■ South Korea
Goh to quit post
Prime Minister Goh Kun, who is running the nation as acting president, will resign his post after the fate of impeached President Roh Moo-hyun is determined, a newspaper reported yesterday. "Once I have completed the duties of managing a fair parliamentary election and the impeachment situation is wrapped up, I'll move on from the prime minister post," Goh said, according to Maeil Business Newspaper. "My plans to move on from the prime minister post are unwavering." The paper quoted Goh as saying he plans to study after resigning. Goh's office declined to confirm the report. The 65-year-old Goh, who has held key posts in six successive governments, has been running the country as acting president since parliament impeached Roh on March 12 on charges of illegal electioneering and incompetence.
■ China
Sex education needed
Lack of sex education is being blamed on a rising rate of teenage pregnancies in parts of China, state press reported yesterday. Statistics from southwest Chongqing municipality show unwanted pregnancies among teenagers is increasing by an average of 6.8 percent every year. They show unmarried girls now making up one-third of those seeking abortions, a 13 percent rise from 1998, the Shanghai Daily reported. The jump is largely attributable to the lack of sex education, said Zeng Qingliang, vice-president of the Chongqing Municipal Association of Sexuality. "Those young children have no idea about how to protect themselves from such problems," Zeng said.
■ Malaysia
Couple charged for affection
A Malaysian couple caught by enforcement officers holding hands in a public park have been charged in court with indecent behavior, local media said yesterday. Ooi Kean Tong, 22, was charged Wednesday for allegedly hugging and kissing his girlfriend Siow Ai Wei, 20, in a Kuala Lumpur park, the New Straits Times reported. Ooi pleaded not guilty. If found guilty, he could face a maximum fine of 2,000 ringgit (US$526) or a year in jail or both. The case provoked a public outcry at the time when the couple said they were only holding hands and alleged that they were issued a summons because they had refused to bribe the officers, who were charged with corruption in January.
■ Australia
Brothers convicted of rape
Four Muslim brothers convicted in a gang rape were sentenced yesterday to prison terms ranging from 10 to 22 years, and one of them stood up in court to proclaim the group's innocence and accuse the police of religious persecution. The Supreme Court of New South Wales last year found the four men guilty on nine counts each of aggravated sexual assault, after two teenage girls said they had been repeatedly raped at the brothers' suburban Sydney home on July 28, 2002. The court has referred to the brothers only by their initials during proceedings because two of them were under 18 when the crimes were committed. Justice Brian Sully sentenced 25-year-old MSK -- who he described as the ringleader -- and 17-year-old MMK to 22 years each behind bars. Their 23-year-old brother MAK received 16 years, and 19-year-old MRK got 10 years. After the sentences were read out yesterday, MRK put his head in his hands and wept.
■ Saudi Arabia
Group claims responsibility
A Saudi militant group claimed responsibility for Wednesday's suicide bombing that targeted a building housing security forces in the capital Riyadh, killing at least four people and wounding 148 others. A statement by a group calling itself Al Haramain Brigades, published by at least two Islamist Web sites, said the attack targeted special security and anti-terrorism units in the kingdom. Al Haramain, which refers to Islam's two holiest sites in the Saudi cities of Mecca and Medina, has previously claimed responsibility for a bomb attack in December on a Saudi security officer's car and has vowed to kill any others battling militants.
■ United States
Code issued for sex tourism
A code of conduct issued Wednesday would engage the travel industry to fight sexual exploitation by North America travelers, who constitute 25 percent of sex tourists overseas. The code was launched by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) with the support of the World Tourism Organization and chief executives from hotels and travel agencies, who were called to sign the code and commit their firms to abide by its provisions. An international advocacy group combatting child prostitution, child pornography and the trafficking of children for sexual purposes estimated that 25 percent of sex tourists around the world came from the US.
■ United States
Princess Di photos released
The US television network CBS broadcast Wednesday grainy, never-before seen photographs of a dying Princess Diana in the minutes following the 1997 car crash in Paris that killed her and her lover Dodi Al Fayed. The photocopied, indistinct, black and white images were taken from a copy of the confidential French investigation into the accident, which the network said it had managed to obtain. One fuzzy image showed the princess's seemingly blood-stained head, as she was being treated in the wreckage of the car by a French doctor, Frederick Maillez, who had arrived on the scene minutes after the crash occurred in a Parisian underpass.
