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World News Quick Take

■ THAILAND

PM to stop cooking show

Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej said yesterday he would temporarily stop appearing on two cooking shows after complaints that his culinary moonlighting was unlawful. Food-loving Samak regularly appears on two local cooking shows, whipping up tasty Thai delights in the kitchen or heading to restaurants and local markets to advise viewers on how to choose quality goods. But on his weekly TV address to the nation, called Talking Samak Style, the colorful prime minister said two unnamed opponents had complained to the Election Commission that he should not be employed by a private company.



■ NEW ZEALAND

Deadly fall predicted

An ominous Tarot reading predicted the fate of Isaeli tourist Liat Okin, 35, whose body was found seven weeks after she disappeared while hiking in the rugged South Island, news reports said yesterday. Okin’s body was discovered on Friday, a 6.5-hour walk from a hut on the 35km Routeburn Track, in Fiordland, where she was last seen on March 26. The alarm was raised after she failed to return from a scheduled three-day hike on the track near the lakeside resort Queenstown. A New Zealand friend, Stephanye Bluwal, 25, told the Herald yesterday that the night before leaving Okin read Tarot cards and asked what would happen on her hike.



■ MALAYSIA

No ICJ for Borneo dispute

Kuala Lumpur and Indonesia will settle a thorny dispute about an oil and gas-rich area of Borneo themselves, rather than refer it to the International Court of Justice, a report said yesterday. Malaysian Foreign Minister Rais Yatim said the two sides had formed a joint working group to study the border conflict over the Ambalat block and find a solution upon which both parties could agree, the Star daily reported. “We have agreed to settle the matter amicably. We will seek the views of experts on the laws of the seas and territories for a solution,” the newspaper quoted Rais as saying.



■ JAPAN

Wartime bomb defused

More than 16,000 Tokyo residents were evacuated yesterday as experts disposed of an unexploded 1 tonne bomb believed to have been dropped by the US military during World War II, an official said. The rusty bomb was defused by Self-Defense Force personnel in Chofu, on the outskirts of Tokyo, said Shigeru Ishikawa, a Tokyo Fire Department official. “Residents stayed at nearby public schools for evacuation,” Ishikawa said, adding that about 16,490 people had to leave their homes. The bomb, believed to have been dropped by a B-29 bomber, was found by construction workers in March. Ishikawa said the evacuation order was lifted after two hours.



■ JAPAN

Textbook risks dispute

Tokyo risks reigniting a territorial row with South Korea by claiming disputed islands as its territory in the school curriculum, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported yesterday. The education ministry will describe the islets — known as Takeshima by Japanese and Dokdo by Koreans — as “Japanese territory” in its revised curriculum handbook, the daily said. The school curriculum is revised about every 10 years and the latest revision of teachers handbooks will be completed by July for use from April 2012, the newspaper said. The move came after conservative lawmakers in Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda’s ruling party stepped up pressure on the ministry to describe the islets as Japanese.



■ SPAIN

Police arrest ‘hackers’

Police announced on Saturday the arrest of five suspected hackers, including two 16-year-olds, who are accused of attacking government Web sites in the US, Asia and Latin America. The youths belonged to “one of the most active groups of hackers on the Internet,” having disabled 21,000 Web pages over a two-year period, a police statement said. “They would substitute the contents of the Web pages attacked with protest messages and included the same anarchist symbols.” If convicted, they face jail terms of between one and three years.



■ GERMANY

Prostitution law drafted

Officials are drafting legislation to imprison men for up to 10 years if they obtain sexual services from women forced into prostitution, Der Spiegel magazine said on Saturday. Regular prostitution is legal in the country, with cities zoning land for brothels. Prostitutes pay income tax. But authorities are concerned that some women are employed against their will by pimps who demand repayment of vast “recruitment fees.”



■ GREECE

Court ends height minimum

A court has ruled that the country’s police do not have the right to bar women shorter than 1.7m from joining the force, a legal source said on Saturday. The decision from the administrative appeals court came after a 1.65m tall woman filed a challenge to the policy. Feminist groups said the height limit, which was previously 1.65m for women and 1.7m for men, discriminated against females. The ministry decided to make the height requirement the same for men and women after a court ruling to abolish a policy that limited the amount of women entering police academies to a 15 percent quota.



