MALAYSIA
‘Spa’ clients take a licking
Dodgy “spas” are dispensing with massage oil in favor of cream cheese in a kinky new offering in the erotic massage industry, a report said. Sunday’s edition of Malay-language tabloid the Harian Metro said its reporters discovered that some spas near Kuala Lumpur were offering customers the option of being smeared with cream cheese. The cheese is then licked from the customer’s body by their scantily-clad “masseuse,” likely a sex worker from China, Indonesia or Vietnam, the paper said. In a follow-up report yesterday, Harian Metro quoted an official in Kuala Lumpur suburb Subang Jaya as saying massage parlors would face stern action if found to be offering “irresponsible activities.” “This activity is a serious disease in today’s society,” Subang Jaya Town Council official Azfarizal Abdul Rashid said.
CHINA
School demolished for resort
A rural elementary school built using charity money has been torn down to make way for a sprawling, US$1.6 billion “international resort,” local media reported yetserday, provoking outrage online. The school, which mainly served children from farming families in Yanling County, Hunan Province, was torn down less than two years after it was built, the Beijing Youth Daily reported. The 900,000 yuan (US$150,000) cost of construction had been funded by Project Hope, a charity group that promotes educational projects in poverty-stricken parts of the country. It had 28 students who are now studying in prefabricated buildings within sight of the rubble of their former classrooms, the newspaper said. The Daily quoted county officials as saying the site will soon be home to the Shennong Valley International Cultural Tourism Resort, a project with an estimated price tag of 10 billion yuan. According to previous state media reports, the “high-end cultural tourism” project includes health and fitness facilities, a museum and an “original ecological hotel.”
AUSTRALIA
Sites hacked over spying
Activist group Anonymous Indonesia yesterday claimed it had defaced more than 170 local Web sites to protest reports that Canberra’s overseas diplomatic posts were involved in a vast US-led surveillance network that targeted Jakarta in 2007. “Hundreds of Australian Websites Attacked for #OpAustralia By Indonesian Hackers,” it posted on Twitter, listing the sites, which appeared to belong mostly to small businesses. Calling up the pages was met with the message: “Stop Spying on Indonesia” underneath an Indonesian flag imprinted with a black graphic of the face of Guy Fawkes, whose image is used as a mask by Anonymous internationally. The sites were seemingly selected at random, covering businesses from catering to dry cleaning.
EGYPT
Court adjourns Morsi trial
A court yesterday adjourned to Jan. 8 the trial of ousted president Mohamed Morsi over his alleged involvement in the death of protesters during his year in power. Morsi, in his first public appearance since the army deposed him in July, rejected the proceedings and told the court: “I am Dr Mohamed Morsi, the president of the republic... This court is illegal,” a foreign correspondent attending the trial reported. He slammed his overthrow and called on military leaders to face trial. “This was a military coup. The leaders of the coup should be tried. A coup is treason and a crime,” he said. Morsi and 14 others are charged with inciting the deaths of protesters in December last year. They face execution or life sentences.
GERMANY
Art looted by Nazis found
Nearly 1,500 priceless paintings, including works by Picasso and Matisse, that were stolen by the Nazis have been discovered in an apartment in Munich, a news report said on Sunday. Local weekly Focus said police came upon the paintings during a 2011 search in an apartment belonging to the octogenarian son of art collector Hildebrand Gurlitt, who had bought them during the 1930s and 1940s. The search was carried out because the son, Cornelius Gurlitt, was under suspicion for tax evasion, Focus said. The report said the works were thought to be worth about 1 billion euros (US$1.3 billion) on today’s market. The paintings lay hidden in Gurlitt’s apartment for more than half a century, the paper said. Gurlitt, a recluse without a job, had sold a few over the course of the years, living off the proceeds, the paper reported. His father, despite having a Jewish grandmother, had become indispensable to officials in the Third Reich because of his art expertise and his vast network of contacts. Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, put Gurlitt in charge of exporting the art, which the Nazi party considered “degenerate.” The collection also included many of the great masters of the 20th century, among them the German painters Emil Nolde, Franz Marc, Max Beckmann and Max Liebermann.
MEXICO
Thirteen killed in gunfights
Thirteen people were killed in shootouts on Sunday around Matamoros, in one of the worst recent outbreaks of violence in an area ravaged by drug gangs. Three gunfights took place around the city opposite Brownsville, Texas, two of which were exchanges between gunmen and the armed forces, according to a statement from the Tamaulipas State Government. Eight men died in the fighting with marines after four men and one woman were killed in an earlier clash between unidentified armed groups, the state government said. None of the dead have yet been identified.
MEXICO
‘Zombies’ rob jewelry store
Authorities say armed thieves dressed as zombies and other scary Halloween characters robbed a jewelry store in Mexico City. City police say the robbers barged into the store on Saturday night with handguns and rifles and rounded up the employees. The thieves carried hammers they used to smash showcases and made off with chains, rings and bracelets with a total estimated value of more than 1 million pesos (US$76,500). Police say unarmed private security guards at the shopping center in Mexico City’s central district arrived, but the robbers threatened them with their weapons and fled.
COLOMBIA
Bust nets 1,450kg cocaine
US and local anti-drug agents cooperated in a massive bust in the southern Caribbean that led to the confiscation of 1,450kg of cocaine, authorities said on Sunday. Police said they tipped off their US counterparts that a “go-fast” boat suspected of carrying the drugs, allegedly belonging to Los Urabenos gang, had departed from the town of Manaure in Guajira. “After we shared the info with the US DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration], they alerted the US Navy, which intercepted the [Colombian] boat in international waters,” they said in a statement. The boat had been bound for the Dominican Republic and was carrying 1,450kg of cocaine, the statement said. So far, four Venezuelans and a Colombian have been detained in the case. The five suspects were transferred to Tampa, Florida, where they are expected to be charged.
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