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.
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
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
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