MALAYSIA
Government sites on watch
Kuala Lumpur stepped up monitoring of government Web sites yesterday to stop a threatened hacking attack by Internet vigilante group Anonymous over government acts of censorship, the police chief said. The hacker group said it would target the government’s online portal www.malaysia.gov.my from yesterday to teach the country a lesson for censoring whistle-blower site WikiLeaks in an attack codenamed “Operation Malaysia.” The nation could be the latest in a cyber-war waged by the activists, who gained prominence when they temporarily crippled the Web sites of MasterCard and Paypal that cut off financial services to WikiLeaks.
CHINA
Writer warns on dictatorship
Authoritarian governments corrupt society, Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa told students in Shanghai, where state media covered his speech without mentioning his political comments. The Peruvian writer spoke on Tuesday at Shanghai International Studies University, which named him an honorary professor. Without mentioning China directly, he said he wanted to show in his 1969 novel Conversation in the Cathedral “how a dictatorial and authoritarian government corrupts all the society” and “effectively poisons the less political activities, those activities that are further from politics, corrupting and degrading them.” “Politics should not be left only in the hands of politicians because then politics start to go wrong,” the author told Spanish language students. “Every single citizen should participate in the political life of his time. And from that participation the best choices can result,” he said.
JAPAN
Radioactive whales caught
Whale hunters have found traces of radioactive cesium in two of the ocean giants recently harpooned off the nation’s shores in the Pacific Ocean, a fisheries agency official said yesterday. Two minke whales culled off the northern island of Hokkaido showed readings of 31 becquerels and 24.3 becquerels of cesium per kilogram, he said, adding that the cause may be the accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant. The level is far below the country’s recently set maximum safe limit for seafood of 500 becquerels per kilogram, he said. “There is no data available to compare whether the readings for radioactive materials are higher than normal,” he said.
JAPAN
Spit collector arrested
A 55-year-old jobless Japanese man has been arrested in Tokyo for having three schoolgirls spit out saliva and filming them in the process, police said on Tuesday. Toshihiko Mizuno was caught in Tokyo on Monday on suspicion of “habitual indecency,” which carries a penalty of up to one year in jail or a fine of ¥1 million (US$12,400), the Metropolitan Police Department said. Mizuno separately approached the three girls, aged nine and 10, in October and December last year outside apartment towers or in the street, saying: “I am doing research on saliva. Give me your saliva,” a police spokesman said. “He videotaped them as they spat out saliva. He also asked them to open their mouths and filmed their mouth interiors and tongues,” the official said. “He has done so habitually to satisfy his sexual desire.” Media reports, quoting police sources, said that Mizuno had approached about 4,000 young girls and managed to collect saliva from about 500 of them over 17 years in Tokyo and neighboring Saitama. Police have found 26 videotapes at his home showing more than 200 girls, the Jiji and Kyodo news agencies said.
AUSTRIA
Mountain sale causes furor
A government agency abruptly pulled two sky-high pieces of real estate — majestic peaks offering stupendous alpine views — off the open market on Tuesday after an outpouring of national outrage over the perceived sellout of the nation’s heritage. BIG, the agency that purchases state property and manages it in the public interest, announced the decision after discussions between Economics Minister Reinhold Mitterlehner and top officials in charge of the agency. “We have suspended the sale to evaluate alternative possibilities,” agency spokesman Ernst Eichinger said. He said the transaction would likely go ahead, but buyers would be restricted to “Austrian institutions” instead of the highest free-market bidders. The peaks are in the easternmost part of Tyrol Province, home to some of Europe’s highest mountain ranges. The “Rosskopf” is 2,600m high and “Grosse Kinigat” nearly 2,700m. They are on offer for 121,000 euros (US$175,000) for both.
MACEDONIA
Statue set to reignite row
The government began assembling a giant bronze statue of Alexander the Great in the capital, Skopje, on Tuesday, a move set to provoke anger in neighboring Greece, which also claims the ancient hero as its own. Large sections of the bronze statue were brought in from Florence, Italy, to a fenced-off area in the center of Skopje, with local authorities announcing the procedure of assembling the 22m monument would last two weeks. Macedonia is already at loggerheads with Athens over its name. Skopje officially became a candidate for EU membership in 2005, but Athens has blocked it from accession to the EU and NATO saying that the name Macedonia implies a claim on the northern Greek region of the same name. Almost two decades of UN-led negotiations over the dispute have so far remain fruitless.
