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Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu is standing up for your (music) rights. PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES

K aohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) said Wednesday the city government will consider blocking the roads to the 16th and 17th piers at the Kaohsiung Harbor in southern Taiwan if the central government vetoes its plan to turn the area into a pop music center.

Chen made the remarks as she joined city government department heads, staff and activists from environmental and cultural groups in the southern port city in staging a sit-in as a protest against a notice from the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) demanding the city government continue consulting with other government agencies and wharf facilities users before putting its pop music center project into force.

Chen said she didn’t accept the proposal as the former Democratic Progressive Party administration had already approved the project and promised to assist the city government in completing necessary administrative procedures, including some law revisions, to facilitate realization of the project.

Naomi Campbell has had her knuckles rapped over losing her cool. PHOTO: AP

Supermodel Naomi Campbell was ordered Friday to do 200 hours of unpaid community service after admitting kicking and spitting at police officers as she “went berserk” when her luggage went missing during the Heathrow airport Terminal 5 baggage fiasco.

Following chaotic scenes outside Uxbridge magistrates court in west London — during which Sky News presenter Kay Burley allegedly grabbed a female photographer by the throat after being hit in the face with a camera — Campbell was ordered to pay US$395 compensation to each of the police officers and US$296 to the plane’s captain.

The court heard the supermodel flew into a violent rage after a case holding an Yves Saint Laurent outfit she had been contracted to wear on a US chat show disappeared as she was due to fly to Los Angeles.

After Campbell was told the news as she sat in the first class cabin of the British Airways flight she screamed obscenities, threw objects, thrashed her arms around, accused the plane’s captain and police who attended of being racists, and wedged herself in her seat to try to stop officers removing her, the court was told.

The only other first class passenger took sanctuary in the aircraft’s kitchen area.

Campbell, 38, who was wearing “formidable” stiletto-heeled platform boots at the time, only stopped kicking when a police officer radioed a colleague asking for leg restraints. She later told them: “You can’t arrest me; it’s just because I’m black and famous.”

Campbell pleaded guilty to two counts of assaulting a police officer, one count of disorderly conduct likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress and using threatening, abusive words or behavior to cabin crew.

Campbell, immaculate in a black Alexander McQueen suit and stilettos, sat quietly through the hearing after confirming her name and guilty plea.

In addition to the compensation she was ordered to pay fines totaling US$5,440.

Outside the court Burley, one of Sky News’s highest-profile presenters, was hit in the face with a camera, leaving her with a bruised cheekbone. Witnesses said Burley was struck as photographers raced to get a picture of Campbell arriving at the court. According to witnesses, Burley grabbed Kirsty Wigglesworth, a photographer for the Associated Press news agency, by the throat.

Burley was absent from her usual presenting slot on Sky News yesterday afternoon and was twice seen by medical staff at the court. Asked about the incident, she said: “As far as I am aware I did not put my hands around her neck. I was hit in the face with a camera. You can still see the injury on my forehead and like anyone else would do I just put my hands up. If I did anything else, then I apologize.”

US rapper 50 Cent was ordered to surrender any guns he might have after a judge on Friday issued a temporary restraining order requested by the rapper’s ex-girlfriend, lawyers said. A lawyer for the rapper, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, said he would contest the order and that 50 Cent did not have guns or access to guns. “To my knowledge, he has no guns,” said lawyer Brett Kimmel.

Celebrity homemaker Martha Stewart has been denied entry to Britain because of her 2004 US conviction for lying about a stock sale. Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc, the company founded by Stewart, said the 66-year-old businesswoman had been planning to travel to Britain for business meetings.
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