■ AUSTRALIA
Language angers officials
Foul-mouthed British chef Gordon Ramsay prompted parliament on Thursday to push for tighter rules to protect viewers from swearing on television. Ramsay’s programs are ratings winners on free-to-air television, but prompted outrage earlier this year when one episode featured the volatile chef using a four-letter expletive more than 80 times in 40 minutes. The Catholic Church called for his shows to be scrapped or shown at a later time, and now an inquiry by the Senate, or upper house, has urged better warnings on programs and new ways for television stations to deal with complaints.
■ CHINA
Floods fulfill ‘Fuwa’ curse
Southern floods seem to have fulfilled the final stanza of an Internet curse involving Beijing’s Olympic mascots, but censors have been quick to remove postings that might fuel the superstition. After the devastating Sichuan quake, Internet users tied four of the five “Fuwa” mascots to the recent calamities that have struck ahead of the Games. One Fuwa is a panda, the totem of Sichuan. The others resemble a torch, reminding netizens of the protests against the international Olympic torch rally; a Tibetan antelope tied to widespread demonstrations in Tibetan areas; and a swallow that looks like a kite, linked to a deadly train crash in Shandong Province. The final Fuwa, sporting a fish, was left unexplained until widespread flooding claimed dozens of lives.
■ INDONESIA
Police get inline skates
Jakarta is rolling out a new weapon in its battle against gridlock: traffic police on inline skates. The idea is that officers will be able to reach traffic jams quicker than by car or motorbike, the Koran Tempo daily reported. Once there, they will be able to direct vehicles to get the city’s traffic flow moving again. The city’s top traffic cop Dua Sutirto said the force had hired a professional inline skater to teach the team of 20 officers before it is deployed on July 1. The capital suffers from some of the worst traffic jams in Asia and it remains to be seen what effect — if any — the inline skating police team will have on the problem.
■ PHILIPPINES
Residents ready for typhoon
The country braced yesterday for Typhoon Fengshen, a storm packing gusts of up to 160kph that was expected to hit the eastern region. Typhoon Fengshen was about 50km northeast of Eastern Samar Province’s Guiuan Township yesterday morning, the weather bureau said. It was expected to make landfall on Eastern Samar Province by yesterday evening. The weather bureau said the provinces of Masbate, Sorsogon, Albay, Catanduanes and the islands of Samar, Leyte and Biliran were expected to bear the brunt of the typhoon.
■ AUSTRALIA
Python found in toilet
A 1.8m python has been found in a toilet bowl in a high-rise apartment in the northern tropical city of Darwin, media reported yesterday. The Northern Territory News said the black-headed python was found in a 10th floor toilet. Reptile catcher Chris Peberdy told the newspaper the python, likely to be a runaway pet, had been traveling through the building’s sewer pipes. “When I saw it I was pretty shocked,” he said. “There is no possible other way it could have got there than through the toilet. I had to give him a wash because he was wet and a bit smelly.”
■ RUSSIA
Enema monument unveiled
A monument to the enema has been unveiled at a spa in the southern city of Zheleznovodsk. The bronze syringe bulb, which weighs 363kg and is held by three angels, was unveiled at the Mashuk-Akva Term spa, the spa’s director said on Thursday. “There is no kitsch or obscenity, it is a successful work of art,” Alexander Kharchenko said. “An enema is almost a symbol of our region.” The Caucasus Mountains region is known for dozens of spas where enemas with water from mineral springs are routinely administered to treat digestive and other complaints. Kharchenko, 50, said the monument cost US$42,000 and was installed in a square in front of his spa on Wednesday. A banner declaring: “Let’s beat constipation and sloppiness with enemas” was posted on one of the spa’s walls. Sculptor Svetlana Avakina modeled the angels holding the enema on those in works by Italian Renaissance painter Alessandro Botticelli.
■ SWEDEN
Details posted on Internet
The chief of the nation’s defense intelligence agency said on Thursday that about 20 of its staff members have had personal information about themselves posted on the Internet. In an interview on Sweden’s TV4 Thursday, Ingvar Akesson, head the National Defense Radio Establishment, said he believes the “mud-throwing” campaign was conducted by people protesting a new law that allows his agency to secretly eavesdrop on e-mail and telephone traffic crossing the country’s borders. Akesson didn’t say what information was posted about the civil agency’s employees, or whether any of them conceal their identities because of the nature of their work. But Swedish blog Politikerbloggen said the information includes the victims’ addresses, telephone and credit card numbers.