BRITAIN
Facebook user to be jailed
A juror will be sent to jail for discussing a drug and corruption trial with a defendant on Facebook, a judge said on Tuesday. Justice Igor Judge told Joanne Fraill — the first juror in Britain to be convicted for using the Internet during a trial — that she would get a prison term when she is sentenced later in the week. The maximum sentence for contempt is two years in jail. Prosecutors said Fraill and defendant Jamie Sewart communicated on the social networking site during the trial last year, with Sewart asking Fraill for details of the jury’s deliberations. Sewart, 34, was acquitted at that trial, but later charged with contempt. Fraill pleaded guilty to contempt, acknowledging that she communicated with Sewart and also researched the case online while serving on the jury.
ITALY
Prosecutors go after PM
Prosecutors went on the offensive on Tuesday at a trial hearing allegations that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi paid for sex with a 17-year-old and abused the powers of his office to hush it up. “It’s clear that there were people who were prostituting themselves” during raunchy parties at Berlusconi’s villa near Milan last year, the lead prosecutor in the case, Ilda Boccassini, said at the hearing. The trial over Berlusconi’s alleged involvement with nightclub dancer Karima El-Mahroug, nicknamed “Ruby the Heart Stealer,” began on April 6. Boccassini said Berlusconi had “committed a common law crime and not a ministerial crime, by abusing his powers” as prime minister when he called a police station in May last year to have Ruby sprung out of police custody.
UNITED STATES
Swearing man misses flight
A New York children’s author who used a curse word in exasperation during a plane delay at a US airport was ejected from the aircraft for disruptive behavior. Robert Sayegh, 37, said Atlantic Southeast Airlines overreacted to his salty language when it summoned police aboard to escort him off the Sunday evening flight at Detroit Metro Airport. “The f-word is not a nice word to use,” he acknowledged in a telephone interview, adding he was complaining to himself rather than snapping at anyone in particular. He was, by his own account, feeling tired. The plane was not taking off. The explanation that there was a problem with the overhead compartments did little to soothe his irritation, he said. “I said the f-word,” Sayegh said.
UNITED STATES
Hefner’s wedding called off
Hugh Hefner’s 25-year-old fiancee, Crystal Harris, has called off their California nuptials, the 85-year-old founder of Playboy announced on Tuesday in a Twitter posting. “The wedding is off,” Hefner tweeted. “Crystal has had a change of heart.” Hefner had asked Harris to marry him during a party last Christmas Eve. A ceremony had been planned for Saturday at Hefner’s Playboy Mansion, a luxurious Gothic-style mansion in Beverly Hills, Califonia. The wedding would have been Hefner’s third. Harris did not explain why she dumped Hefner, except to say on her Twitter account that the decision came after “much deep reflection and thought” and that she continues to have the “utmost respect for Hef.”
UNITED STATES
Weiner action figure on sale
An online action figure company has jumped on the Anthony Weiner sexting scandal bandwagon with a doll of the US representative in two versions: censored and uncensored. HeroBuilders.com of Oxford, Connecticut, is offering the “standard” doll for US$39.95 and the anatomically correct “for adults only” version for an extra US$10. Both are dressed in a gym shirt and shorts with a label that reads “Tweet This.”
UNITED STATES
Rapist dies mid-attack
A Texas man died while raping a 77-year-old woman, local media reported. Isabel Chavelo Gutierrez, 53, broke into the woman’s rural home armed with a knife and attacked her. However, in the midst of the rape he complained he was not feeling well and “stopped having sex with her so he could rest,” the Corpus Christi Caller reported citing the local sheriff’s office. However, the registered sex offender continued to fondle her then rolled over and died. The woman initially thought he had passed out drunk because she smelled alcohol on his breath. Investigators believe Gutierrez died of a heart attack after riding his bicycle 3km to the woman’s home on a hot summer day, but are awaiting the results of an autopsy.
BRAZIL
Cookies kill delivery boy
A 12-year-old boy died after eating cookies poisoned by two girls at his school in northeastern Brazil, police said on Tuesday. The girls, aged 13 and 14, admitted putting a deadly dose of rat poison in the cookies, but claimed they were meant for two rival girls at their school on the outskirts of the city of Recife, the investigating officer Mariana Villas Boas said. The boy, who was called to deliver the toxic cookies for them to allay suspicions, was not aware of the plan and ate them instead, with deadly result. He was taken to hospital in agony and died shortly afterward.
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
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