■SINGAPORE
No debate over punishment
Switzerland’s president did not plead for leniency for a Swiss train vandal during a visit to the city-state, and said there was there was no “big debate” over the issue, reports said yesterday. Oliver Fricker, a 32-year-old Swiss national, was sentenced to five months’ jail and three strokes of the cane last month after pleading guilty to breaking into a metro depot and spray-painting a train. In a meeting with Singaporean President S.R. Nathan, Swiss President Doris Leuthard said that punishing Fricker was “correct,” but added that caning was not the Swiss way. “We agree that he is guilty, which he also accepts by the way. It’s correct what you do, but it’s not our way,” Leuthard said.
■UNITED STATES
Model unhappy with photo
A former model might not like what the movie Couple’s Retreat did with her old bikini photo, but a court says the comedy’s distributors have no legal exposure. Irina Krupnik’s lawyer said on Friday she was considering appealing a Manhattan judge’s decision to dismiss her US$10 million defamation lawsuit against NBC Universal Inc. The judge noted last month that Krupnik signed a document waiving her rights to control the picture when it was taken in 2001. A stock agency eventually sold it to the makers of Couple’s Retreat. A character in the movie deploys the photo as a sexual aid. Krupnik argued she never imagined such a use when she signed the photo release.
■THAILAND
Pianist dismisses sex charge
Acclaimed Russian pianist and conductor Mikhail Pletnev is dismissing as a “trivial scandal” charges that he sexually assaulted a teenage boy in Thailand. Pletnev arrived in Macedonia for tomorrow’s opening of a music festival at the lakeside Ohrid Resort. Thai authorities arrested Pletnev on Monday, but freed him on bail and allowed him to leave the country on Thursday on condition he returns following the concert. Pletnev has denied the charges. Speaking in Russian through an interpreter at Ohrid airport, Pletnev said on Friday “we do not have time for this, it is a trivial scandal.”
■SRI LANKA
MP protests UN probe
A lawmaker entered the fifth day of a protest outside the main UN compound in Colombo yesterday despite a plea from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for authorities to “normalize conditions.” Former cabinet minister Wimal Weerawansa, who launched a sitdown protest on Tuesday and turned it into a “death fast” on Thursday, kept up his action over a UN war crimes panel that is expected to probe alleged rights abuses in the closing stages of the war between Sri Lankan troops and Tamil rebels.
■MALAYSIA
Soldiers jailed for hazing
A court has jailed seven soldiers for seven years each over the hazing death of a 27-year-old private, a lawyer said yesterday. The Kuala Lumpur High Court sentenced the seven privates from the Royal Malay Regiment on Friday, lawyer Abdul Aziz Hamzah said. They pleaded guilty on Thursday to a reduced charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder over the death of Mohammad Shahrizal Mohamad Shaffie at an army camp two years ago, said Abdul Aziz, who represented one of those convicted. The soldiers were charged in April 2008 after Mohammad Shahrizal died of blunt force trauma earlier that month. He was punched, kicked, hit with a piece of wood and stepped on with spiked boots.
■UNITED STATES
Victims receive payout
A federal jury has awarded US$3.5 million to the families of nine girls who said they were sexually abused by a suburban Chicago band teacher. The families sued former teacher Robert Sperlik from South Berwyn School District 100 and the former principal at the school where he taught. In 2006, Sperlik pleaded guilty to the sexual abuse and kidnapping of more than 20 girls. He is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence. The lawsuit claimed the principal knew about the abuse and intentionally hid information about the allegations. The families also said that the school district failed to uphold its responsibilities to the victims. A message left for a district spokesman was not immediately returned on Friday.
■UNITED STATES
Woman tapes dog to fridge
A Colorado woman convicted of taping her boyfriend’s dog to a refrigerator in a jealous fit has been sentenced to 30 days in jail and three years’ probation. 21 year old Abby Toll was sentenced on Friday after she was convicted of felony animal cruelty in April. She could have faced up to 18 months in prison. Prosecutors say Toll used hair ties and packing tape to bind the snout and legs of her boyfriend’s two-year-old Shiba Inu, named Rex, then taped the dog upside-down to the refrigerator. Police said Toll told them she was getting back at her boyfriend, Brian Beck, for paying more attention to the dog her. Beck pleaded guilty to misdemeanor attempted animal cruelty and was given a one-year deferred sentence. Another family has adopted the dog.
■UNITED STATES
Wonder Woman not guilty
The actress who played Wonder Woman on television in the 1970s denied a charge that she allowed her dog’s barking to disturb neighbors in an upscale Maryland community outside Washington. A Montgomery County District Court judge found Lynda Carter Altman not guilty last week of the municipal infraction. Neighbor Chrissellene Petropoulos said she was disturbed at all hours by barking from Altman’s Labrador retriever. Petropoulos said she tried calling and e-mailing Altman to ask her to take the dog inside and eventually called animal services. The acting Montgomery County attorney said his office took the issue to court after an animal services officer issued a barking dog citation based on Petropoulos’ complaint. Altman’s attorney said the case was dismissed because there was insufficient evidence of wrongdoing.
■VENEZUELA
Chavez wary of Santos
The government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez fears that Colombia’s conservative president-elect Juan Manuel Santos could end up doing Washington’s bidding, Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said on Friday. He also accused Colombia’s outgoing leader, Alvaro Uribe, of attempting to ensure relations remain rocky. “We’ll have to see who establishes Colombia’s foreign policy,” Maduro said. During an interview broadcast on state television, Maduro discussed long-standing tensions and chances of improving relations, saying Uribe “appears to have established the objective of destroying any possibility of reconstruction.” Uribe said relations with Venezuela were in a state of “crisis that we aspire to overcome with sincerity and serious solutions.” The outgoing president also took an apparent dig at Chavez, whom he has accused of collaborating with Colombia’s leftist guerrillas.
‘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