Good oil: Kia hit into the rough

Did the people running New Zealand Golf turn down a potential sponsor in the form of Korean carmaker Kia? A rumour with lots of meat on it says that several months ago Kia offered to sponsor the NZ Golf Open and that the golf administrators said: Thanks, but no thanks, that Holden had naming rights. Kia then said it understood that Holden's continued sponsorship was in doubt and that Kia was still interested. It never received a reply. Now NZ Golf's main tournament - in the year that its favourite son, Michael Campbell, defends his US Open title - still doesn't have a sponsor. Kia sponsors the Australian tennis open and its parent, Hyundai, is one of the main sponsors of next week's soccer World Cup. The Kia people here would say only that head office in Korea deals with all sponsorships

Running wild

What is it with joggers and pedestrian crossings? Is their need to jog an addiction? Does it take them to another world, a place in time where the only thing they are aware of is the pain in their knees? The bloke who ran blindly on to a crossing on Tamaki Drive the other day would have found himself in a whole new world of pain had the woman in a station wagon not braked in time. She and her children looked frightened. The jogger looked indignant. He should read Oscar Wilde. Whenever Wilde felt like exercise he lay down until the feeling went away.

A matter of honour

Pollution has become so dense in Beijing that drivers were asked to forgo their cars for one day each month. About 200,000 drivers have done the honourable thing and volunteered, which will also ease the epic traffic jams. About 2.6 million vehicles travel the city's roads each day. Beijing wants to clean up pollution before its 2008 Olympics.

Fume fears

Aging school buses rattling along America's highways are spewing fumes that put the children at risk. The Union of Concerned Scientists says that at least 30 per cent of the 500,000 buses are 10 years old. An aging bus can produce up to 10 times the amount of diesel emissions, or particulates, as an 18-wheel truck and trailer.

We are the world

When Kentucky university teacher Dan McBride jumped into his rental car he found what looked like a coiled rubber snake on the passenger's seat. No big deal, McBride had often found oddball leftovers in rentals. But when he went to pick it up it moved. So did McBride - out the door. The Associated Press report said the make of the car was unknown, but it could have been a Dodge Viper or a Ford Mustang Cobra.

* Indiana high-school student Michael Morris was taken to hospital with broken bones after a friend driving a Honda at 40km/h ran him down. But it was done on purpose. The friend described Morris as an adrenaline junkie who asked friends to run over him in their cars. Morris told the Indiana Times: "I won't do this no more."