■INDONESIA
Buddha Bar drops its name
The first Asian branch of the chic Paris-based Buddha Bar has dropped its name amid complaints by Indonesian Buddhists that it denigrated their religion, the management said on Tuesday. The Jakarta franchise of the bar-cum-restaurant, opened in a historic colonial-era building last year, said in a statement it dropped its name “out of respect” for the country’s religion minister and did not mean to offend Buddhists. “There has been no intention to hurt the feelings of Buddhists in Indonesia. Taking down the Buddha Bar is as a form of respect to Religious Affairs Minister Maftuh Basyuni,” manager Henry Marheroso said in the statement. The bar has changed its name to Bataviasche Kunstkring, the original Dutch name of the building, a former immigration office, it said. Buddhist activists said the bar had been forced to drop the name after the government’s intellectual property agency revoked its right to the local Buddha Bar trademark.
■NEW ZEALAND
Motel bans a whole town
The Australian owner of a motel and his Scottish “Basil Fawlty” manager have banned an entire town, including its member of parliament. Steve Donnelly, owner of the Supreme Motor Lodge in the North Island town of Palmerston North, said he became fed up with the rowdy behavior of sports teams from Wainuiomata, a town near the capital Wellington. So he and manager Malcolm Glen — who according the motel’s own Web site is better known as “Basil Fawlty” after the highly strung John Cleese TV character — banned the whole town of 17,000 people. When Wainuiomata’s member of parliament and former cabinet minister Trevor Mallard tested the ban yesterday by trying to book in, Glen gave him his marching orders. “As a Scotsman I don’t have a vote, it doesn’t matter to me, you’re banned,” Glen told the lawmaker.
■NEW ZEALAND
Islands’ names are not legal
Experts searching for alternative Maori names for New Zealand’s two main islands were startled to find that their commonly used English names — North Island and South Island — were never made legal, officials said on Tuesday. To repair the 200-year-old oversight, the country’s Geographic Board, which assigns and approves names for all New Zealand places, said it would take steps to legally name the two South Pacific islands that make up more than 95 percent of the country’s land mass. The board had spent several years exploring a process for formally recognizing alternative Maori names for each island when it noticed that the islands had never been given official names, board chairman Don Grant said. “We therefore want to formalize alternative Maori names and, at the same time, make the naming of ... North and South Islands official,” Grant said.
■AUSTRALIA
Recession good for gamblers
Gamblers who tipped that the government was wrong and that Australia would fall into recession this year were rewarded with big payouts yesterday from Internet betting agency Centrebet. Centrebet financial analyst Neil Evans said the smart money had always been on the economy contracting in two consecutive quarters and that astute gamblers had always discounted claims that billion-dollar stimulus packages would keep the economy growing. This week Prime Minister Kevin Rudd conceded he was wrong and that the economy would indeed go backwards this year.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Nazi-bred cows find new life
A herd of “super cows,” descended from animals bred in Nazi Germany, is making an impressive sight on a farm in southwest England. The animals, Heck cattle, were bred by the brothers Heinz and Lutz Heck, two zoologists who wanted to recreate the auroch. An extinct European wild ox, the auroch features as an important beast in Teutonic mythology. Only a few Heck cattle survived after World War II, but Derek Gow, a farmer and conservation consultant, has shipped 13 bulls and cows from Belgium to the farm in Devon, where they have joined a growing collection of beavers, polecats and water voles. Gow believes Heck cattle — which, he says, “look prehistoric” — could one day have an important conservation role, taking the place of aurochs in the environment. “They are an important part of the ecosystem because each cow produces its own weight in dung a year. That is excellent for the whole food chain, from dung beetles upwards,” Gow said.
■SOUTH AFRICA
ANC angry over chicken ad
The Youth League of the African National Congress (ANC) has vowed “militant action” against Nando’s, the chicken restaurant chain, for satirizing its controversial leader, Julius Malema, in TV and radio advertisements. Nando’s, known for its spicy “peri-peri” chicken, has a long history of poking fun at politicians through its ads. The baby-faced, shaven-headed Malema, 28, has been a favorite target of satirists for his boorish outbursts in defense of controversial ANC leader Jacob Zuma. In the Nando’s ad, a puppet of Malema is pressed by a news presenter about his demands for “change” within the ANC. Malema replies: “We will get the change [money] we need from Nando’s.” The league said the ad was a “racist” attempt to portray political leaders as “cartoons” and threatened to “mobilize” the public against Nando’s. A Nando’s marketing official was quoted in media reports as saying the ad was aimed at providing a bit of comic relief during election time.
■ITALY
Three kids left in pizzeria
Police were searching on Tuesday for a German woman and her companion who abandoned her three young children after dining late in a pizzeria and then going out to smoke a cigarette. Police official Lorenzo Mediano said in a telephone interview from the mountainous Aosta region in northwest Italy that, judging by their clothes, the couple and the children appeared to be poor and the youngsters looked “neglected,” although they were in good health. Pizzeria owner Carmelo Casella told state TV in Aosta that, after they ate at his restaurant on Sunday night, the couple went outside to smoke and never came back. After 10 minutes, the pizzeria’s staff went outside to see what had happened but the couple had vanished. The children are a baby of about six months, a toddler of about two years, and a child of about six.
■UNITED STATES
Missing monkey captured
He spent six weeks on the lam from the circus, but Reggie the spider monkey has been captured with the help of junk food. Reggie had performed for the Liebel Family Circus for years, but he escaped on March 13 when the troupe did a show at a central Florida flea market. He was spotted a few weeks ago in a nearby neighborhood, but a dog frightened him away before residents could attract him with some food. On Monday, Reggie was seen hanging from a tree at a mobile home park. Neighbors fed him soda and potato chips until circus owner Tom Liebel came to grab him.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese