■AUSTRALIA
Elephant calf blessed
Mali the baby elephant played with a red rubber ball as three Thai Buddhist monks splashed her face with water in a blessing ceremony yesterday for the Melbourne Zoo’s newest star. The calf, just under six weeks old, is the second elephant born in the country and has become the main attraction at the zoo since her Feb. 10 debut. The monks hummed and chanted as Mali played with the ball and ran circles around her mother, Dokkoon, who was brought over from Thailand in November 2006 as part of a program facilitated by the Thai government. Mali’s name was chosen last week by 23,000 Victoria state voters from a list of several suggested by the Thai consulate. Mali is Thai for jasmine. Elephants are a hallowed national symbol in Thailand, having been long linked with good luck. “It’s a beautiful name for a beautiful calf,” zoo keeper Dan Maloney said. “She’s growing very quickly, getting more coordinated every day and certainly exploring her world and getting to know her surroundings.”
■CAMBODIA
French man jailed over sex
A municipal court yesterday ordered a 63-year-old Frenchman to serve seven months in prison for soliciting sex with a child prostitute. Michel Jean Raymond Charlot was arrested last August after police raided his guesthouse room and found him having sex with the 16-year-old girl in Phnom Penh. The court convicted Charlot and sentenced him to three years’ imprisonment, but ordered him to spend only seven months in prison from the date of his arrest with the rest of the sentence suspended. The sentence was shortened owing to his age and because he had admitted to having sex with the girl, whom he said he thought was aged 18 at the time, the court said. The court also ordered Charlot to pay US$250 to the girl and to be deported after he completes his prison term next month.
■SOUTH KOREA
Court upholds death penalty
The death penalty does not violate the nation’s Constitution, the nine-member Constitutional Court said in a 5-4 ruling yesterday in response to a 2008 petition by a fisherman who was sentenced to death for killing four tourists. The decision is final and cannot be appealed. The court also upheld the death penalty in 1996. Court spokesman Noh Hee-bum said there are 59 death row inmates in the country, though the country has had a de facto moratorium on capital punishment and has not executed anyone since 1997, when 23 inmates were executed. The court said 92 countries have abolished capital punishment for all crimes as of 2008.
■NETHERLANDS
Van Gogh work authenticated
A newly authenticated Van Gogh has gone on display 35 years after a discredited art collector bought it in Paris, convinced it was painted by the famed Dutch master, but never able to prove it. Louis van Tilborgh, curator of research at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, said Le Blute-Fin Mill was painted in 1886. He said its large human figures are unusual for a Van Gogh landscape, but it has his typically bright colors. It was bought in 1974 by Dirk Hannema, who was known as a brilliant museum curator but a fool when buying for his own collection. When he died in 1984 he claimed to have seven Vermeers, several Van Goghs and a few Rembrandts. He was right only about this one.
■ISRAEL
No human shields: military
The military said it has closed two cases in which soldiers were suspected of using Palestinians as human shields during the Gaza War a year ago. In a statement, the military said on Wednesday that its investigation found “no basis for the charges” that soldiers looted or used civilians as shields against Hamas gunfire. It said the civilians were removed from the battle zone. Charges of soldiers’ Israeli use of human shields were a key part of a UN inquiry alleging war crimes by both Tel Aviv and Hamas. The military had no immediate response about whether other human shield cases were still open.
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