MALAYSIA
Wives’ group draws ire
A group urging wives to avoid marital problems by fulfilling their husbands’ sexual desires like prostitutes has angered politicians and women’s rights groups, the New Straits Times reported yesterday. The Obedient Wives Club, which was set up by a group of Muslim women, said domestic violence, infidelity and prostitution stemmed from a lack of belief in God and a failure of women to satisfy their husbands. The club’s president, Rohaya Mohamed, said it was open to women of all religions and would conduct seminars on how to be a good wife as well as offer marriage counseling. “A man married to a woman who is as good or better than a prostitute in bed has no reason to stray. Rather than allowing him to sin, a woman must do all she can to ensure his desires are met,” Rohaya said.
MALAYSIA
Prostitution raid slammed
Lawyers, politicians and activists lambasted the police on Saturday for chaining up and marking the bodies of 30 foreign women detained for alleged prostitution. Police raided a high-end nightclub in northern Penang State late on Thursday and arrested 29 women from China and one from Vietnam, along with eight Malaysian men. Local media reported police officers went undercover at the club for a week before the raid. The raid triggered an outcry after newspapers carried photographs of the women bound up with a long chain and marked with either a tick or an X on their chest and forehead. “The police branded the detained women as though they are cattle,” opposition lawmaker Teresa Kok said in a statement. “It is sickening that the police would employ such dehumanizing tactics as a show of power and moral superiority over their detainees.” Police said the markings served as a way to identify the women. Police also said they had received numerous complaints from the wives of men who had patronized the club.
JAPAN
Kan may resign in August
Embattled Prime Minister Naoto Kan will be ready to step down in August, his coalition partner said yesterday. Last week, Kan survived an opposition no-confidence motion that some members of his own Democratic Party of Japan had threatened to support, after appeasing his enemies by promising to relinquish power, but without specifying a date. Kan later hinted he wanted to stay until next year, angering opponents. “His real thought is to get his work done by the end of August,” said Shizuka Kamei, leader of the People’s New Party. “That was the idea shared when I met him,” he told TV Asahi yesterday. The government is expected to submit its second extra budget to parliament in August, aimed at funding the reconstruction effort after the March 11 quake and tsunami disaster.
VIETNAM
Defense capacity boosted
The country said yesterday it was buying six Kilo class diesel-powered submarines from Russia for self-defense. “We regard this as a normal activity for the People’s Army of Vietnam,” Minister of Defense General Phung Quang Thanh told the Shangri-La Security Meeting in Singapore. “That is to defend [the country] and take part in national construction. Vietnam’s policy is completely for self-defense and we would never compromise any other country’s sovereignty, but we must deter anyone who tries to compromise Vietnam’s sovereignty.” The submarine deal, signed in 2009, is worth US$3.2 billion, according to Russian media.
PERU
Soldiers killed in clash
Three soldiers were killed and six others were wounded in the southeast on Saturday in a clash with leftist guerrillas from the Shining Path group, the military announced. The attack occurred on the eve of a runoff presidential election, which pits Keiko Fujimori, daughter of a jailed ex-strongman, against Ollanta Humala, a nationalist ex-military man.
UNITED KINGDOM
Academics to launch school
Leading academics are to launch a private university aimed at rivaling Oxford and Cambridge that will charge tuition fees of £18,000 (US$30,000) a year, a report said yesterday. New College of the Humanities, in London, will be modeled on elite liberal arts colleges in the US, the Sunday Times newspaper reported. The university, which will begin its first undergraduate courses next year, is reportedly being funded by millions of US dollars from private investors secured by eminent philosopher AC Grayling. Fourteen leading academics are backing the project and will teach at the university, including evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and historians David Cannadine, Linda Colley and Niall Ferguson, the report said. The college will initially offer about 200 places to undergraduate students to study English, history, philosophy, economics and law degrees, it said. Grayling said the university would offer weekly one-to-one tutorials that other institutions were struggling to maintain because of cuts to government funding. The government last year pushed through tuition hikes at state-run universities to a maximum of £9,000 annually. New College would not be subject to the cap as it is outside the state-funded system.
MEXICO
Ex-mayor arrested for arms
Former Tijuana mayor Jorge Hank Rhon, one of the nation’s most flamboyant businessmen and politicians, has been arrested on suspicion of illegal weapons possession, federal law enforcement officials said on Saturday. Troops raided Hank Rhon’s Tijuana house and took him to a branch office of the federal attorney general’s office, one of the officials said. He said Hank Rhon was suspected of having 88 unlicensed weapons. Another official confirmed the report.
FINLAND
Shipwreck champagne sold
An anonymous Internet bidder on Friday paid 54,000 euros (US$78,200) for two bottles of 200-year-old champagne salvaged from a shipwreck at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, auction organizers said. The buyer from Singapore paid a world-record price of 30,000 euros for a bottle of Veuve Clicquot and 24,000 euros for a bottle of Juglar. Both bottles are believed to be the oldest preserved examples of their respective brands. The buyer’s identity was not revealed. The bottles were discovered when divers found a shipwreck with champagne and beer just south of the islands in July last year. Researchers believe the ship was probably en route from northern Germany to the west coast of Finland when it sank in the first half of the 1800s. Divers found 145 intact bottles in the wreck that lies about 50m deep in total darkness and a constant cool temperature — an environment experts say is the main reason the bubbly kept in such good condition. There were 94 bottles of Juglar, a now--defunct champagne house, 46 bottles of Veuve Clicquot and four Heidsiecks. John Kapon, auctioneer at the event, said the buyer now owns a piece of history.
‘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