MALAYSIA
Media raises ‘Jewish’ threat
Government-linked media has claimed that foreign Jewish groups might try to meddle in the country by supporting an opposition-backed push to reform electoral laws. Political activists who recently staged a huge demonstration say the accusation is an irresponsible attempt to discredit them through appeals to religious prejudice. The Malay-language Utusan Malaysia newspaper said in an editorial yesterday that Malaysians “cannot allow anyone, especially the Jews, to interfere secretly in this country’s business.” It offered no evidence and named no specific group. Prime Minister Najib Razak’s administration cracked down on July 9 on at least 20,000 demonstrators who marched in Kuala Lumpur demanding more transparency in electoral laws.
AUSTRALIA
Hospital swaps newborns
Two mothers were mistakenly given the wrong newborns in a mix up which saw the infants breastfed and cared for by the wrong woman for about eight hours, the hospital said yesterday. The St John of God Hospital in Geelong blamed human error for the swap which was eventually detected by a family member. “Protocols are in place to ensure mothers are given their own baby, but it seems that in this instance human error was involved,” the hospital said in a statement. “Unfortunately, it seems the babies’ identification bracelets were not checked against the identification bracelets on their mothers.” The hospital is investigating the mistake and the women and babies were being tested for any infections they may have contracted as a result of the error on Friday.
CHINA
Iraqi prime minister visits
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was scheduled to meet Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) yesterday and President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) today. Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Hong Lei (洪磊) said the two nations have a traditional friendship, and that they aim to develop economic cooperation and cultural exchanges.
MARIANAS
Japanese musician dies
A Japanese rock musician who tried to hang himself after being arrested for unruly behavior on a flight to Saipan has died in hospital, reports said yesterday. Taiji Sawada, who was best known as the former bass player with heavy metal group “X,” died on Sunday when medics at Saipan’s Commonwealth Health Center turned off his life support, the Saipan Tribune reported. The Marianas Variety newspaper reported that Sawada, 45, had been in intensive care since July 14 after he tried to hang himself with a bedsheet in a jail. He had been arrested three days before for allegedly assaulting a female cabin crew attendant during a Delta Airlines flight from Tokyo to Saipan, court documents showed. The documents said the flight attendant went to the business class section after hearing banging and found Sawada struggling with a female passenger. She said a number of male passengers helped her subdue the musician and move him to another chair but he caused another commotion, punching windows and kicking seats, as the plane prepared to descend to Saipan. Eventually, the plane’s captain ordered Sawada to be placed in physical restraints and he was arrested after the flight landed, the court documents said. No reason was given for Sawada’s behavior.
ITALY
MP perks cause backlash
MPs are facing a backlash over multimillion-dollar perks, including trips to saunas and haircuts, while the rest of the nation faces charges designed to balance the national books. Two days after the parliament passed an austerity budget to keep the eurozone crisis at bay, hospitals were carrying out two of the budget’s key provisions — a new 10 euro (US$14) charge for specialist appointments and a 25 euro fee for emergency visits, part of a series of measures expected to cost families about 500 euros a year. However, critics said that as the budget was being debated last week, Freedom People party MPs quietly added amendments watering down proposed cuts to their own pay, currently 65,839 euros after taxes. A breakdown of the outlay on medical care published by newspaper La Repubblica on Sunday showed that Italy’s 630 MPs are racking up 3 million euros a year on dentistry, 257,000 euros on psychiatric bills and 204,000 euros on thermal baths.
RUSSIA
Girls urged to strip for Putin
An online campaign has been launched urging young women to support Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in a presidential vote by taking off their clothes, a lawmaker’s site showed on Sunday. Called “Putin’s Army,” it features a video of a blond student called Diana who struts along Moscow’s streets in high heels and a black suit before scrawling “I will tear my clothes off for Putin” on a white top in red lipstick and starting to undo her clothes. Inviting girls to strip for Putin for the chance of winning an iPad2, the campaign comes ahead of the presidential election in March next year. During the Soviet era, nudity in advertising was taboo, but has since become widespread, a fact that has outraged feminists who say it only intensifies an already sexualized culture where prostitution is common. In October, a band of journalism students posed in lingerie for a calendar for Putin’s 58th birthday.
