BAHRAIN
Protester death to be probed
The government has ordered an investigation into the death of a teenage boy who opposition groups claim was killed by police gunfire during an anti-government protest. Seventeen-year-old Ahmed Jaber died late on Thursday during a rally in the Gulf kingdom. Opposition groups say he was shot by police birdshot — used for crowd control — when a pellet entered his heart or lungs. The police say they used only tear gas and concussion grenades to respond to a violent protest in the Abu Saiba area of the country. A government statement yesterday said the cause of death was listed as cardiac arrest and promised a full probe.
AUSTRALIA
Song riff found to be copied
Men at Work yesterday lost their final court bid to prove they did not steal the distinctive flute riff of their 1980s hit Down Under from a children’s campfire song. The High Court denied the band’s bid to appeal a federal court judge’s earlier ruling that the group had copied the signature flute melody of Down Under from the song Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree, a song written more than 70 years ago by Marion Sinclair for a Girl Guides competition. Sinclair died in 1988, but publishing company Larrikin Music — which now holds the copyright for Kookaburra — filed a copyright lawsuit in 2009. Larrikin wasn’t able to seek royalties earned before 2002 because of a statute of limitations. Lawyers for Men at Work’s recording company maintained the band had not copied anything, and vowed to fight the ruling, but yesterday’s decision from the High Court ends the band’s chance to appeal.
AUSTRALIA
Diane Cilento dies at 78
Oscar-nominated actress Diane Cilento has died at the age of 78. Queensland State Premier Anna Bligh said Cilento died on Thursday night. No cause of death was given. Bligh said yesterday that the actress would be sorely missed by many in the entertainment industry. Cilento was once married to James Bond actor Sean Connery. The two eventually divorced and Cilento went on to wed playwright Anthony Shaffer. Cilento appeared in dozens of films, television shows and stage productions. She received an Academy Award nomination in 1963 for best supporting actress for her work in the movie Tom Jones and was nominated for a Tony Award in 1956. She settled in Queensland in the 1980s and built a popular outdoor theater in the rain forest.
NEW ZEALAND
Fresh water lift goes ahead
Wellington and Australia were scheduled to start an airlift yesterday to help supply fresh water to the tiny drought-stricken Pacific nation of Tuvalu, which is under a state of emergency as a result of the crisis. Foreign Minister Murray McCully said a series of flights by military transport planes would deliver a large army desalination unit to the main island of Funafuti. It follows the deployment of smaller desalination units there this week. “At present the two operating desalination plants at Funafuti are producing a combined volume of 43,000 liters a day. The minimum requirement for the 5,300 residents is 79,500 liters a day,” McCully said. Tuvalu is reliant on rainwater collection for drinking water and has been severely affected by a weather pattern across the Pacific known as La Nina. The neighboring Wellington-administered territory of Tokelau also declared a state of emergency after the drought left its 1,400 people with less than a week’s supply of water.
VENEZUELA
Perez’s funeral held
Former president Carlos Perez was buried on Thursday in Caracas after a protracted legal battle that saw his body finally return from the US. Hundreds of supporters and opposition members accompanied the funeral march from the headquarters of Perez’s Democracy Action party, where he celebrated electoral victories in 1974 and 1989, to La Chiquinquira church. “We will return! We will return!” the crowd chanted as it accompanied the body of the late leader who died of a heart attack in Miami on Dec. 25 last year at the age of 88. His death set off a prolonged legal battle between his widow, Blanca Rodriguez, who lives in Venezuela, and his longtime companion and former secretary Cecilia Matos, who lives in Florida. Rodriguez wanted the body returned to Caracas for burial, but Matos said Perez did not want to return to Venezuela as long as current leftist President Hugo Chavez remained in power.
CANADA
Caffeine limits announced
The government will restrict the amount of caffeine allowed in energy drinks such as Red Bull and Monster Energy, but has pulled back from classifying them as stimulative drug products that can only be sold in pharmacies. Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq announced on Thursday the limits on the amount of caffeine allowed in the drinks and said the government would require labels stating the caffeine levels. An expert panel appointed by Health Canada, the government’s health department, had recommended that energy drinks be labeled as “stimulant-drug containing drinks” that should be listed on a schedule of drugs that can only be sold in pharmacies. Energy drinks had been classified as “natural health products,” but the government has now reclassified them as foods, with full labeling requirements. Caffeine will be limited to 180mg in a single serving, a level that Health Canada said is comparable with the amount in a medium cup of coffee.
CANADA
Refinery blast injures 10
An explosion and fire at a crude oil refinery in the central province of Saskatchewan has injured 10 people. Gilbert Ledressay, the safety manager of the Consumers’ Co-operative Refinery plant in Regina, said on Thursday eight people were taken to hospital with burns and two were treated on site. He says there is no word on how seriously the people have been burned. He says the explosion seems to have been caused by a release of diesel and hydrogen gas. The Co-op refiner is taking steps to account for employees and contractors on the site. A cloud of black smoke billowed from the refinery.
UNITED STATES
O’Neal pleads not guilty
Griffin O’Neal, son of actor Ryan O’Neal, has pleaded not guilty to drug and firearm possession and driving under the influence stemming from a head-on traffic collision that injured a motorist two months ago. The San Diego Union--Tribune says O’Neal faces six felony and misdemeanor charges related to the Aug. 2 accident. Deputy District Attorney Vanessa DuVall said on Thursday that the 46-year-old O’Neal veered into oncoming traffic and hit a car, causing head and back injuries to its driver. DuVall says blood tests showed O’Neal had ingested amphetamines, cocaine, marijuana and Xanax. Crack cocaine and loaded firearms were found in his car. Defense attorney Heather Boxeth said O’Neal had been trying to help his half-brother Redmond O’Neal, who had been arrested on suspicion of heroin possession the same day.
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other
CODIFYING DISCRIMINATION: Transgender people would be sentenced to three years in prison, while same-sex relations could land a person in jail for more than a decade Iraq’s parliament on Saturday passed a bill criminalizing same-sex relations, which would receive a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, in a move rights groups condemned as an “attack on human rights.” Transgender people would be sentenced to three years’ jail under the amendments to a 1988 anti-prostitution law, which were adopted during a session attended by 170 of 329 lawmakers. A previous draft had proposed capital punishment for same-sex relations, in what campaigners had called a “dangerous” escalation. The new amendments enable courts to sentence people engaging in same-sex relations to 10 to 15 years in prison, according to the