■PAKISTAN
Zardari sacrifices goats
President Asif Ali Zardari has a black goat slaughtered at his house almost every day to ward off “evil eyes” and protect him from “black magic,” the Dawn newspaper reported yesterday. A spokesman for the president said the goats were slaughtered as an act of sadaqah — meaning “voluntary charity” in Islam — whereby one gives out money or the meat of a slaughtered animal to the poor to win Allah’s blessing and stave off misfortune. “It has been an old practice of Mr Zardari to offer sadaqah,” the spokesman, Farhatullah Babar, told the paper. Hundreds of goats had been sacrificed at Zardari’s house since he was sworn in in September 2008, the Dawn said.
■INDIA
‘Undertrials’ to be freed
Federal Law Minister Veerappa Moily said on Monday that at least 175,000 of more than 250,000 remand prisoners, known as “undertrials,” would be freed in response to human rights campaigns for people lost in the judicial system. Some of these prisoners awaiting trial have already spent more time behind bars than they would have if convicted. “We want to dispose of as many as two-thirds of the undertrial cases by July 31,” Moily told reporters. The National Crime Records Bureau said last year a quarter of a million people facing trial — or 70 percent of the prison population — were being held in 1,276 state-run jails across the country.
■PHILIPPINES
Priests to confess sins
Thousands of Roman Catholic priests were set to make mass confessions of their sins to each other yesterday. The Catholic Bishops Conference said on its Web site that the rare event was to be held behind closed doors in Manila. About 5,500 priests were set to take part in the mass confession at a convention center where the annual congress was being held. Monsignor Pedro Quitorio, spokesman for the bishops, said that while priests lining up before a confessional box was not a common sight, they were also humans and not without sin. “It’s the same process. There’s also penance and absolution,” he said.
■NEW ZEALAND
Lizard smuggler sentenced
A German man who stuffed 44 small lizards into his underwear before trying to board a flight has been sentenced to prison in New Zealand for plundering the country’s protected species. Hans Kurt Kubus, 58, will spend 14 weeks behind bars and must pay a NZ$5,000 (US$3,540) fine before being deported to Germany as soon as he is released, District Court Judge Colin Doherty ruled on Tuesday. Kubus was caught by officials at Christchurch International Airport on South Island last month.
■SWITZERLAND
Push for Arabic at WTO
Arab members of the WTO are pushing for Arabic to be made a fourth official language of the global trade body, diplomats and officials said on Tuesday, but the heavy cost of translation, interpreting and extra printing involved in adding Arabic to the three current official languages — English, French and Spanish — means the proposal is running up against resistance. Any move to add Arabic as an official language would probably prompt a request for Chinese, and maybe even Russian — aligning WTO language policy with the UN.
■SWITZERLAND
Top cop found dead
The police commander heading security at the World Economic Forum was found dead on Tuesday, local authorities said, adding that his death appeared to be suicide. Markus Reinhardt, head of police in the Swiss canton of Graubuenden, was found dead in his hotel in Davos, police said in a statement on their Web site. “All indications point to a suicide,” the statement said. Forum founder Klaus Schwab said in a statement that the organizers appreciated Reinhardt’s professionalism and kindness over years of cooperation.
■UNITED STATES
Detainee sent to Switzerland
An Uzbek detainee held at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been sent to Switzerland for resettlement, the US Justice Department said on Tuesday. The prisoner was the latest transferred from the facility as the Obama administration seeks to close the controversial prison opened in 2002 to house foreign terrorism suspects. Obama’s goal to close it within a year of taking office went unfulfilled last week. There are still 192 prisoners at the facility, which has long been criticized by human rights activists and foreign governments. The Swiss agreed to take the Guantanamo detainee on humanitarian grounds and said that he posed no danger.
■ISRAEL
Top judge hit by sneaker
A man hurled a shoe at the Supreme Court president yesterday, hitting her on the head and knocking her over during proceedings, officials said. The shoe hit judge Dorit Beinisch, 67, on the forehead and nose, breaking her glasses, her husband, Yeheskiel Beinisch, told public radio. Beinisch received treatment in her chambers before returning to applause from the court about an hour after the incident. “This moves me more than what happened earlier,” she told the court. A man in his fifties stood up during the session and hurled a pair of sneakers, yelling “corrupt” and “rotten,” public radio said. Bailiffs seized the man, who apparently felt wronged by an earlier court decision, media said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Beinisch to express his shock.
■UNITED STATES
Judge rejects Reid petition
A judge on Tuesday rejected a request by convicted shoe-bomber Richard Reid to relax special restrictions on his incarceration that include limits on his communications with the outside world. Reid, who pleaded guilty to trying to blow up a jumbo jet in late 2001 with explosives in his shoes, had challenged restrictions placed on him at Supermax Prison in Colorado, which severely limited his communications and activities. He petitioned a federal court saying the restrictions denied him his rights to practice his Sunni Muslim faith, or to learn Arabic, order books and magazines, watch television news and communicate with anyone beyond his family and lawyers.
■COLOMBIA
Intel officers to stand trial
The government said on Tuesday that seven intelligence officials would stand trial, charged with wiretapping human rights workers, journalists and opposition politicians in a scandal that has hurt the government’s image. Critics of President Alvaro Uribe say his government has misused the Administrative Security Department, known by its Spanish initials DAS, which reports directly to his office and has been plagued by accusations of corruption. Among those charged is former agency deputy director Jose Narvaez.
■CANADA
Vancouver to use ‘bait cars’
British Columbia police will use “bait cars” to trap automobile thieves during next month’s Winter Olympics, provincial solicitor general Kash Heed said on Tuesday. The bait cars are part of an increasingly successful battle against local property crime, widely blamed on drug addicts, since Vancouver won the 2010 Games. This western metropolis, with its reputed tolerance for recreational drugs and services for addicts, has long been notorious for its high rate of property crime, especially car theft.
■UNITED STATES
Old pedophile locked uo
A centenarian pedophile in New York state has been detained after failing to undergo mandatory mental health treatment, the Buffalo News daily reported. Theodore Sypnier, 100, was locked up late last week after being declared in violation of parole conditions for his conviction involving young sisters in the late 1990s, the report said. He failed to participate in sex offender counseling and now faces a court hearing within the next 30 days.
■CANADA
PETA pie-thrower a terroist?
Throwing a pie in the face of the fisheries minister to protest the seal hunt should earn animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) a “terrorist” label, a lawmaker said on Tuesday. A seal hunt protester hit Fisheries Minister Gail Shea with a cream pie on Monday as she gave a speech in Burlington, Ontario. The animal rights group PETA later claimed responsibility for the incident. Opposition lawmaker Gerry Byrne urged for an investigation into the incident that also takes into account Shea’s position as a top government official. PETA officials dismissed Byrne’s comments as a “silly, chest-beating exercise.”
■CHILE
Allende’s aides identified
Forensic scientists have identified the bodies of 11 people who were among the last to see President Salvador Allende alive, rallying around him as General Augusto Pinochet’s forces bombarded the presidential palace in 1973. Forty of the socialist leader’s aides and supporters stayed with him during the military’s withering attack on the La Moneda palace. Many surrendered or were captured, but Allende, who had vowed not to be taken alive, slipped away and went upstairs, where he was found dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.
■UNITED STATES
Obama to freeze salaries
President Barack Obama will freeze the salaries of senior White House officials and other top political appointees for savings of US$4 million in fiscal 2011, a senior administration official said on Tuesday. The official said Obama, in his State of the Union address on Wednesday, would likely mention the move, which will expand on the pay freeze he ordered last year.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited