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.
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
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
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