■NEW ZEALAND
PM owns up to vasectomy
A news conference came to an awkward halt yesterday after Prime Minister John Key acknowledged having had a vasectomy. Key was responding to questions about funding changes to early childhood education centers when he was asked whether he would send his children to one with fewer qualified teachers on its staff. “I think if I sent my 15-year-old or 17-year-old to early childhood at the moment, they’d have a meltdown,” he said. What if his wife, Bronagh, had another child? “I’d be extremely worried,” Key said, “because I’ve had a vasectomy.” The acknowledgment caused reporters who were present to fall silent, and Key admitted that it was “probably too much information” for a press conference.
■MALAYSIA
Anwar has alibi: lawyer
Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who is on trial for sodomy, has an alibi and will argue he was in a meeting at the time of the alleged incident, his lawyer said yesterday. Anwar’s accuser, 25-year-old Mohamad Saiful Bukhari Azlan who was an aide in his office, has testified that the pair had a tryst at a Kuala Lumpur condominium in June 2008. However, defense lawyer Karpal Singh said he would confront Saiful with Anwar’s alibi that he was in fact meeting with several people at another apartment in the building. He said Anwar and the people he was meeting with were “at the opposite unit” to the one where Saiful had testified that the opposition leader propositioned him for sex after he delivered a document.
■VIETNAM
Person dies at protest site
A second person has died after clashes between residents and police at the site of a planned oil refinery in Thanh Hoa Province, a hospital official said yesterday. The man, in his 40s, died on Sunday of injuries suffered in clashes last Tuesday at the proposed site for the Nghi Son refinery, the source said. The latest casualties follows the death of a 12-year-old boy. A policeman has been detained in connection with the boy’s death, local media said.
■CHINA
No “comrades” on buses
Bus drivers and ticket sellers have been urged to leave communism behind, with a new training manual instructing them to call travelers “sir” or “madam” instead of “comrade,” the Beijing Youth Daily said. Older Beijingers, a few of whom still wear “Mao suits,” will be exempt from the new ruling. “Old comrade” is listed as the final possible choice of address for elderly travelers, but it comes after “elder master” and “elder sir,” the daily said. A newly released manual for Beijing bus staff suggests forms of address ranging from “student” to the plain “passenger” for younger travelers, for whom comrade has a different gloss, as a slang term for gay.
■JAPAN
Old foes agree on anime
Putting aside their diplomatic rivalry, Tokyo and Beijing agreed yesterday to hold joint animation and TV drama festivals to promote grassroots cultural exchange. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶), who arrived in Tokyo on Sunday for a three-day visit, reached the accord in a meeting with his counterpart Yukio Hatoyama, a Foreign Ministry official said. As a first step, each country will hold a festival or a special week next year to introduce the other’s screen offerings, such as animation and TV drama series, the official said.
■TURKEY
Six killed in rocket attack
Six soldiers were killed and seven wounded in a rocket attack on a naval base in the Mediterranean port city of Iskenderun, Anatolian news agency reported yesterday. Three of the seven wounded were in a serious condition after the attack which came just after midnight, in the port city close to the Syrian border. Rebels from the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) have stepped up attacks on Turkish army posts in the southeast in recent weeks since warmer weather allowed them to leave their mountain hideouts, but the group rarely attacks naval targets. The rocket attack comes after a weekend of violence in the southeast which saw six people killed in separate attacks and as soldiers engage in operations in the provinces of Hakkari, Siirt, Tunceli, Diyarbakir and Bingol.
■LEBANON
PM visits Damascus for talks
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri was headed to Damascus yesterday for talks with Syrian leaders amid accusations Syria was supplying the Hezbollah with missiles, a government official said. “The prime minister is heading to Damascus today [Monday], but we cannot elaborate any further,” the official said on condition of anonymity. Hariri’s visit, his third since December last year, comes just days after his return from the US where he held talks on mounting tensions over accusations Damascus was smuggling weapons to Hezbollah. Hariri also visited Damascus just before his trip to Washington.
