Here are some of the top stories in Asia. You can read them at the South China Morning Post, but since a premium subscription is necessary, we will highlight for you:

The Aids epidemic sweeping through China will drag 20 million people into absolute poverty and cost the country 770 billion yuan (HK$726 billion) by 2010, mainland experts have warned. "Unless China faces and tackles the problem seriously, the disease will resuly in an economic and medical disaster."

Thousands of patients are missing from Hong Kong's public hospital wards. Nine have been found dead. The Government assumes most simply walked away and didn't say anything.

A woman barbecued her arm and had to have it amputated. She brought a portable barbecue into her bedroom for heat, and fell asleep with her arm draped over it. Authorites suspected she was drunk or drugged, since she claimed not to feel anything until she woke up in the morning. She denied it.

Relationship problems? The latest sign of social turmoil in China is the increase in the number of people who use rat poison to kill their loved ones or business partners. Sociologists attribute the increase to "the abscence of strong social values, rendering people more likely to act on selfish desires." Lacing food with rat poison to resolve personal conflicts "reflects a serious social problem related to a society in transition."

There has been a lot of coverage of the Kenya hotel attacks. Also, there is a lot of attention paid to an alleged regional terrorist network, Jemaah Islamiah. Planned attacks by the group, "forced the closure of the Canadian, Australian and European Union embassies in the Philippines. "

On CNN television, the news much of the day included a feature about America. It was a story about Angola prison in Lousiana, where it is cowboy and rodeo day. 10,000 people came out to view the festivities. The inmates here are mostly doing time for murder. The tradition has been ongoing for 38 years and not once has an inmate tried to escape on Rodeo day.