AUSTRALIA
Lashed man returns home
A man who received 75 lashes in Saudi Arabia after being convicted of blasphemy has returned home. Mansor Almaribe of Victoria arrived yesterday. He told reporters he was happy to be home, but was tired after his ordeal. Almaribe was detained in the city of Medina in November while making the Muslim pilgrimage of hajj. Family members say Saudi officials accused him of insulting the companions of the Prophet Mohammed. That is considered a violation of Saudi Arabia’s strict blasphemy laws. He was originally sentenced to 500 lashes and a year in a Saudi Arabian jail, but officials pleaded for leniency and the sentence was reduced to 75 lashes.
NEW ZEALAND
Beer contest bans women
A woman has been barred from a beer-brewing contest, because she is not a man. Rachel Beer tried to enter the home-brewing competition in the Lake Hayes Agricultural show being held in the South Island adventure tourist center of Queenstown this weekend. However, she was told if she entered a beer it would not be judged because the contest was for “blokes only.” “There’s no point entering a beer if it’s not going to be judged whether it’s gold or mud,” Beer told the Mountain Scene newspaper. “At the end of the day a home brew is a home brew.” Sex discrimination is illegal, but the government agency administering the laws said it would need a complaint before it could act. Beer, whose tipple goes by the name of Beer’s Beer, said she would not make a formal complaint, but press the organizers to change the rules or have a competition for women. “I’m sure the show can make room for it in the next round,” said Mike Smith, president of the show’s organizing committee. The nation was the first Western country to give women the vote in national elections, in 1893. At one stage, the country’s top political, constitutional and judicial posts were all held by women.
UNITED STATES
Researcher sacked for fraud
A university on Thursday accused one of its researchers of widespread fraud by publishing fake studies that touted the benefits of red wine in as many as 11 scientific journals. Dipak Das, a professor in the department of surgery and director of the Cardiovascular Research Center at the University of Connecticut Health Center, “is guilty of 145 counts of fabrication and falsification of data,” a university statement said. A three-year investigation into Das’ work began in 2008 after an anonymous tip alleging irregularities in his research. The university has sent letters to the 11 journals that published Das’ work and has declined US$890,000 in federal grants awarded to him.
PHILIPPINES
Officers to be tried for killing
The second-in-command of the navy’s flagship and nine other men are to be tried for the murder 16 years ago of a fellow naval officer aboard another vessel, the armed forces said on Thursday. Commodore Reynaldo Lopez has been sacked as executive officer and ordered off the navy flagship Gregorio del Pilar ahead of his trial for the shooting death of the officer, navy spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Omar Tonsay said. Lopez and nine other officers were indicted on Wednesday for the murder of a 24-year-old junior officer, Ensign Philip Pestano, who was found shot dead aboard the Bacolod City on Sept. 27, 1995. Four of the defendants had since retired from the navy, but Tonsay said all 10 would stand trial for murder in a special court.
PAKISTAN
Militants attack policemen
About 100 militants ambushed a police station in a northwestern Pakistani city yesterday, shooting dead three officers, police say. Another nine officers were wounded in the morning gunbattle in the Sarband neighborhood on the city’s edge, said Saeed Khan, a senior police official in Peshawar City. Police fought back and killed some of the militants, Khan said, but did not know how many. The militants took the dead bodies of their comrades with them, he said. Sarband borders the Khyber tribal region, an area where many insurgents live. Khan said he did not know to which group the shooters belonged. The Pakistani Taliban have carried out hundreds of attacks on the country’s army and other security forces since 2007. On Thursday, militants armed with guns and grenades killed four Pakistani soldiers in an ambush in the South Waziristan tribal area to the southwest of Peshawar.
GAZA STRIP
Forces exchange fire
Israelis and Palestinians fought across the Gaza border yesterday, with Israeli tank fire wounding two men at the frontier and Palestinians firing a rocket into southern Israel, medics and the army said. Israeli tanks fired at a group of Palestinians who appeared to be attempting to plant explosives along the border fence in the early hours of yesterday, a military spokeswoman said. “Soldiers spotted suspects digging in the ground adjoining the fence and fired at them,” she said. Palestinian medics said that two men were moderately wounded by the tank fire, east of the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. Later in the morning, Gaza militants fired a rocket into southern Israel, but it hit open ground in the Eshkol region, near the border, and did not cause any casualties, the army spokeswoman said.