■ United States
Laura Bush apologizes
The writer Ian McEwan has received an apology from the US government after he was refused entry to the country the day before he was to deliver a lecture to 2,500 people in Seattle. The author, a favorite of the first lady, Laura Bush, was stopped last month by US immigration officials as he left Vancouver. In what has been described as a very "unusual" move, the writer was sent a letter saying: "Please accept my apologies for any inconvenience and delay the refusal caused you. Be assured that this erroneous refusal will not impact your future applications to the United States."
■ United Kingdom
Storks, long absent, mating
Bird enthusiasts are agog after the discovery that white storks are trying to nest in Britain for the first time in nearly 600 years. Word has shot round the birdwatching community about sightings of a pair of storks mating and gathering sticks between housing estates and a motorway in the northern English county of Yorkshire. An informal guard has been placed on a tree and telegraph pole, chosen by the birds for the first-known British nesting attempt since 1416. In that year, storks successfully fledged chicks on St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh.
■ United States
Radioactive rod missing
Two pieces of a highly radioactive fuel rod are missing from a Vermont nuclear plant, and engineers planned to search on site for the nuclear material, officials said. The fuel rod was removed in 1979 from the Vermont Yankee reactor, which is currently shut down for refueling and maintenance. Remote-control cameras will be used to search a spent fuel pool on the property, officials said Wednesday. "We do not think there is a threat to the public at this point. The great probability is this material is still somewhere in the pool," said Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan.
■ Germany
Rights to `DDR' bought
A German businessman who bought the rights to the official emblem of communist East Germany (DDR) defended his move Tuesday, saying critics were jealous they hadn't thought of it before he did. Manfred Jansen paid the German patent office US$330 for the right to demand royalties from anyone who puts the emblem -- a hammer and compass set into a wreath of rye -- on T-shirts, cigarette lighters, belts and a host of other products. "I'm just a businessman with an agency dealing in nice logos. I have no political motives," Jansen told reporters as news of his purchase sparked criticism that he had no right to cash in on a national symbol.
■ United Kingdom
Woman poses as medic
A woman posing as a military officer conned her way onto a British air force base and lived there undetected for five months, even running up a large bar bill, a report said on Wednesday. The 35-year-old, named by the Sun newspaper as Kelsey McMillan, pretended to be an army medic on a training course and was only detected after she successfully applied for a transfer to a different base. The imposter arrived at the RAF Valley base in north Wales last October dressed as a captain and bearing a genuine identification card she held as a private in the Territorial Army.
■ Mexico
Drug kingpin nabbed
Agents at Mexico City's airport captured on Wednesday a Guatemalan trucking company boss who US authorities say was Central America's most-wanted drug smuggler. Otto Herrera is accused of building a powerful smuggling gang that used a small army of pilots, speedboat operators and truck drivers to move Colombian cocaine through Panama, Guatemala and Mexico en route to US streets. He was collared at the Mexican capital's Juarez International Airport, as he greeting a woman authorities identified as his girlfriend.
■ Mexico
Human tamales?
A tamale vendor in western Mexico was arrested after police discovered a carved-up body in his home, a spokeswoman for state prosecutors said Wednesday. The vendor denied using human flesh in his food. The vendor, who sold tamales from a cart in the city of Morelia in Michoacan state, was arrested Tuesday after police received an anonymous tip that he had a dismembered body in his house. Police found body parts, some of which appeared to have been boiled with herbs. A daylong analysis of the tamales found in the house revealed that they were free of human flesh. But she said that police found materials that suggested the suspect intended to make a new batch and that human flesh was discovered nearby.
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
UNCERTAIN TOLLS: Images on social media showed small protests that escalated, with reports of police shooting live rounds as polling stations were targeted Tanzania yesterday was on lockdown with a communications blackout, a day after elections turned into violent chaos with unconfirmed reports of many dead. Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan had sought to solidify her position and silence criticism within her party in the virtually uncontested polls, with the main challengers either jailed or disqualified. In the run-up, rights groups condemned a “wave of terror” in the east African nation, which has seen a string of high-profile abductions that ramped up in the final days. A heavy security presence on Wednesday failed to deter hundreds protesting in economic hub Dar es Salaam and elsewhere, some
Flooding in Vietnam has killed at least 10 people this week as the water level of a major river near tourist landmarks reached a 60-year high, authorities said yesterday. Vietnam’s coastal provinces, home to UNESCO world heritage site Hoi An ancient town, have been pummeled by heavy rain since the weekend, with a record of up to 1.7m falling over 24 hours. At least 10 people have been killed, while eight others are missing, the Vietnamese Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment said. More than 128,000 houses in five central provinces have been inundated, with water 3m deep in some areas. People waded through
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