Whether it is dodging the issue of weapons of mass destruction or evading the imbroglio over the recount in Florida, the two most prominent scions of the Bush dynasty have a knack for braving doubts about their credibility.
But while US president George Bush and his brother Jeb, the Florida governor, have made it through some tough questioning, the president's younger brother, Neil, may not be so lucky.
In a court deposition, taken in March and released this week, Neil claims that attractive women came to his hotel door looking for sex while he was on business trips in Hong Kong and Thailand. And as a big-hearted Texan, Neil, the third of five Bush children, merely did as he was asked.
"You have to admit it's pretty remarkable for a man to go to a hotel room door and open it and have sex with her," said his ex-wife's lawyer, Marshall Davis Brown.
"It was very unusual," Bush replied. He insists he didn't know them, did not see them afterwards and didn't pay them.
"Were they prostitutes?" he was asked.
"I don't know," he said.
Bush, 48, divorced his wife, Sharon, in April after 23 years of marriage. The split came after a bitter dispute with another couple, Maria and Robert Andrews, whom they met several years earlier.
Sharon, who is the subject of a US$850,000 defamation suit after she alleged that Bush was the father of the Andrews' two-year-old son, has called on Neil Bush and Andrews to take paternity tests. Bush and Maria Andrews are now a couple.
On Friday last week a Texas judge ordered Sharon Bush to allow one of their daughters, Ashley, 14, to accompany Neil and Maria to France for Thanksgiving.
"They don't even celebrate Thanksgiving in France," said a friend of Sharon's.
The deposition also shed light on Bush's business dealings and ability to land fat contracts with little expertise.
The hotel trysts took place while Bush was working as a consultant for Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp, which is backed by the son of former Chinese leader, Jiang Zemin, for which he was paid US$2 million in stock options over five years.
It is not the first time that he has been involved in corporate controversy. In the late 1980s he was director of Denver-based Silverado Savings & Loan, which collapsed at a cost to taxpayers of US$1 billion. At the time he denied any wrongdoing but was sanctioned by the federal government for his part in the failure.
During the deposition Brown asked: "Now, you have absolutely no education background in semiconductors, do you Mr Bush?"
"That's correct," Bush said.
Brown also questioned him about work for Crest Investment Corp, where he was paid US$5,000 a month for work that totalled no more than four hours a week. Bush said he provided Crest with "miscellaneous consulting services."
"Such as?" asked Brown.
"Answering phone calls when the other co-chairman called and asked for advice," Bush said.
Crowds in Bangladesh are flocking to snap photographs with an unlikely social media star — an albino buffalo with flowing blond hair nicknamed “Donald Trump” that is due to be sacrificed within days. Owner Zia Uddin Mridha, 38, said his brother named the 700kg bull over its flowing helmet of hair resembling the signature look of the US president. “My younger brother picked this name because of the buffalo’s extraordinary hair,” he said at his farm in Narayanganj, just outside the capital, Dhaka. Mridha said that a constant stream of curious visitors — social media fans, onlookers and children — have come throughout
It began as a satirical online project. Now millions of young people in India are flocking to it as an outlet for their frustration. A parody political party called the Cockroach Janta Party, with the insect as its symbol, has exploded across India’s social media by turning absurdist humor into protest. Memes and short videos mocking corruption, joblessness and political dysfunction have flooded social media sites, where millions of users are embracing the cockroach — known for its ability to survive harsh conditions — as a tongue-in-cheek symbol of endurance. The online movement’s rise has been unusually rapid. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)
BIGGER ROLE: Beijing has said it maintains an impartial stance on the war in Ukraine, but by training Russian troops, China is far more involved than previously known China’s armed forces secretly trained about 200 Russian military personnel in China late last year, and some have since returned to fight in Ukraine, according to three European intelligence agencies and documents seen by Reuters. While China and Russia have held a number of joint military exercises since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Beijing has repeatedly said that it is neutral in the conflict and presents itself as a peace mediator. The covert training sessions, which predominantly focused on the use of drones, were outlined in a dual-language Russian-Chinese agreement signed by senior Russian and Chinese officers in Beijing on
HOTTER: While Indians are accustomed to summer heat, climate change has caused northwestern India to warm faster than other parts of the country, an academic said Roads and markets have emptied during afternoons and some farmers have switched to nighttime work to avoid scorching temperatures as a heat wave grips large parts of India. The India Meteorological Department forecast maximum temperatures for yesterday of about 45°C in the capital, New Delhi, where authorities have opened temporary “cooling zones” to help people cope. The weather department warned that conditions would likely persist across several northern regions in the coming days, with temperatures staying well above seasonal averages. Authorities urged people to stay indoors during the hottest hours and take precautions against heat-related illnesses. India declares a heat wave whenever maximum temperatures
RSS