SINGAPORE
State blocks Islam film
Google yesterday blocked YouTube users in the city-state from viewing clips of an anti-Islamic film that has incited violent protests across the Muslim world, acting on a request by authorities. Attempts to access the low-budget Innocence of Muslims film on the Google-owned video-sharing Web site resulted in a message reading: “This content is not available in your country due to a government removal request.” Google could not be reached to comment, but it has also blocked access to clips of the film in Muslim-majority neighbors Malaysia and Indonesia. The Ministry of Home Affairs cited “security concerns” as the reason behind the request to Google in a press statement released on Wednesday.
AUSTRALIA
Aboriginal vote shelved
The government yesterday dropped plans to hold a referendum on formally recognizing the country’s Aborigines in the constitution, saying there was not enough public support for the move. Gillard described the vote as a “once in 50-year opportunity” when she first unveiled plans for the referendum in 2010, saying there was a rare moment of widespread public and parliamentary support. However, Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin said the plan had been shelved for two or three years due to a lack of community support. “I understand that people are disappointed. I’m disappointed myself,” she said.
INDONESIA
Jakarta holds run-off
Voters in the capital, Jakarta, cast their votes yesterday in a run-off election for a new governor whose key challenges will include tackling traffic congestion and poor infrastructure. The election pits incumbent Fauzi Bowo against the popular mayor of Solo City in Central Java Province, Joko Widodo. Widodo topped the vote in July’s first round — winning 43 percent of votes, with Bowo taking 34 percent — but failed to reach the 50 percent required for victory. Analysts have predicted a close race. Official results are expected on Sept. 29.
PAKISTAN
Drone attack love song a hit
In a sign of how the routine hunting down and killing of militants by unmanned CIA planes has leached into the popular imagination, drones have been given a starring role in a new romantic song. In most respects the track, which is proving popular in the largely Pashtun city of Peshawar, is faithful to standard themes of the genre. The lyrics mention rosebuds and wine. Then the repeated chorus: “My gaze is as fatal as a drone attack.” Sitara Younis’ energetic performance of the song had been racking up a healthy number of hits on YouTube before the video sharing site was shut down by the government on Monday, amid rising public anger over an anti-Islamic film.
AFGHANISTAN
UK soldier gives birth
A British soldier has given birth to a boy at the Camp Bastion field hospital. The Ministry of Defence (MOD) in London said mother and baby were in stable condition and a specialist “pediatric retrieval team” would fly out from Britain to care for them during the long flight home. “It is not military policy to allow servicewomen to deploy on operations if they are pregnant. In this instance, the MOD was unaware of her pregnancy,” the ministry said. The Daily Mail, which first reported on the birth, said the woman herself was unaware she was pregnant when her six-month stint in Afghanistan began. Her job in the field involved providing covering fire for troops fighting insurgents.
MYANMAR
‘West Wing’ inspires junta
Former generals have looked to US television for tips on how to build a democracy. US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton drew laughter on Wednesday in Washington as she recounted a conversation with the lower house speaker from her historic visit to the country last year. Clinton said: “He said to me: ‘Help us learn how to be a democratic congress, a parliament.’ He went on to tell me that they were trying to teach themselves by watching old segments of The West Wing.” Clinton smiled: “I said: ‘I think we can do better than that, Mr Speaker.’”
ISRAEL
Gaza strike kills two
A strike on Gaza killed two Hamas border guards overnight, Palestinian medics said, but Tel Aviv yesterday named them as “terrorists,” saying one was poised to attack civilians. “Two citizens were martyred and another was wounded in an Israeli air strike on a car in Rafah city,” health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told reporters. Officials in Gaza’s Hamas-run interior ministry said the air strike in southern Gaza killed two border guards and seriously wounded a third as they were patrolling the frontier with Egypt.
UNITED STATES
Police escape prosecution
The University of California, Davis police officers who doused students and alumni with pepper spray during a campus protest in November last year will not face criminal charges, prosecutors said. The chemical crackdown prompted widespread condemnation, campus protests and calls for the resignation of Chancellor Linda Katehi after videos shot by witnesses were widely played online. Images of an officer casually spraying orange pepper-spray in the faces of non-violent protesters became a rallying point for the Occupy Wall Street movement. However, the Yolo County District Attorney’s office said in a statement on Wednesday that there was insufficient evidence to prove the use of force was illegal.
UNITED STATES
King writing ‘Shining’ sequel
Readers who have been waiting for more than 30 years to find out what happened to Danny Torrance, the young boy who survived the horrific events of The Shining, can breathe a sigh of relief: Stephen King has finally announced a publication date for his long-awaited sequel. Doctor Sleep will be published on Sept. 24 next year, King has announced — 36 years after The Shining was first published in 1977. King’s Doctor Sleep will take up the story of a middle-aged Dan Torrance, a man who has “been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father’s legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence,” according to King’s UK publisher, Hodder & Stoughton.
UNITED STATES
Reagan shooter not freed
A federal judge refused to rule on Wednesday whether the man who opened fire at former president Ronald Reagan should be freed, ordering a psychiatric hospital to submit a new plan. District Judge Paul Friedman on Wednesday gave the hospital until Oct. 19 to disclose its plan for John Hinckley, who has been held there for 30 years. Friedman held a lengthy set of hearings on the plan that ended in February. The judge has been reviewing Hinckley’s case to decide whether to expand the conditional release rights of the 57-year-old man, who was declared insane during a 1982 proceeding. He lives at St Elizabeths Hospital in Washington.
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
PRECARIOUS RELATIONS: Commentators in Saudi Arabia accuse the UAE of growing too bold, backing forces at odds with Saudi interests in various conflicts A Saudi Arabian media campaign targeting the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deepened the Gulf’s worst row in years, stoking fears of a damaging fall-out in the financial heart of the Middle East. Fiery accusations of rights abuses and betrayal have circulated for weeks in state-run and social media after a brief conflict in Yemen, where Saudi airstrikes quelled an offensive by UAE-backed separatists. The United Arab Emirates is “investing in chaos and supporting secessionists” from Libya to Yemen and the Horn of Africa, Saudi Arabia’s al-Ekhbariya TV charged in a report this week. Such invective has been unheard of
US President Donald Trump on Saturday warned Canada that if it concludes a trade deal with China, he would impose a 100 percent tariff on all goods coming over the border. Relations between the US and its northern neighbor have been rocky since Trump returned to the White House a year ago, with spats over trade and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney decrying a “rupture” in the US-led global order. During a visit to Beijing earlier this month, Carney hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China that resulted in a “preliminary, but landmark trade agreement” to reduce tariffs — but
SCAM CLAMPDOWN: About 130 South Korean scam suspects have been sent home since October last year, and 60 more are still waiting for repatriation Dozens of South Koreans allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia were yesterday returned to South Korea to face investigations in what was the largest group repatriation of Korean criminal suspects from abroad. The 73 South Korean suspects allegedly scammed fellow Koreans out of 48.6 billion won (US$33 million), South Korea said. Upon arrival in South Korea’s Incheon International Airport aboard a chartered plane, the suspects — 65 men and eight women — were sent to police stations. Local TV footage showed the suspects, in handcuffs and wearing masks, being escorted by police officers and boarding buses. They were among about 260 South
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