■ AUSTRALIA
Former PM takes UN job
Former prime minister Kevin Rudd has accepted a part-time UN job that focuses on improving people’s lives and protecting the environment. The UN announced on Monday that Rudd, who was replaced by Prime Minister Julia Gillard in June, was appointed to a 21-member panel on global sustainability. The panel will be tasked with finding ways to lift people out of poverty, tackling climate change, and ensuring economic development was environmentally friendly. Gillard has promised Rudd a senior ministry in her government if her Labor Party wins a second three-year term at elections next week. Rudd said in a statement that the panel would meet only once this year and twice next year. Australian opposition leader Tony Abbott said yesterday Rudd’s part-time UN job would interfere with his duties if Labor wins and he’s given a ministry.
■ BANGLADESH
Corporal punishment banned
Beatings in schools have been banned after an upsurge of “inhuman” treatment of pupils by teachers, an official said yesterday. The move comes after the High Court urged the government to tackle growing cases of excessive corporal punishment in schools. In March, eight children received treatment in hospital after being caned by their headmistress for forgetting to bring colored pencils to school. The country has more than 30 million students in schools and madrasah — and nine out of 10 are beaten in school, according to a report released last October by the UN Children’s Fund. The report, which surveyed more than 3,800 children aged between nine and 18, found that the most common form of physical punishment was with a cane or stick. It also found that seven out of 10 children were physically punished at home.
■ INDONESIA
Ferry sinks, scores rescued
Rescuers have brought more than 70 survivors to shore after a passenger ferry sank in stormy weather early on Monday, leaving 10 dead, a rescue official said. The provincial governor has asked police to investigate claims the boat was crammed with passengers beyond capacity, causing it to capsize in rough seas off Flora island. The vessel was struck by high waves, causing panic among passengers.
■ PHILIPPINES
Retired officer, family slain
A son of a retired navy commander found the stabbed bodies of his father and four other family members with their hands bound inside their home. Military spokesman Colonel Samuel Cabang said yesterday that authorities have no suspects yet in the grisly killings of the commander and his wife, who was a chief petty officer, their daughter and two teenage relatives. Cabang says investigators do not suspect robbery but are looking at revenge as a possible motive.
■ HONG KONG
Douglas to speak at forum
Actor Michael Douglas, famed for his role as corporate raider Gordon Gekko in the 1987 film Wall Street, will speak at an investor forum next month, organizers said yesterday. Douglas will talk on topics including “filmmaking, nuclear abolition and the prevention of small arms proliferation,” said brokerage CLSA, which is hosting the event. The annual forum draws chief executives, fund managers and other financial big-hitters from around the world. Douglas’ Sept. 15 speech will come a day after the first Asian screening of his new film, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, in which he reprises the Gekko role.
■ UNITED STATES
Sept. 11 bus ad approved
New York City’s transit agency has approved a bus advertisement that depicts a plane flying toward the World Trade Center’s towers as they burn along with a rendering of a proposed mosque near ground zero. The ad was paid for by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, an organization that opposes radical Islamic influence in the country. The group’s executive director said she didn’t find the ad offensive. The group sued the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to demand it accept the ad, which was approved on Monday.
■ UNITED STATES
Cheney leaves hospital
Former vice president Dick Cheney has been released from a suburban Washington hospital following surgery last month to install a pump that helps his failing heart work. Cheney left Inova Fairfax Heart and Vascular Institute in northern Virginia on Monday to continue his recovery at his home, a statement released by his office said. Cheney, 69, has had five heart attacks since he was 37 and suffers from congestive heart failure.
■ CANADA
Alert sounded for ship
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said on Monday he was getting regular briefings on a ship of asylum seekers from Sri Lanka that could be carrying terrorists. He said there was reason to believe members of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, known as the Tamil Tigers, are on a Thai cargo ship headed for British Columbia. He declined to provide further details. The MV Sun Sea was expected to dock in Victoria on Vancouver Island later this week. “I can assure you that we are concerned about who is on that ship and why they might be coming,” Toews said at a luncheon hosted by the Economic Club of Toronto, where he singled out maritime human smuggling as a top national security concern. The US Coast Guard was also reportedly monitoring the ship.
■ CANADA
Inuit block Arctic study
A judge in Nunavut Province has blocked a series of joint German-Canadian Arctic experiments after Inuit residents said the tests would hurt sealife, government sources said on Monday. Justice Susan Cooper on Sunday granted a last-minute injunction that halts a major seismic program that was set to begin on Monday in Lancaster Sound, north of Baffin Island. The experiments, designed to study the earth’s early history, were being carried out by Natural Resources Canada, together with Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute. Cooper agreed with fears from Inuit communities that the experiments, including firing an underwater air gun to collect data, have a negative impact on area walruses, seals and whales. The devices do not kill sea animals, but it could render them deaf and scare them away from the area, said David Crocker, an attorney for the Inuit.
■CANADA
Woman faked ‘cancer’
A 23-year-old woman shaved her head and eyebrows, claimed to have terminal cancer and swindled thousands of dollars from donors before being jailed on fraud charges. The tale of Ashley Kirilow was splashed across the media on Monday, with newspapers and TV news widely showing a picture of the woman smiling with a white scarf over her bald head. Kirilow on Friday turned herself in to police in Ontario, who had been investigating her case, and was jailed for swindling about C$5,000 (US$4,850). Volunteers believe the true figure is closer to C$20,000, press reports said.
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