HUNGARY
Last Habsburg’s heart buried
The heart of the last heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Otto Habsburg, was buried on Sunday in an abbey following lavish ceremonies in his honor. An urn holding the heart of Habsburg, who died earlier this month at his Bavarian home aged 98, was buried in a family ceremony at the Benedictine Abbey of Pannonhalma, a photographer said. Earlier on Sunday, a mass was organized in his memory at Saint Stephen’s Basilica in the heart of Budapest, in the presence of President Pal Schmitt and Prime Minister Viktor Orban. On Saturday, political leaders and European royalty paid their last respects to Habsburg as his body was buried at Vienna’s Imperial Crypt. Habsburg was a strong proponent of Europe and served for 20 years as a member of the European Parliament.
SOUTH AFRICA
Mandela celebrates birthday
Millions of children around the country sang Happy Birthday to former president Nelson Mandela yesterday to celebrate his 93rd birthday. More than 12 million school pupils sang a special version of the song, written for the anti-apartheid leader, before lessons began yesterday. Mandela Day, inaugurated in 2009 and falling on the anti-apartheid icon’s July 18 birthday, was conceived as an international day devoted to public service. People around the world have been asked to mark the occasion by devoting 67 minutes of their time to work in their local community — one minute for every year of Mandela’s public service.
PARAGUAY
Hotdog breaks record
There is a new hot dog in the Guinness Book of Records after a sausage in Asuncion claimed victory as the “world’s largest” at a record 203.8m long, event officials said on Saturday. Guinness representative Johanna Hessling, who traveled to the exhibition, confirmed that the sausage broke the previous record of 150m held by a Spanish encased meat. After being prepared by 245 people ,the 270-kilo sausage was cooked in a specially designed oven and cut into 2,000 pieces and served with bread, a spokesman for the “Expo 2011” in Asuncion said.
URUGUAY
Ex-dictator dies at 83
Former dictator Juan Maria Bordaberry, convicted of killing political opponents during his reign, died of respiratory failure on Sunday at age 83. Bordaberry, who was elected president in 1971 before dissolving congress and ruling by military-backed decree, was convicted last year. He was given a 30-year term and allowed to serve his sentence at his home due to health problems. Friends of the family and lawmakers from the center-right Colorado party, in which Bordaberry’s son Pedro serves as a senator, confirmed the death. A one-time cattle rancher, Bordaberry was president for about four years until he was replaced by the military.
CANADA
‘Cash Cab’ kills pedestrian
A replica taxi used in the Vancouver version of the TV game show Cash Cab struck and killed a pedestrian after finishing production for the day. Vancouver police said a 61-year-old man from Surrey, British Columbia, died in a hospital shortly after being struck by the mock yellow cab late Friday night in the city’s Downtown Eastside District. Police did not immediately release the victim’s identity. The accident happened as a producer was driving the replica cab back to a storage facility after filming for the day had been completed, said Andrew Burnstein, president of Castlewood Productions, which produces the show’s Canadian version. Police constable Lindsey Houghton said the circumstances leading to the accident were still being determined and no charges have been filed so far.
ECUADOR
Liquor banned after deaths
Authorities have banned the sale of alcohol in a community where 19 people died after drinking bootleg liquor. Public Health Minister David Chiriboga said 102 people had been treated for intoxication from adulterated alcohol in the coastal municipality of Urdaneta in Los Rios Province, where eight were initially reported dead. Chiriboga said on Sunday the death toll had risen to 19 and police had seized 28 containers each with 55 gallons (208 liters) of alcohol contaminated with methanol.
CANADA
Five injured in concert
The main stage at Ottawa Bluesfest collapsed on Sunday night during a Cheap Trick concert as a severe thunderstorm sent the musicians and thousands of fans running for cover. At least five people were injured, one seriously. Cheap Trick’s band members got off the stage safely, but witnesses said they were thrown off their feet. “Everyone is okay and we are so lucky to be alive and hope that all the fans are okay too,” the band said in a message posted on Facebook. Video of the Bluesfest site posted on YouTube within minutes of the storm’s passing showed a stage that had crumpled and collapsed over electronic equipment. Twisted shards of metal jutted out from the stage, which stood several stories tall before it was destroyed.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing