PHILIPPINES
Worst airport in the world
The nation’s main airport terminal in Metro Manila has been named the world’s worst for the second year in a row in a survey by an online travel Web site. Officials yesterday dismissed the survey results, insisting conditions were being improved. “The Guide to Sleeping in Airports” Web site said Manila’s crowded Terminal 1 was ranked the world’s worst by travelers based on comfort, convenience, cleanliness and customer service. Reviews posted on the site mentioned “dilapidated facilities,” dishonest airport workers — particularly taxi drivers — long waiting times and rude officials. “These are old issues,” Terminal 1 manager Dante Basanta said, adding that the problems were already being addressed by the government.
HONG KONG
US director Bay attacked
Hollywood director Michael Bay was attacked during his stay in the territory to shoot the latest Transformers film, suffering injuries to his face, reports said on Thursday. Police said they had arrested two men in the early hours of Thursday morning after the attack on a 48-year-old man named by local media as the Armageddon director. The two men reportedly confronted Bay and his film crew in the Quarry Bay District, claiming they were owed HK$100,000 (US$12,900) compensation for filming in the area. Police have handed the case to specialist anti-triad units reserved for tackling criminal gangs.
RUSSIA
Band member drops plea
Jailed Pussy Riot punk band member Maria Alekhina yesterday withdrew her plea for an early release in a show of support for a bandmate now in hospital after going on hunger strike to protest over prison conditions. Alekhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova are serving a two-year sentence for what critics termed a profanity-laden protest against Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow’s main cathedral. “I do not have any moral right to take part in this court hearing at a time when my friend and fellow convict Nadezhda Tolokonnikova does not have such opportunity,” Alyokhina told the court in the city of Nizhny Novgorod. “She is currently in hospital or back in that same prison which we have heard horrible things about.”
CHINA
Child sold for iPhone: report
A young couple are facing criminal punishment for “selling” their daughter and using part of the proceeds to buy an Apple iPhone, state media said yesterday. Shanghai prosecutors have brought a case against the couple for human trafficking after they illegally put their third child up for adoption through online postings and accepted money for the baby, the Liberation Daily reported. Investigators said the mother used the money to buy an iPhone, high-end sports shoes and other products, also online, it said. In an incident widely reported last year, a teenager sold his kidney and used the funds to buy an iPhone and an iPad.
UNITED STATES
Maya Angelou honored
Her body weak, her voice rich and strong, Maya Angelou sang, lectured and reminisced as she accepted a lifetime achievement award on Thursday night from the Norman Mailer Center. The 85-year-old author, poet, dancer and actress was honored during a benefit gala at the New York Public Library, the annual gathering organized by the Mailer Center and writers colony.
UNITED STATES
Security head named
President Barack Obama was to nominate attorney Jeh Johnson yesterday to be the next secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, a White House official said on Thursday. Johnson, who served as general counsel in the Department of Defense during Obama’s first term, would succeed Janet Napolitano, who stepped down earlier this year. Johnson is now a partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. He authored a report that helped lead to the 2010 repeal of the “Don’t’ Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that prevented gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military.
UNITED STATES
Man faces jail over bombs
A man was charged on Thursday with planting at least two “dry ice” bombs at the main Los Angeles airport, and could face up to six years in jail, police said. Airport employee Dicarlo Bennett — who police say set off the devices as a prank rather than anything more sinister — pleaded not guilty to two counts of possessing a destructive device in a public place. Nobody was injured by the devices going off, but they led to evacuations and disrupted flights. One of the contraptions that exploded was placed early on Sunday evening in an employee restroom at the airport, police said. A second was deposited near an aircraft at the Tom Bradley International Terminal, police added.
UNITED STATES
Sex offender told to register
Authorities in Seattle have ordered a high-risk sex offender who recently fled Canada to register so officials can keep track of him. Michael Sean Stanley, 48, was found on Thursday in downtown Seattle and told to register as a sex offender, the Seattle Police Department said. He was not arrested because Canadian authorities have declined to try extraditing him, although Seattle police said he could be arrested if he fails to register. Stanley has a long history of sexual offenses against women and children and had been missing since Oct. 1, when he cut off his electronic-monitoring bracelet near the Alberta-Saskatchewan boundary.
SOUTH AFRICA
Activist shot dead: union
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) yesterday said one of its shaft chairpersons at platinum producer Lonmin was shot dead in the restive platinum belt town of Marikana, an incident sure to stoke labor tensions. The NUM has had tens of thousands of members in the platinum shafts poached by a rival group, the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, in a turf war that killed dozens of people last year. Sporadic killings have occurred this year. Police spokesman Thulani Ngubane confirmed a man was gunned down on Thursday night, but did not release his name and said the reason for the shooting was unknown. Lonmin spokeswoman Sue Vey said the victim was the NUM chairperson at the Roland shaft at the company’s Western Platinum mine.
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
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
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