AUSTRALIA
Royal hoax show canceled
The radio show behind a hoax telephone call to the London hospital where the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge was being treated has been canceled. The show and the two DJs behind the prank last month were widely condemned after the death of a nurse who answered the telephone and helped the DJs get confidential information about Kate Middleton’s health. The Hot 30 program was taken off air following the death of the nurse, Jacintha Saldanha, and the Australian Associated Press reported on Monday that Southern Cross Austereo, the parent company of radio station 2DayFM, announced the program had been formerly canceled. The DJs impersonated Queen Elizabeth II and her son Prince Charles as they phoned London’s King Edward VII hospital in the early hours of Dec. 4 to ask about the condition of the Duchess of Cambridge, who had been hospitalized there after suffering from severe morning sickness. The DJs’ shaky upper-crust accents were apparently enough to fool Saldanha, who put them through to a colleague, who in turn described the details of Kate’s condition. The call went viral and was broadcast the world over, but the incident took a darker turn after Saldanha’s body was found hanging in her room three days after the prank. It was an apparent suicide that many have assumed was related to stress from the call.
AUSTRALIA
PM’s partner in hot water
The partner of Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, whose fiery speech against sexism last year made global headlines, apologized yesterday for making a quip about an “Asian female doctor.” Tim Mathieson made the comment during a reception at The Lodge in Canberra on Monday night attended by members of the West Indies cricket team. Mathieson, who has worked to raise awareness about men’s health issues, brought up the need for men to have regular checks for prostate cancer. “Go and get that exam that none of us like to have done, but we know we should,” Mathieson said. Gillard was standing behind him at the time. “We can get a blood test for it, but the digital examination is the only true way to get a correct reading on your prostate, so make sure you go and do that, and perhaps look for a small Asian female doctor is probably the best way.” The comment was met with laughter at the time, but the opposition said Mathieson’s remark was in bad taste and he later apologized. “It was meant as a joke and on reflection I accept it was in poor taste,” he said in a statement.
MALAYSIA
Pygmy elephants found dead
Ten endangered Borneo pygmy elephants have been found dead in a forest under mysterious circumstances and wildlife officials said yesterday that they were probably poisoned. Carcasses of the baby-faced elephants were found near each other over the past three weeks at the Gunung Rara Forest Reserve, said Laurentius Ambu, director of the wildlife department in Sabah State on Borneo island. In one case, officers rescued a three-month-old calf that was trying to wake its dead mother. Poisoning appeared to be the likely cause, but officials have not determined whether it was intentional, Sabah Environmental Minister Masidi Manjun said. Though some elephants have been killed for their tusks on Sabah in past years, there was no sign that these animals had been poached. “This is a very sad day for conservation and Sabah,” Masidi said in a statement. “If indeed these poor elephants were maliciously poisoned, I would personally make sure that the culprits would be brought to justice and pay for their crime.”
UNITED STATES
Man has arms transplant
A soldier who lost all four limbs in a 2009 roadside bomb attack in Iraq has received a rare double arm transplant, Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, said on Monday. The infantryman is one of just seven people in the nation who have successfully received the complex transplant. The transplant was paired with an innovative treatment to prevent rejection of the new limbs, which involved an infusion of the deceased donor’s bone marrow cells.
NETHERLANDS
Queen to abdicate
Queen Beatrix said on Monday that she would abdicate in favor of her son Crown Prince Willem Alexander after 33 years in power. “It is with the greatest of confidence, that I will hand over the throne on April 30 to my son Willem Alexander, Prince of Orange,” Beatrix said in a televised address. The queen, who turns 75 tomorrow, said her birthday and this year’s 200th anniversary of the monarchy “were the reason for me to step down.” Beatrix’s abdication will end more than 100 years of female reign on the Dutch throne. Willem-Alexander is a 45-year-old father of three young daughters, an International Olympic Committee member, a pilot and a water management expert. Over the years, he has struggled to win the affection of his nation’s 16 million people, but his immensely popular wife, the Argentine-born Maxima, has helped him gain more acceptance.
UNITED STATES
Wave carries off woman
A woman drowned after she was swept out to sea by a large wave in the third such tragedy in Northern California this season, authorities said. Humboldt County Coroner David Parris on Monday identified the victim as Susan Archer, 32, of Shelter Cove. Archer was walking on a rocky beach near her home with her boyfriend and dog on Sunday when the wave pulled her into the ocean, Parris said. Archer’s boyfriend was hurt when he was thrown against the shoreline rocks, but he was not swept up by the wave, officials said. Her dog was pulled into the water, but was able to swim back to shore.
UNITED STATES
‘Maternity tourism’ targeted
Los Angeles County is planning a crackdown on makeshift maternity wards where pregnant women, mostly from Asia, stay while giving birth so their children will be US citizens. The county has received 60 complaints about such facilities in the past month, the Los Angeles Times reported on Sunday. That compared with just 15 complaints in the previous five years. County Supervisor Don Knabe wants to develop a law that would outlaw such facilities. “They’re a moneymaking machine. They’re totally unsafe,” Knabe said. “It’s so obvious that they jeopardize not only the health of the baby, but the mother as well.”
MEXICO
Video urges forgiveness
An order of Roman Catholic priests has produced a video urging relatives of drug cartel victims to forgive killers. The 10-minute, video entitled Brother Narco, tells the story of Miri, a 13-year-old girl who cowers in her bedroom as a gunman murders her parents. The video ends with the girl hugging the killer. The scriptwriter, Father Omar Sotelo, said on Monday that such acts of forgiveness may be improbable, but represent a way to “rehumanize” vicious killers.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not