INDONESIA
Orangutan to go cold turkey
An orangutan who became the star attraction of a zoo for her penchant for puffing on cigarettes will be forced to quit cold turkey, a conservationist said yesterday. Visitors began throwing lit cigarettes into the cage of 15-year-old Tori when she was five and the female orangutan has since developed an addiction, the Centre for Orangutan Protection coordinator Daniek Hendarto said. “We are working with the zoo’s management to try and move her to an island, in a big lake in the middle of the zoo, away from the other orangutans and where visitors can’t toss her any more cigarettes,” Hendarto said. He said Tori’s parents had also been smokers, adding that orangutans easily mimic human behaviour, including smoking. News of the smoking orangutan spread quickly 10 years ago, attracting more visitors to the Taru Jurug Zoo in the central Javanese city of Solo, Hendarto said. Zoos in the country have drawn international criticism in recent years for their poor treatment of animals. In March, a giraffe at a zoo in eastern Java was found dead with a 20kg beachball-size lump of plastic in its stomach after eating visitors’ food wrappers which had been thrown into its pen.
PHILIPPINES
Military lowers standards
Shorter people now have a chance to rise to the highest positions in the country’s armed forces after the top military academy lowered its height requirement on Friday. The head of the Philippine Military Academy, Major General Nonato Peralta said the elite institution would now admit male and female students who were at least 1.52m tall. The previous requirement was 1.62m for men and 1.57m for women and brings the academy into line with the rest of the military. “With the previous height requirement, many Filipino youth who had a good educational background and were physically fit, were disenfranchised from the opportunity of being able to take the entrance examination,” he said. In the past, shorter applicants had to petition a member of congress to have the height requirement waived.
FRANCE
Food firm fined over English
A court ruled on Friday in favour of employees of food industry group Danone who sued their employer for imposing an English-language computer program. The court in Vienne in the south east agreed that a 1994 law outlining the “obligatory use of the French language” had to be upheld in the factory. The CGT union, the workplace health, security and hygiene committee and the works council had filed a complaint after the management at the unit in Saint-Just-Chaleyss introduced the English-language management program last year. “We are very happy, we launched a difficult fight but finally we were right,” CGT official Mario Pisanu said. “It was a real barrier for employees who do not speak this language and a form of discrimination,” he added.
GEORGIA
Satanic ID card fright
Georgia’s powerful Orthodox Church has assured believers that the ex-Soviet state’s new electronic identity cards do not carry the mark of Satan after being petitioned by worried worshipers. “The Holy Synod states that from the point of view of theological and ecclesiastical teachings, ID cards as they exist today do not represent the mark of the Antichrist,” the church’s governing body said in a statement late on Thursday. Some Georgian Christians had petitioned the church, expressing fears that the ID cards contained an electronic chip marked with the ‘number of the beast,’ 666.
IRELAND
Twitter finds dog commuter
When Patch hopped aboard the train to Dublin, the power of Twitter reunited the dog with his master. Irish Rail sent a “Lost dog!” tweet with a photograph attachment after the Jack Russell terrier arrived with Wednesday morning commuters on a train from neighboring Kilcock, County Kildare. By all accounts, the friendly dog had spent his hour-long journey being petted vigorously. After more than 500 retweets in just 32 minutes, the photograph found Patch’s owner, Deirdre Anglin, who tweeted the state railway: “That’s my dog!” Anglin and Irish Rail posted a series of photographs documenting her reunion with Patch, their return train trip, and car journey home. She said fellow train travelers kept asking her: “Is that the dog from Twitter?”
UNITED KINGDOM
Woman given Cowell ban
A judge on Friday banned a 30-year-old woman from going near Simon Cowell after she admitted smashing a window of the entertainment mogul’s house with a brick. Leanne Zaloumis was arrested on March 24 at Cowell’s west London mansion. Prosecutors say Cowell was watching TV in his bedroom when he heard a loud bang coming from his bathroom and discovered Zaloumis inside a wardrobe with a brick. At a court hearing on Friday, Zaloumis admitted possessing a brick with intent to damage or destroy property, but denied burglary and affray. Prosecutors accepted her plea, meaning she will not face trial. Judge John Denniss said the 102 days Zaloumis has spent in jail were sufficient punishment, but said she would go to prison if she breached her bail conditions, which forbid her from contacting Cowell or going within 300m of his home. She also has to wear an electronic tag and observe an overnight curfew. Cowell, 52, has gained fame in both Britain and North America as producer and an acerbic judge on TV talent shows including The X Factor and America’s Got Talent.
