■SOUTH KOREA
Aid team heads for Haiti
Seoul has dispatched 190 troops to Haiti to help rebuild the Caribbean country following its devastating earthquake. The Defense Ministry said yesterday the troops, mostly army engineers, would provide humanitarian assistance to and rebuild areas in Leogane, just west of the capital, Port-au-Prince. The ministry said the soldiers will join an advance team of 30 troops in Leogane.
■RUSSIA
Abandoned tanks found
Some people were amazed to discover dozens of T-80 battle tanks seemingly abandoned in a forest, but army officials insisted there was nothing unusual about it. The tanks — nearly 100 in all — were found near the Elanovskaya railroad station about 100km outside the Urals Mountains city of Yekaterinburg, the Kommersant daily reported yesterday. Their presence was revealed after a local news website posted a video of the tanks, covered in a deep layer of snow and resting peacefully between the railroad and the woods with no military personnel in sight. “There are tanks all over the forest, abandoned. If you need one, come and get it,” an unnamed person behind the camera says in the video posted on E1.ru.
■AUSTRALIA
EMI appeals ruling
Record company EMI has lodged an appeal against a ruling that band Men At Work ripped off a popular children’s song in their worldwide 1980s hit Down Under, court papers showed. The company is claiming a flute riff that draws on Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree was simply an “amusing” tribute to the ditty, penned by a teacher for a Girl Guides jamboree in 1935. EMI said on Thursday the similarity between the two pieces of music “might be amusing or of interest to the highly sensitized or educated musical ear,” but would probably not be picked up “by the ordinary listener.”
■SOUTH AFRICA
School shuts ‘lesbian dorm’
A girls’ boarding school outside Durban has closed down a dormitory after accusing 27 residents of being lesbians, local media reported on Friday. Two girls were caught kissing in the dormitory, which houses 300 students, the Mercury newspaper reported. When confronted by school officials, they identified 25 other lesbians in the dorm. “Twenty-seven learners were involved in this kind of relationship and the school took a decision to close down the hostel,” provincial education department spokesman Mfundi Sibiya said. The department has appointed a panel to investigate the issue, but the education department said schools did not have the right to remove students because of sexual orientation.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Court plans trial for dealer
An antiques dealer pleaded not guilty to stealing a rare first edition of the works of William Shakespeare. Raymond Scott appeared on Friday in a court in Newcastle. He is charged with theft, handling stolen goods and removing criminal property. His trial was set for June. The 53-year-old is accused of taking the rare volume from Durham University in 1998. His arrest came after a man took the edition to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, claiming he had found it in Cuba. Scott, who arrived at a previous court hearing in a horse-drawn carriage, appeared on Friday in military fatigues and an expensive pair of Tiffany sunglasses.
■ITALY
Nation ‘in hands of Taliban’
A band of prosecutors and judges are trying to overthrow the democratically elected government, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Friday, likening part of Italy’s judiciary to the Taliban. Speaking at an electoral rally in Turin, the 73 year-old media tycoon, who is on trial in two separate cases, said there was “a subversive aim” to bring down his less than two-year old government. “If the prosecutors don’t like a law then they challenge it and it gets rejected by the courts,” Berlusconi said. “We are in the hands of this band of Talibans, today our democracy is in this situation.” The National Association of Magistrates said Berlusconi’s words marked “an intolerable escalation of insults and aggression.”
■MOROCCO
Midwife jailed for trafficking
A court sentenced a former midwife on Friday to six years in jail for trafficking newborns, a judicial source said. Zoubida Kheddar, 65, a retired midwife from a maternity hospital in Casablanca, had been involved since 2002 in trafficking newborns from consenting single mothers, the prosecution said. Kheddar, who denied all charges, supervised the births at her home before “selling them to women” wanting to adopting them. Each baby was “sold for around 38,000 dirhams [US$4,630],” the Moroccan press reported.
■ITALY
Luxury fair opens
Shoppers wondering how to deal with the afterlife found an answer on Friday — a cellphone-equipped golden coffin, one of many items on display at the opening of an international luxury fair in Verona. The coffin was priced at a mere 280,000 euros [US$381,000], while a diamond-studded, cancan-style wedding gown in pink chinchilla fur could be scooped up for 220,000 euros. More traditional items include a boat running on a Ferrari engine and a crystal-covered piano, whose price was undisclosed. The economic crisis does not appear to have dulled luxury tastes — visitors turned out in hordes to the opening day of the fair, which runs until tomorrow.
■UNITED STATES
Motivator out on bail
A motivational speaker charged with manslaughter in the deaths of three people at a sweat lodge ceremony is out of jail. Yavapai County Jail Sergeant Dee Huntley said James Arthur Ray was released on Friday, one day after a Yavapai County Superior Court judge reduced his bond from US$5 million to US$525,000. Ray had to surrender his passport. He also cannot organize, supervise or conduct any activities that might harm others. Ray has pleaded not guilty to three counts of manslaughter stemming from an October sweat lodge ceremony in Arizona that was supposed to be the highlight of a five-day “Spiritual Warrior” retreat.
■UNITED STATES
Rapper charged over pot
The rapper Juvenile and his music producer have been arrested for possession of marijuana after neighbors told police they could smell pot coming from a house being used as a recording studio in Louisiana. The 34-year-old rap star, whose real name is Terius Gray, was booked on Thursday at a jail in St Bernard Parish southeast of New Orleans. Gray and his 42-year-old producer, Leroy Edwards, were released later that night on bond. Juvenile is best known for the song Back That Thing Up.
■UNITED STATES
Radcliffe talks of suicide ad
Daniel Radcliffe is explaining why he has just filmed a public service announcement for The Trevor Project, the leading organization focusing on suicide prevention efforts among gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth. Because his parents were both actors, “I grew up knowing a lot of gay men and it was never something that I even thought twice about — that some men were gay and some weren’t,” the Harry Potter megastar said on Friday. “And then I went to school and [for] the first time ... I came across homophobia. ... I had never encountered it before. It shocked me.” He said he had “always hated anybody who is not tolerant of gay men or lesbians or bisexuals,” adding that “now I am in the very fortunate position where I can actually help or do something about it.” The announcement is scheduled to air in spring.
■UNITED STATES
Woman sues 50 Cent
A Florida woman has sued rapper 50 Cent in New York City, claiming he unlawfully distributed her homemade sex video over the Internet after editing himself into it as a wig-wearing narrator. Lastonia Leviston filed a lawsuit on Wednesday in Manhattan claiming unauthorized use of her name or image and emotional distress caused by the public release of a video she made with a lover in 2008. The lawsuit claims 50 Cent posted the video on his Web site last year after blurring out the lover’s face. The rapper’s real name is Curtis Jackson.
■UNITED STATES
Victim may sue California
Rescued kidnap victim Jaycee Dugard and her family have filed claims against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation alleging the parole of her alleged captor was botched. Officials said on Friday that the claim argues the department failed to effectively monitor convicted sex offender Phillip Garrido, probably prolonging Dugard’s time in captivity. The filing of the claim is seen as likely to lead to a lawsuit against the state office. Garrido and his wife, Nancy, have pleaded not guilty to charges of kidnapping and raping Dugard, who last August was discovered alive nearly two decades after she was snatched her outside her home aged 11 in 1991.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
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