■ AUSTRIA
War crimes suspect defiant
Croatian Nazi war crimes suspect Milivoj Asner said on Thursday that his conscience is clear and that he is willing to face justice. “I am ready to come to Croatia. My conscience is clear, I could appear before a court tomorrow,” Asner, 95, told Croatian national television while being interviewed in his Austrian home. Austrian justice has halted Asner’s extradition procedure due to his ill health. He served as a police chief under Croatia’s World War II Nazi-allied Ustasha regime, and is accused of having organized the deportation of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies to concentration camps. Asner said that no-one who was “loyal” to the Ustasha regime was persecuted. “Those who were not [loyal] had to leave. We sent them to their homeland,” he said.
■ GERMANY
Tree pest causing concern
A nationwide infestation with the citrus longhorned beetle, a major tree pest, was blamed on Thursday on a shipment of bargain-price maple trees from China to the Netherlands. Germany’s Julius Kuehn Institute said the beetles, a serious threat to citrus crops and trees, had been found in two German states, Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia, but had probably been spread all over Germany by a supermarket chain. The chain last month sold 100,000 of the trees as indoor pot plants. They had been imported to the Netherlands from China in December.
■ UNITED STATES
Teens in pregnancy pact
A group of schoolgirls in the Massachusetts fishing town of Gloucester made a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together, a report said on Thursday. Time magazine reported that 17 girls at Gloucester High School are expecting babies. “Nearly half the expecting students, none older than 16, said they made a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together,” Joseph Sullivan, principal of the high school in the fishing and beach town told Time. The Boston Globe said some men “involved in the pregnancies are in their mid-20s, a fact that prompted Mayor Carolyn Kirk of Gloucester to ask about statutory rape charges at last month’s School Committee meeting.”
■ UNITED STATES
Organ trafficker sentenced
A member of an organ trafficking ring has been sentenced to 27 years in prison for illegally harvesting organs from more than 1,000 bodies including that of former BBC personality Alistair Cooke. Christopher Aldorasi was sentenced to the 27-year term and cannot seek parole until he has served nine years, Judge Albert Tomei ordered on Wednesday. Aldorasi and three colleagues, former dentist Michael Mastromarino, funeral services entrepreneur Joseph Nicelli and Lee Crucetta, were charged in 2006 with stealing organs and cell tissue from the bodies of dead people. Mastromarino and Crucetta pleaded guilty in March and will be sentenced later. Nicelli’s case is still in the courts.
■ VENEZUELA
Chavez warns EU of oil cut
President Hugo Chavez threatened on Thursday to stop selling oil to European countries if they apply a new ruling on illegal immigrants that has been condemned by human rights groups. EU lawmakers ruled on Wednesday that illegal immigrants can be detained for up to 18 months and face a re-entry ban of up to five years. “We can’t just stand by with our arms crossed,” Chavez said at an event to celebrate his country’s oil supplies to South America. Chavez has regularly issued conditional threats to halt crude shipments, although he has never followed through.
■ UNITED STATES
Japanese couple missing
A couple from Japan were on board a tour plane that went missing this week over Hawaii’s Big Island, authorities said. Nobuhiro and Masako Suzuki of Urayasu, Japan, were aboard a single-engine Cessna that disappeared on Tuesday, the Japanese consulate in Honolulu said on Thursday. The pilot was identified as Katsuhiro Takahashi. KGMB-TV reported that the couple’s 20-year-old son arrived on the Big Island on Thursday and met with Mayor Harry Kim and other officials. An extensive aerial and ground search for their missing tour plane on the Big Island continued. Island Hoppers, the tour company that operated the plane, said Takahashi was a senior pilot and chief flight instructor.
■ VENEZUELA
US allegations dismissed
The government on Thursday rejected US accusations that a Venezuelan diplomat helped finance Hezbollah in Lebanon. Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro did not specifically refer to Ghazi Nasr al Din, who was targeted on Wednesday in a US Treasury Department action ordering any assets he controls in the US to be frozen. But Maduro said: “If they want to search for terrorists, look for them in the White House.” Wednesday’s action accuses Nasr al Din of using his position as a diplomat and a leader of a Caracas-based Shiite Islamic center to help the group.
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
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
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the