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MALAYSIA
Sodomy accuser speaks
The young man who accused Anwar Ibrahim of sodomy said in court on Friday that the Malaysian opposition leader showered him with special attention, including offering to sponsor his university education. Saiful Bukhari Azlan, 24, testified on the third day of the trial that Anwar seemed to take a liking to him when they met during the campaign for the March 2008 elections. Saiful was subsequently appointed Anwar’s personal aide. Anwar denies that he sodomized Saiful on June 26, 2008, dismissing it as a government conspiracy going right up to Prime Minister Najib Razak to prevent him from dislodging the ruling coalition. Saiful, a college dropout, said Anwar gave Saiful his own office despite his lack of qualifications. He said that when he resigned — a day after the alleged sodomy — Anwar offered to pay for his education while continuing to pay his salary.
■AUSTRALIA
Model backs banker
Miranda Kerr said a banker left red-faced when a live TV broadcast showed him looking at her scantily clad photos at work shouldn’t be fired. Macquarie Bank worker Dave Kiely was at his desk as a colleague was being interviewed about interest rates when the camera showed him apparently opening e-mail attachments of nearly nude photos of the model. Macquarie Bank said it was investigating, and Kiely is expected to meet his bosses soon to learn his fate. Kerr, a 26-year-old model, said: “I am told there is a petition to save his job, and of course I would sign it.”
■CHINA
Workers killed over 3 yuan
A labor contractor stabbed to death two workers in a dispute over 3 yuan (US$0.44) he withheld from their salaries, state media reported yesterday. Wu Xianmin attacked the two migrant workers with a knife on Wednesday after they confronted him in front of a government office building in the city of Zhengzhou, stabbing them both in the neck, the Global Times said. The two men, Yang Qinzhong and Zhu Yongxiang, had been employed to repair the building. Wu admitted to the workers that he had deducted the money from the salaries of several workers for his own personal use, the report said.
■NEW ZEALAND
Three cheetahs escape
Three cheetahs swam a moat and crawled through a hole in a rusty fence to escape their enclosure and then briefly roamed inside a wildlife park. Orana Wildlife Park rushed visitors to a secure area while rangers rounded up the big cats on Thursday, park chief executive Lynn Anderson said yesterday. “Our cheetahs, just like a domestic house cat, they all hate swimming, so if you had asked me yesterday would any of our cheetahs swim, I would have said no,” Anderson told National Radio. The breakout at the park near Christchurch lasted about a half hour.
■ANTARCTICA
Ancient whisky on ice
Five crates of whisky and brandy belonging to polar explorer Ernest Shackleton have been recovered after being buried for more than 100 years beneath the Antarctic ice, explorers said yesterday. The spirits were excavated from beneath Shackleton’s hut, which was built in 1908. “To our amazement we found five crates, three labeled as containing whisky and two labeled as containing brandy,” said Al Fastier of the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust who previously believed there were only two crates there.
■VENEZUELA
US accused of manipulation
Caracas accused the US on Thursday of portraying President Hugo Chavez’s government as thuggish in an effort to entice the opposition to try to topple the socialist leader. The country’s ambassador in Washington, Bernardo Alvarez, took issue with an intelligence report presented to US senators earlier this week that described Chavez as an autocratic leader who uses repression to stifle dissent. In a letter sent to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s chairwoman, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Alvarez rebuked the findings of the report, saying it “is full of politically motivated and cynical accusations.” US officials have repeatedly denied they would support any attempt to unseat Chavez through anti-democratic means, and the country’s opposition leaders insist they want to remove the former paratrooper at the polls.
■UNITED STATES
Lotion thief can’t slip away
Police say a man who stuffed 75 bottles of body lotion in his pants couldn’t slip away from authorities, hampered by slacks that were nearly bursting at the seams. Springfield, Illinois, police say 30-year-old Chamil Guadarrama was charged with larceny after the incident on Wednesday night at Bath and Body Works in the Eastfield Mall. Police say mall security officers chased Guadarrama, but he had stuffed so many of the 225g lotion containers in his pants that he could barely run.
■UNITED STATES
Man fired over weedballs
A former New York City counterterrorism detective who says he was unfairly fired as a result of a failed drug test he blamed on his wife’s marijuana-spiked meatballs has lost a court bid to get his job back. A state appeals court upheld Anthony Chiofalo’s dismissal on Thursday. The 22-year veteran was suspended in 2005 after failing a random drug test and was fired in 2007. Catherine Chiofalo told police investigators she secretly substituted marijuana for oregano in meatballs, hoping a failed test would make her husband leave police work. Police department lawyer Edward Hart says there was more marijuana in Chiofalo’s system than the meatballs could explain.
■UNITED STATES
Charges delayed for doctor
Prosecutors have delayed filing charges against Michael Jackson’s doctor and the physician was not to surrender to authorities yesterday as expected, a law enforcement source said. Lawyers for Conrad Murray had said earlier on Thursday that the Houston-based physician who has been at the center of a seven-month criminal investigation would turn himself in to be charged. The development followed a day of negotiations between prosecutors and defense attorneys that focused on how to deal with Murray, who is expected to face charges of involuntary manslaughter in the June death of Jackson.
■UNITED STATES
Garridos apply for visitation
A defense lawyer said a couple accused of abducting a girl more than 18 years ago and confining her to the backyard of their California home are seeking permission to visit each other in the jail. Phillip and Nancy Garrido, of Antioch, California, have pleaded not guilty to kidnapping Jaycee Dugard when she was 11, raping her and confining her and the daughters she bore by Phillip Garrido. Nancy Garrido’s court-appointed attorney on Thursday said he and Phillip Garrido’s public defender have filed the visitation requests in El Dorado Superior Court.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the