■ Malaysia
PM defends judiciary
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi defended the independence of the judiciary yesterday, after jailed former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim said judges were "under the thumb." Jailed in 1998, Anwar was sentenced to 15 years for sodomy and abuse of power but his chance of an early release appears no brighter after his main rival, Mahathir Mohamad, stepped aside last October for Abdullah to become prime minister. On Wednesday, a panel of judges unanimously decided to reject Anwar's plea to be freed on bail pending an appeal against the sodomy conviction, which carries a nine-year sentence. Anwar has served almost five of the six years he was sentenced to for abuse of power.
■ China
Safari paints monkeys
A safari park has taken to dying its primates bright red and yellow to celebrate the Lunar New Year. The monkeys at the Forest Safari Park of Shenyang in northeastern Liaoning Province are now multicolored to celebrate the Year of the Monkey which began yesterday. A member of staff at the park told the official Xinhua news agency that painting the primates was no easy job as they had refused to cooperate. "We had to anesthetize them first," he said. "They seemed to be surprised at their new strange coats when they woke up. But after a while, they indulged themselves in pleasure." Xu Dianju, president of the park's Wild Animal Hospital, said the park also dyed their horses with colored strips to make them look like zebras.
■ China
Water gushes from dyke
Up to 8,000 people in northwestern China had to rush from their homes yesterday as water gushed from a big hole in a dyke at a nearby reservoir, officials said. There were no casualties in the evacuation on a freezing Lunar New Year's day in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, a provincial militia official said. "About 7,000 to 8,000 people are being evacuated to safe places nearby," said the official, who declined to be identified. "That's all I can say, we're extremely busy here." Farmland and homes had been flooded and there was no way of stopping the deluge, at least in the short-term, the Xinhua news agency said.
■ India
Separatists gather for talks
Kashmiri separatist leaders and top Indian officials were coming together yesterday for the first high-level negotiations between the two sides over the blood-soaked Himalayan region. Few participants or analysts expected dramatic results from the talks, but the fact they are taking place was still a major step toward the eventual resolution of the dispute. The talks were set to be held in New Delhi between leaders of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, a legal alliance of political and Islamic religious groups, and a team headed by India's deputy prime minister, Lal Krishna Advani.
■ Sri Lanka
Alliance under fire
President Chandrika Kumaratunga's alliance with radical leftists came under fire yesterday from her own ruling coalition members after Tamil Tiger rebels warned of a return to war. A member of Kumaratunga's wider People's Alliance, a grouping of several smaller political parties, said the deal with the radical People's Liberation Front could not survive as it offered no solution to the decades-old ethnic conflict wracking the island.
■ Cuba
Patriarch to open church
Patriarch Bartholomew I, spiritual leader of 140 million Orthodox Christians, arrived in Cuba on Wednesday to open the first church built from scratch since President Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution. Castro, dressed in his trademark olive green uniform, met the Patriarch on arrival at Havana airport from Istanbul, Turkey, the seat of the Christian Orthodox Patriarchate. The small church of Byzantine arches built of limestone in the heart of colonial Old Havana, next to the harbor, is a gift from Cuba's communist-run government, which began tolerating religious practice in 1992.
■ United States
Bomb joker released
A 21-year-old British woman arrested following a bomb hoax at the weekend was released on bail Wednesday, but will return to court in Miami on Feb. 6, an official said. Samantha Marson was due to take a flight from Miami to Britain Saturday when, apparently jokingly, she told airport security staff poised to search her hand luggage, "Hey be careful, I have three bombs in here." "She was released today on US$5,000 bond," a spokesman for Miami-Dade county jail said.
■ United States
City bans karaoke rooms
A temporary ban on private rooms in karaoke clubs is being criticized as insensitive to Asian-Americans, but city officials say it's needed because people have been using the rooms for a lot more than singing. The private singing rooms, which seat up to 20 people and sometimes have locking doors and no windows or security cameras, are increasingly being used as fronts for prostitution, drug use, gambling and alcohol consumption among minors, police say. The San Mateo City Council voted Tuesday to impose a temporary ban on the private rooms in this Silicon Valley suburb, but karaoke fans contend the fears of crime are overblown.
■ France
Strikes continue
Even as rail traffic resumed following a one-day strike, French hospital staff and airport workers were walking off the job yesterday in protest. The strike by airport personnel was not expected to seriously disrupt traffic at Paris' two main airports, Charles de Gaulle and Orly. Five unions called the strike in part to protest plans to sell shares in the Paris airports authority next year. Hospital staff, meanwhile, planned demonstrations yesterday to push for more funding, additional personnel and better working conditions.
■ United Kingdom
`Snoring judge' appeal fails
Two men convicted of plotting what would have been Britain's biggest robbery lost their bid for a legal appeal Wednesday, even though the judge in their trial admitted falling asleep during the closing arguments. Raymond Betson, 41, of Chatham in southern England, and William Cockran, 50, of London, were each jailed for 18 years in February 2002 for plotting to steal ?200 million pounds (US$360 million) of diamonds from London's Millennium Dome on Nov. 7, 2000. The pair cited Judge Michael Coombe's behavior as one of their main grounds for appealing their convictions. "Everyone can be forgiven for momentary lapses of concentration, but it is another matter if there is sleepfulness accompanied by noises associated with sleep, drawing attention to the person who is asleep and deflecting the jury's attention," the men's lawyer, told three appeal judges.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of