On rejection, the passenger slapped the woman on her face several times. Another passenger immediately rose to defend her. "A fight began, the situation started to get out of hand and the crew made the only right decision -- to turn back." The three drunk men were detained on landing at /a St Petersburg airport. They faced fines of "dozens of thousands of dollars," police said. The woman received medical treatment at the airport and the plane resumed its flight to Turkey.

Cultural Flashpoints North of the Scalp

Britain’s most senior judge, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, announced on Thursday that, starting Jan. 1, the wigs would no longer be worn in most trial courts; neither would gowns. Ending (at least for now) a long, hot debate over whether and how to modernize and simplify the elaborate standards of formal court dress, Lord Phillips, the Lord Chief Justice, decided to dispense with the wigs and with court robes entirely in all civil and family cases, and to simplify them in criminal court.

Also gone will be the especially elaborate full-bottomed wigs worn on ceremonial occasions; the smaller, cheaper and much less uncomfortable bob wigs that will still be worn in criminal trials will do. And a single, simple robe design will replace the five different sets of formal robes that judges had to maintain for different court sittings and times of year.

The white, curly horsehair wigs have been in use in court since the 1600’s, when they were fashionable in society as well, and they long ago became the visible emblem of the British legal system. The Times of London reports that they remain popular with the public, and especially with defendants, who are said to favor being represented by “a proper lawyer with a wig.” And some in the legal profession liked the link with history, as well as the measure of disguise they provided, making barristers and judges who are seen wigged in court harder to recognize unwigged on the street.

But many others despise wigs as hot, smelly, and more to the point, elitist - they make all too obvious the caste system in British law, dividing the more numerous solicitors, who do most of the day-to-day work of representing clients, from the more prestigious barristers, who for centuries had a monopoly on the right to speak (and to wear a wig) in court. These days the functional distinction between the two kinds of lawyer is eroding, and the solicitors, at least, want the sartorial distinction to vanish as well.

As for Lord Phillips, he apparently was simply annoyed with all the rigmarole, and wanted to save the government some of the considerable expense (upwards of $3,000 apiece for the full-bottomed wigs, for example) of fancy court dress.

Cost is not the issue in the Netherlands, but anonymity and separation from society very much are.

The country has already seen a government brought down by a proposal it made in 2006 to outlaw wearing of the burqa or naqib in public. Now, a conservative party in parliament is trying once again, introducing a bill that would impose penalties of up to 3,350 euros (almost $5,000) and up to 12 days in jail.

One rationale put forward is public safety, and the risk posed by having people regularly moving about in society with their identities completely hidden. (The Lede took note last week of some recent attempts to exploit the burqa for various ends.)

But it seems clear that ostentatious other-ness is the real complaint. The P.V.V., the party that proposed the law, acknowledged as much when it described the garments as “an expression of the rejection of fundamental Western values” and argued that the veils hinder the integration of Muslim immigrants into Dutch society.

A prominent spokesman for Dutch Muslims, Ayhan Tonca, told The Associated Press that Geert Wilders, the P.V.V. leader, was actually trying to do that himself: the proposal, he said, was “totally out of proportion” and was meant to widen the rift between Muslims and other Dutch people.

The P.V.V.’s proposal exempts some face-covering items worn for secular reasons, like full-visor motorcycle helmets. Many politicians of other parties who support the ban are telling the Dutch news media that it should apply to those as well, and that a narrow ban on religious face coverings has little chance of passage.

The contraception reception

Condoms of all shapes and sizes were on display at a Beijing fashion show on Wednesday featuring dresses, hats and even lollipops made of the said item.

Models fought through extravagant soap bubble special effects to show off tight-fitting wedding gowns, scaly-looking evening dresses, outrageous bikinis and other garments made entirely of condoms, inflated or otherwise.

The show was held at the Fourth China Reproductive Health New Technologies and Products Expo and organized by China's largest condom manufacturer, Guilin Latex Factory, to promote the use of condoms in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

It also marked World Population Day, organized annually by the U.N. Population Fund.

China, with a population now of 1.3 billion, introduced a strict one-child policy in the late 1970s under which many residents are restricted to one child.

"One (child) is not enough -- two are better," said visitor Song Weiliang.

But the main aim of the condom show was to promote AIDS awareness

China originally stigmatized AIDS as a disease of the decadent, capitalist West -- a problem of gays, sex workers and drug users. Traditionally, none of these officially existed in communist China.

It has belatedly awakened to the problem, and health experts have warned the virus is now moving into the general population. But a lack of sex education and unwillingness to talk about sex still hampers the fight, health experts say.