AFGHANISTAN
Opium production shoots up
Production of opium and the illicit crop’s value soared in Afghanistan last year, the UN said in a report released on Thursday. According to the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime, farmer income derived from Afghanistan’s opium crop last year was US$1.4 billion, representing 9 percent of GDP. “Opium is therefore a significant part of the Afghan economy and provides considerable funding to the insurgency and fuels corruption,” executive director of the UN office Yury Fedotov said in a statement. Afghanistan grows about 90 percent of the world’s opium. The UN said poppy-crop cultivation covered more than 131,000 hectares last year, up 7 percent from the previous year. The overall opium crop increased by 61 percent, from 3,600 tonnes in 2010 to 5,800 tonnes last year. The value of the opium yield rose 133 percent from 2010, when plant diseases killed much of the Afghan crop.
AFGHANISTAN
Opposition supports talks
Prominent Afghan opposition leaders said yesterday that they support possible US-brokered peace negotiations with Taliban militants, but want to be part of any talks. Members of a coalition representing Afghanistan’s ethnic minorities spoke as they returned from a conference in Berlin, where they met with US congressional leaders. Prominent Tajik minority leader Ahmad Zia Masood said that he supported peace talks, but added that the government should be cautious of giving up too much in any future talks to end the decade-long war. Most international troops are scheduled to withdraw by 2014, making achieving a negotiated peace a more urgent priority.
UNITED STATES
First lady joins Twitter
First lady Michelle Obama quickly snapped up tens of thousands of Twitter followers on Thursday as she joined the social network and opened a new front in her husband’s re-election campaign. “Hi, everyone, and thanks for the warm welcome. Look forward to staying in touch with you here,” @michelleobama said in a tweet authenticated by her initials “mo.” The account will be mostly run by Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign and is similar to @BarackObama’s Twitter output, which is also mostly a product of campaign staff. Just a few hours after the account’s debut, @MichelleObama had garnered more than 80,000 followers on the micro-blogging site, an impressive total, but well short of her husband’s following, which is close to 12 million.
UNITED STATES
O’Neal skips hearing
A San Diego judge has issued an arrest warrant for Griffin O’Neal after he failed to appear at a sentencing hearing. U-T San Diego says the son of actor Ryan O’Neal checked himself into a residential rehabilitation facility instead of showing up for Thursday’s hearing. The 47-year-old faces up to four years in prison after pleading guilty to two felony charges of driving under the influence and possession of a firearm by a felon. Griffin O’Neal was involved in a drug-fueled, head-on car accident in San Pasqual on Aug. 2 that left another driver injured. A US$100,000 bench warrant was issued for his arrest. His lawyer Heather Boxeth says he relapsed by drinking alcohol after five years of sobriety and said that going to rehab was a responsible thing to do.
FRANCE
Louvre to send art to Japan
The Louvre museum plans to send more than 20 artworks to Japan, including Fukushima Prefecture, near the stricken nuclear plant, to show solidarity with the disaster-hit country. The exhibition will run from April 20 to Sept. 17 in Japan’s Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, said Jean-Luc Martinez, director of the department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities at the Louvre. The artworks — 23 paintings, sculptures, drawings and other works from different eras and civilizations — will arrive on July 28 at the Fukushima Prefecture arts museum.
UNITED STATES
Trilateral meeting scheduled
Washington will hold a trilateral meeting with its close allies South Korea and Japan next week to discuss North Korea and other issues. The Department of State said that Tuesday’s meeting in Washington will reflect the close cooperation between the three countries and their common values and interests. Former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il died of a heart attack on Dec. 17, adding to uncertainty over the reclusive state’s future and negotiations on its nuclear weapons program.
UNITED STATES
Heather Locklear in hospital
Actress Heather Locklear was taken to a Southern California hospital for precautionary reasons on Thursday after an emergency call was made from her home, authorities said. Paramedics and sheriff’s deputies responded on Thursday afternoon to Locklear’s home in Westlake Village, which is 56km northwest of Los Angeles. Locklear was taken to Los Robles Hospital & Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, where a spokeswoman told KCAL-TV the actress was stable and her parents were by her side. Ventura County sheriff’s Captain Mike Aranda said he did not know Locklear’s condition, but deputies were not investigating.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of