FRANCE
Ex-call girl designs lingerie
A one-time call-girl got the Paris fashion pack hot under the collar with a delectably naughty lingerie line unveiled on the sidelines of the haute couture shows. Zahia Dehar made global headlines in 2010 when it emerged the French-Algerian was offered up for sex with the soccer player Franck Ribery and co-players as a birthday “gift,” aged just 16, prompting a vice probe into the French squad. Now aged 20, the young woman has reinvented herself as a lingerie couturiere, winning high-profile support from Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld, who shot the official pictures for her first collection unveiled in Paris in January.
HONG KONG
Sharks closes beaches
Authorities yesterday urged the public to remain alert after a shark sighting prompted a one-day closure of popular beaches across the territory. Officials closed 12 beaches on Sunday, during an extended holiday weekend, after a swimmer reported seeing a shark off the south of the territory. Checks by government officials had found “no big fish” inside the shark nets at the beaches and the nets intact. The beaches were reopened on Monday. “We urge the public to remain vigilant, however, and swim in the enclosed zones of the shark prevention nets,” a department spokesman said. Shark sightings are rare in the territory and some experts said the closures may have been an overreaction. Reports suggested the sighting may have been of a whale shark, a species that poses no significant threat to humans. The last fatal shark attack in the territory was in 1995, according to the Shark Attack File Web site, which monitors such incidents worldwide.
SOUTH AFRICA
Majority fear ‘missing out’
Two-thirds of teens and adults in the country suffer from a “fear of missing out” on more interesting activities than what they’re doing, a study by a pharmaceutical firm showed on Monday. More than 62 percent of about 3,000 respondents aged between 15 and 50 years said in a nationwide survey that they live in “constant fear” of missing out on something more exciting that what they are doing. The symptoms of the epidemic include the inability to put away one’s mobile phone, excessive texting even while driving, tweeting on the toilet and showing up at events uninvited. “The survey confirmed that over 62 percent of South Africans admitted that they live in constant fear of missing out [FOMO],” Pharma Dynamics spokeswoman Mariska Fouche said, adding FOMO elevates stress levels. “People who suffer from FOMO constantly push themselves to the limit and even when we are sick, we try not to miss out on social events, we still go to work and we can’t say no and this puts a lot of additional strain on our immune system that in turn heightens our risk of more serious illness,” she said. The firm stumbled on the finding while studying what drove a rising demand for immune-boosting supplements.
CHINA
Bird flu outbreak sparks cull
Authorities in Xinjiang have culled more than 150,000 chickens following an outbreak of bird flu, officials said. The outbreak of the H5N1 strain of avian flu initially killed 1,600 chickens and sickened about 5,500, the agriculture ministry said late on Monday. In an effort to contain the disease, agricultural authorities quarantined the area and culled 156,439 chickens, according to the ministry.
IRAQ
Car bomb kills at least 25
A car bomb in a busy market in the southern city of Diwaniya killed at least 25 people and wounded 50 yesterday, police and a provincial council official said, the latest in a series of sectarian attacks. Earlier in the day, two roadside bombs targeting Shiite pilgrims killed four people and wounded 21 near the central city of Kerbala, hospital and police sources said. In Diwaniya, 150km south of Baghdad, police announced a partial curfew and closed all entrances to the city. The bombing took place near a Shiite mosque, where pilgrims gather on their way to Kerbala to celebrate the birthday of one of the most important imams — al-Mahdi — this week. Attacks have increased in recent weeks, raising fears that the nation may slip back into widespread violence between Sunnis and Shiites. Last month at least 237 people were killed and 603 wounded, mainly in bomb attacks, according to a Reuters tally.
UNITED STATES
Cooper reveals he’s gay
CNN journalist Anderson Cooper, who has been reluctant to talk about his personal life in public, revealed that he is gay in an essay posted online on Monday. Cooper said he had kept his sexual orientation private for personal and professional reasons, but came to think that remaining silent had given some people a mistaken impression that he was ashamed. “The fact is, I’m gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn’t be any more happy, comfortable with myself and proud,” he wrote in a letter to Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Beast Web site. Cooper, the son of Gloria Vanderbilt, had long been the subject of rumors about his sexual orientation. He said that in a perfect world, it wouldn’t be anyone’s business, but that there is value in “standing up and being counted.”
UNITED STATES
Strauss-Kahn, wife break up
Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and his wife of 20 years, Anne Sinclair, have been separated for a month to six weeks, a source close to the one-time French presidential hopeful confirmed on Monday. The source said on condition of anonymity that the two are now living at two different residences in Paris, adding that Strauss-Kahn is “well” despite this “difficult” period in his life. After three-and-a-half years at the helm of the IMF, Strauss-Kahn resigned on May 18 last year, four days after a Guinean housekeeper at New York’s Sofitel Hotel, Nafissatou Diallo, accused him of sexual abuse. The criminal case was dropped in August last year, after the prosecutor expressed doubts about Diallo’s credibility, but a civil suit is still pending in New York.
VENEZUELA
Palace employee arrested
An employee at the presidential palace has been arrested and is accused of spreading confidential information, prosecutors said on Monday. Physician Ana Maria Abreu was detained under a court order last week, the public ministry said in a statement. It said the doctor had worked in the palace for 12 years during President Hugo Chavez’s government and had been providing medical care to storm evacuees and other needy people. It was unclear what sort of information the doctor is accused of releasing. The ministry said only that she had been “linked to the dissemination of confidential information between the year 2010 and 2012.” Abreu is a sister-in-law of activist Rocio San Miguel, a government critic who leads an organization that monitors security and defense issues. San Miguel told Globovision TV that the case has a “political tint” and appears to be retaliation against Abreu for being her relative.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the