SPAIN
King Juan Carlos falls
Spain’s King Juan Carlos has tripped and fallen while visiting army headquarters in Madrid, but the 74-year-old monarch did not appear to be seriously hurt. Thursday’s accident occurred on a stone staircase, and the king got up and carried on with his duties, although his nose appeared red and sore, a spokesman for the Royal Palace said on condition of anonymity, in keeping with regulations. In April, the monarch underwent hip replacement surgery after tripping on stairs and fracturing bones while on an elephant hunting trip in Botswana. The safari was widely criticized in Spain as exorbitant during the country’s economic crisis.
UNITED STATES
Mayweather freed from jail
Boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr was released from a Las Vegas jail early yesterday after serving two months of a three-month sentence in a misdemeanor domestic battery case. The undefeated boxer walked out of the Clark County Detention Center in darkness to resume his boxing career. Mayweather’s lawyers and personal physician said in court documents that jail food and water did not meet Mayweather’s dietary needs, and lack of exercise space in a cell of fewer than 30m2 threatened his health and fitness. The 35-year-old boxer pleaded guilty last year to reduced charges stemming from a hair-pulling, arm-twisting attack on his former girlfriend. The plea deal allowed him to avoid trial on felony charges that could have gotten him up to 34 years in prison.
UNITED STATES
Two tried over Matisse work
A Cuban American man and a Mexican woman pleaded not guilty in Miami on Wednesday to trying to sell a US$3 million Matisse that vanished mysteriously from a Venezuelan museum a decade ago. Marcuello Guzman, a 46-year-old Cuban resident of Miami, and Ornelas Lazo, a 50-year-old from Mexico City, denied in court that they conspired to transport and sell the original Matisse, Odalisque in Red Pants. Venezuelan authorities realized in 2003 that the painting hanging in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Caracas was actually a fake. The exact date of the theft is unknown, though December 2002 has been suggested. The indictment accuses Guzman of negotiating the sale of the Matisse for about US$740,000 during several meetings with undercover FBI agents. The painting has been valued by experts at US$3 million. Undercover FBI agents posing as buyers recovered the Matisse last month in Miami and arrested the two suspects, who appeared at Wednesday’s federal court hearing in handcuffs and leg shackles. A new hearing will be set within 30 days. Each accused faces up to 10 years in jail.
PERU
Fujimori rules out pardon
Former president Alberto Fujimori, who is serving a 25-year sentence for human rights violations, has ruled out seeking a pardon, his lawmaker son Kenji Fujimori said. “My father renounces the idea of a pardon because he knows he is innocent and there are no clear and positive signs from the government,” the younger Fujimori said on Wednesday. His decision “is a hard blow for us, especially in light of his health,” he said. The former president, who is serving out his sentence at a police base in eastern Lima, suffers from cancer of the tongue, but receives regular treatment and the cancer is under control. The 74-year-old was found guilty in April 2009 of two death-squad massacres in 1991 and 1992 that killed 25 people, and the kidnapping of a journalist and a businessman.
FIJI
Queen’s birthday axed
The government has dumped Queen Elizabeth II’s official birthday from its list of annual public holidays, saying it is no longer relevant to the former British colony. Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama, who seized power in a 2006 coup, said on Tuesday that dropping the queen’s birthday from the calendar would also boost national economic productivity. The move to ditch the holiday, normally celebrated in early June, came after the government announced last year that it was dropping the queen’s likeness from its coins and replacing it with local flora and fauna. The queen’s birthday is still a public holiday in many other former British colonies like Australia and New Zealand, although not in Britain itself.
INDIA
‘Jism 2’ not porn
Jism 2, a new Indian movie titled after the Hindu word for “body,” stars a hardcore porn actress. However, the filmmakers insist it is not porno. Bollywood is certainly not ready for that. The film, which opened yesterday, is pushing the ever-widening sexual boundaries enjoyed by many in urban areas. It shows no frontal nudity. Government censors monitoring a film industry that long refused to show onscreen kissing would never clear that. Yet with its oil massages and fantastic lingerie, it promises to be one of the most graphic films in Bollywood history. However, traditionalists angry with the growing sexual freedoms have torn down the film’s risque poster, led a crackdown on bars in Mumbai and even advocated an informal curfew for women.
YEMEN
Minister escapes 2nd attack
Gunmen strafed the car of Information Minister Ali Ahmed al-Amrani with bullets on Thursday, killing his bodyguard, but the official was not in the vehicle at the time, officials said. Amrani also escaped an assassination attempt on Jan. 31 as he was leaving government headquarters in Sana’a. Amrani used to be a member of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh General People’s Congress, but later joined the opposition in protest over Saleh’s deadly crackdown on anti-regime protests.
VIETNAM
US freedom critique denied
The government has protested a US report that accused it of abusing some of its citizens’ religious freedom. The US Department of State’s annual assessment of religious freedom around the world released this week said Vietnam has generally respected religious freedom, but continues to harass some followers, particularly Christians. Foreign Ministry spokesman Luong Thanh Nghi said in a statement late on Thursday that the report acknowledges progress, but contains erroneous information. He said Vietnam ensures full religious freedom for all.
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