■JAPAN
Iran hopeful on nuclear deal
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said yesterday he remained hopeful that a nuclear fuel swap deal with Brazil and Turkey would go ahead despite a frosty reaction from the US. “I don’t expect that the deal will fail because of the US position,” Mottaki said at a news conference in Tokyo ahead of a meeting with Japanese counterpart Katsuya Okada. “I can’t say how big the chance is in percentage terms, but I have great hopes for the realization of the deal,” he said. Turkey and Brazil brokered a deal with Iran earlier this month under which Iran has committed to deposit 1,200kg of low-enriched uranium in Turkey in return for reactor fuel.
■SOUTH AFRICA
Police rescue 21 Thais
Police have rescued 21 Thai women believed to be human trafficking victims from an alleged brothel, a spokesman said on Sunday. “We suspect that they may be victims of human trafficking,” said Paul Ramaloko, spokesman for the Hawks specialized crime-fighting unit. “We really couldn’t establish whether they are victims of trafficking or not, so what we have done is we have removed them to a place of safety and then we are just going to conduct some interviews with them.” Police acted on a tip-off early that the women had been trafficked and were being sexually exploited in Kempton Park, he said.
■EGYPT
Court rules on remarriage
A court has ordered the Coptic church to allow its faithful to remarry, quashing an appeal by the head of the church, local media reported on Sunday. “By law, a Christian can remarry and the Constitution guarantees his rights to have a [new] family. The appeal by Pope Shenuda III to prevent Copts from remarrying is rejected,” the High Administrative Court said in its judgment. The ruling relates to the case of Hani Wasfi, a Copt who complained against the pope’s refusal to let him remarry.
■CANADA
No-fly passenger removed
A Mexican passenger plane made an unscheduled stop in Montreal Sunday to remove a passenger who appeared on a US no-fly list, local airport officials reported. The person, whose identity has not been revealed, was taken into federal police custody at Montreal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport, according to the officials. All passengers of the Aeromexico flight that headed from Paris to Mexico City had to get off the aircraft to be searched before resuming their journey, an airport spokesman said. The suspect, meanwhile, remained in police custody.
■MEXICO
Heroes’ bones examined
In a somber military ceremony, President Felipe Calderon escorted skulls and bones believed to be the 200-year-old remains of 12 independence heroes from downtown crypts to a historic hilltop castle where they will be examined for authenticity. The remains, deposited in crypts under the landmark Angel of Independence statue in 1925, were removed on Sunday morning by gloved soldiers carrying five ornate gold and wooden boxes. Several skulls were visible through the boxes’ glass siding. Bands played, choirs sang and thousands of citizens threw white flowers as the boxes were paraded several kilometers through the city’s center, accompanied by more than a thousand cadets and soldiers and dozens of horses parading in regalia.
■PERU
Woman seeks deportation
A 40-year-old New York woman paroled last week after serving 15 years in prison for aiding rebels is asking the president to commute her sentence so she can be deported. Justice Minister Victor Garcia told reporters that Lori Berenson wrote President Alan Garcia with the request. He said on Sunday that Berenson also apologized to the people of the country. Terms of her parole call for Berenson to remain in the country through 2015. If Berenson wants to take her one-year-old son with her, she will need to get permission from the boy’s father, a former rebel from whom she is legally separating.
■VENEZUELA
Chavez slams food company
President Hugo Chavez lashed out Sunday at the corporate president and a union leader of the country’s largest food producer. Empresas Polar president Lorenzo Mendoza has recently spoken out against Chavez’s efforts to expand the state’s role in the economy and stressed that private enterprise is indispensable for Venezuela’s development. Polar union leader Richard Prieto announced last week that employees of Empresas Polar have agreed to defend their jobs whenever the government threatens the company. Chavez suggested Mendoza is being motivated by secret ambitions to become president and he called Prieto “a pawn of the bourgeoisie” for speaking out against government actions against Polar, including the seizure of products and expropriation of warehouses.
■CANADA
Celine Dion pregnant
Grammy-winner pop star Celine Dion is 14 weeks pregnant with twins, CNN reported yesterday. The television network said Dion, 42, and her husband-manager Rene Angelil, 68, will find out next month the gender of their twins. The pregnancy was the result of Dion’s sixth in-vitro fertilization attempt. Dion turned to acupuncture therapy to improve her chances of getting pregnant, the report said. Angelil is the father.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At 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
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