■ PORTUGAL

Language accord passes

Parliament voted by a large majority on Friday to implement a long delayed accord on a unified form of the Portuguese language originally agreed on with seven Portuguese-speaking countries in 1991. The agreement harmonizes spelling and adds three letters — k, w and y — to the alphabet. President Anibal Cavaco Silva is expected to ratify the accord, which members of the ruling Socialist Party and the right supported, with communists and some right-wing deputies abstaining. Some 33,000 people have signed a petition objecting to the reform. In 1991 “the new orthography accord,” the fourth of its kind since 1911, was signed by Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Cape Verde, Sao Tome and Principe, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique.



■ ITALY

Residents attack firefighters

Angry residents in Naples have attacked firefighters trying to extinguish burning garbage in the recent trash collection crisis, authorities said on Saturday. Firefighters said residents threw stones at them and in one case attacked them with fire extinguishers. No injuries were reported. Firefighters said police had to escort them while putting out more than 100 fires over Friday night and 30 on Saturday morning. Italian television footage showed garbage set ablaze overnight and trash bins overturned in the city. “We are unprepared and defenseless when faced with the aggression of criminals,” said Ugo Bonessio, chief firefighter in Naples. “I hope these acts end because in addition to harming us, they prevent us from giving help.” The crisis broke out in December when collectors stopped picking up trash because there was no more room at dumps.



■ UNITED KINGDOM

Speeding incident probed

Police are investigating a complaint from a driver who says he was tailgated at high speeds by officers trying to keep up with a sports car carrying Prince Harry, the Mail on Sunday reported. Tim Williams, 33, was driving on a motorway just west of London last Saturday when an Audi R8, which he later spotted with Harry in the passenger seat, raced past him at over 160km per hour, it said. Williams then pulled into the outside lane but saw an unmarked Range Rover bearing down on him in his rear view mirror at a similar speed, flashing its headlights and with blue police warning lights on, it said.



■ UNITED STATES

Candy bar leads to suspect

Police in Jonesboro, Arkansas, say DNA found on a half-eaten candy bar helped them zero in on a robbery suspect. Detective Jason Simpkins says Brian Bass’ DNA matched the sample found on the bar left on the counter at Cato Animal Hospital during a January robbery. Bass was being held in jail Friday on US$50,000 bond. Bass was on probation after he served time on a firearms possession charge. Simpkins said the state had his DNA on file. Police say Bass is facing felony commercial burglary and theft charges. The public defender’s office says Bass, 39, does not have an attorney yet.



■ UNITED STATES

Student graduates alone

Jeff Greenwood is in a class by himself. The Opheim High School senior was the only student to graduate from the school on Friday. But the small event drew a big name. Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer gave the commencement address. Greenwood, who plans to attend Dickinson State University in North Dakota, said the high school is the “hub of activity” in Opheim a rural town about 16km south of the Canadian border. “The student-to-teacher ratio is pretty good,” said Greenwood, who is the student body president and, of course, the senior class president.



■ UNITED STATES

Man jailed over diploma

A judge in Ohio says he will release a man who was jailed last week for failing to make sure his daughter earned her high school equivalency diploma. Juvenile Court Judge David Niehaus’s decision Friday would let Brian Gegner out of jail if his 18-year-old daughter Brittany attends a General Education Diploma (GED) preparatory class and schedules the test before the next court date. Gegner received a 180-day sentence for contributing to the unruliness or delinquency of a minor. He had been ordered months ago to make sure his daughter, who has a history of truancy, received her GED — something that hasn’t happened yet. His daughter has said it’s not fair that her father was punished for her behavior.



■ UNITED STATES

Orangutan attempts escape

An orangutan tried to escape from his enclosure at the Los Angeles Zoo, forcing about 3,000 visitors to head for the exit. Bruno, a 29-year-old orangutan, punched a hole through the mesh that surrounds his habitat on Saturday afternoon. He was free for about 20 minutes until a handler saw him in a holding area behind the cage, zoo officials said. Bruno never made it into the zoo’s public area, but park officials asked visitors to move toward the front of the zoo as a precaution. Keepers quickly approached Bruno and sedated him. “He was calm and responded well to the staff,” Gina Dart, the zoo’s promotions coordinator said. “He was never aggressive.”
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