CHINESE TRIGGER AUSTRALIAN BABY MILK RUN
SYDNEY: Australian supermarkets and pharmacies were running out of popular baby formula on Thursday after unprecedented sales reportedly due to Chinese customers trying to secure supplies.

Nutricia, supplier of the top-selling formula brand Karicare, said there had been a sudden surge in demand for its products which had seen stocks plummet and left shelves empty. Major supermarket Coles said it was trying to arrange extra shipments of infant formula. Some pharmacies were rationing sales across brands to a few cans per customer. Media reports said Chinese residents or tourists in Australia were buying formula in bulk and shipping it back to their native country for family or sometimes online sale. Many Chinese are suspicious of domestically produced milk following a major food safety scandal in 2008 in which six children died and 300,000 others fell ill after drinking milk tainted with the industrial chemical melamine.

CLINTON OUT OF HOSPITAL, KEEN TO RESUME WORK
NEW YORK: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton left a New York hospital on Wednesday after three days of treatment and is expected to make a full recovery from a rare blood clot in her head. Earlier the top US diplomat, bundled up against the cold in a thick winter coat and wearing dark glasses, appeared in public for the first time in almost a month, when she came out of a building at the New York Presbyterian Hospital. It was the first time Clinton had been seen since catching a stomach virus on returning from a trip to Europe on December 7, which triggered a series of health scares, forcing doctors to order her to rest.

DELHI GANG-RAPE SUSPECTS TO BE CHARGED IN COURT
NEW DELHI: Five men accused of gang-raping a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in New Delhi in a deadly crime that repulsed the nation were to be formally charged in court on Thursday. Police would lay out evidence against them of rape, kidnapping and murder after the woman died over the weekend from the horrific injuries inflicted on her during an ordeal that has galvanized disgust over rising sex crimes in India. The men, mostly residents of New Delhi slums, will face the death penalty if convicted amid public clamor for their execution. The charge sheet, reportedly 1,000 pages long, will detail the evidence collected, the most powerful of which is expected to be a statement from the victim after the attack and an account from her boyfriend who was with her at the time. He was beaten during his attempts to save the medical student after the couple were lured onto the private bus by the reportedly drunk gang after watching a film at night.

AN HEIR FOR NORTH KOREA’S KIM JONG-UN?
SEOUL: North Korea’s next dynastic succession may have been secured, with new TV images of leader Kim Jong-Un’s wife suggesting that Pyongyang’s first lady recently gave birth. When state TV showed Ri Sol-Ju attending a memorial service for her husband’s late father Kim Jong-Il in mid-December, she appeared heavily pregnant with her loose-fit traditional dress barely hiding a swollen belly. But more recent images of her attending an official New Year’s party showed her wearing a well-fitted two-piece skirt suit with no physical sign of pregnancy. AFP