UNITED KINGDOM
Boyle gets honorary degree
Singing sensation Susan Boyle has been awarded an honorary doctorate from a Scottish university. Boyle, who shot to fame on a TV talent show, wore blue-and-white academic robes as she accepted the degree on Friday from Edinburgh’s Queen Margaret University in recognition of her “contribution to the creative industries.” The singer once studied for a higher education certificate at the university. A 40-something church volunteer from a small Scottish village, Boyle became a global sensation in 2009 after she performed the song I Dreamed a Dream from Les Miserables on the TV program Britain’s Got Talent. She has since sold 18 million records and performed for audiences from the US to China.
UNITED STATES
Mortgage paid with pennies
A man who pledged to make the last mortgage payment on his home with pennies has fulfilled that promise. After warning his bank, Thomas Daigle of Milford, Massachusetts, dropped off about 62,000 pennies weighing 360kg in two boxes for the final payment on the home he and his wife, Sandra, bought in 1977. He told the Milford Daily News he just wanted to make his last payment on April 24 “memorable.” He started saving his pennies when he moved in. The optician says his wife laughed whenever he would pick up a penny he found on the ground and say it was going to the mortgage. Daigle says he was just glad to have the coins out of his house.
MEXICO
Cop made security advisor
The widely respected Colombian cop hired to advise president-elect Enrique Pena Nieto on security policy is recommending the creation of elite military police units to target not just major drug traffickers but also the lower-level cartel soldiers who do most of the killing. Newly retired Colombian police director General Oscar Naranjo also told media he also believes that it is feasible to sharply reduce Mexico’s drug-related violence in the first 100 days of Nieto’s presidency, which starts on Dec. 1. Naranjo said on Friday that while it is important to go after high-level targets, Mexico should not neglect the so-called collection agencies that hire cartel assassins and enforcers. Such criminals are responsible for the bulk of the more than 47,500 drug war deaths since late 2006.
UNItED STATES
Ex-general pleads not guilty
A former high-level Colombian general has pleaded not guilty to charges that he took bribes from drug gangs. Mauricio Santoyo Velasco was arraigned on Friday in US District Court in Alexandria, Virginia. A judge set a September trial date. After the hearing, Santoyo’s lawyer, Oscar Rodriguez, declined comment on details of the case, but said Santoyo has given his life to his country and is entitled to a presumption of innocence. Prosecutors also declined comment. Santoyo was chief of security for Colombia’s then-president, Alvaro Uribe, from 2002 to 2005 and also served as a top anti-terrorism commander. The indictment alleges he took substantial bribes to help drug gangs and to thwart anti-trafficking efforts in the US and Colombia. He surrendered in Colombia to face charges in the US.
UNItED STATES
Woman meets Obama, dies
The elderly owner of an Ohio restaurant where President Barack Obama ate breakfast on Friday died of natural causes just hours after meeting him. Josephine “Ann” Harris, 70, owner of Ann’s Place where Obama was served eggs, bacon, toast and grits, died at a hospital in Akron, Ohio. A hospital spokesman said Harris had complained of fatigue and a tingling feeling. White House press secretary Jay Carney said Harris apparently had not been well and was believed to have had a heart attack. The president called Harris’ daughter from Air Force One to express his condolences. “The president expressed his sorrow,” Carney said aboard Air Force One at the end of a two-day campaign swing through the election battleground states of Ohio and Pennsylvania.
UNitED STATES
Pitt’s mom slams gay union
Actor Brad Pitt’s mother has criticized gay marriage and President Barack Obama in a letter to her local newspaper in which she praises Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. In the letter appearing on the Web site of Brad Pitt’s hometown newspaper, the Springfield News-Leader in Missouri, Jane Pitt commended Romney, a Mormon, for sharing a “Christian conviction concerning homosexuality.” She said Obama “did not hold a public ceremony to mark the National Day of Prayer, and is a liberal who supports the killing of unborn babies and same-sex marriage.” Jane Pitt’s views on gay marriage contrast with her son, who has publicly championed same-sex marriage. Pitt has also been on friendly terms with Obama. He and actress Angelina Jolie met with him at the White House in January regarding efforts against mass atrocities and sexual violence against women. A spokeswoman for Brad Pitt in Los Angeles was not available for comment.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
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