FRANCE
Penis-rooster dancer guilty
A Paris court yesterday found a South African artist guilty of sexual exhibitionism after a performance in Paris that saw him dance with a rooster tied to his penis. However, the criminal court imposed no penalty on the artist, 51-year-old Steven Cohen, saying that no complaint had been filed against him and that he had not engaged in sexual acts. Prosecutors had requested a 1,000 euro (US$1,390) fine. Cohen was arrested in September last year after the performance in a busy public square near the Eiffel Tower. Sporting platform shoes and an outlandish costume, including feathers on his fingers and a headdress made of a stuffed pheasant, he danced for 10 minutes with his penis attached to the rooster, before police stepped in. “What I did was art [that] had nothing to do with sexuality,” he had told the court, adding that no one — even a group of passing nuns — had complained about the performance.
VENEZUELA
Fugitive trafficker extradited
The government has extradited to Italy a convicted drug trafficker on the run from his native country for almost two decades. Officials say 65-year-old Vito Genco was arrested last month near a shopping center in Valencia. They say he was convicted in absentia by an Italian appeals court in the mid-1990s of helping smuggle 11 tonnes of cocaine from Colombia. Venezuelan authorities did not say how long Genco was in the country or what he was doing there.
BRAZIL
Gay pride parade staged
Revelers thronged central Sao Paulo for the city’s annual gay pride parade on Sunday amid calls to criminalize homophobic behavior. Main thoroughfares were closed to traffic for the 18th edition of the march, which began at midday in front of the Museum of Art on the main Paulista drag. Marchers at the event, first held in 1997 and the largest gay parade in the world, are urging the criminalization of homophobia in a country “without homo-lesbo-transphobia.” More than 300 homosexuals, tranvestites and transsexuals were killed in crimes of a homophobic nature last year, non-governmental organization Grupo Gay de Bahia said in February. Although the total was down 7.7 percent from 2012, the group said it still left the country top of the global league for homophobic homicides and urged government action. The group estimated four in 10 such crimes worldwide occur in Brazil. Legislation designed to crack down on homophobia has met resistance from Catholic and evangelist lawmakers in parliament. However, the Supreme Court in 2011 did recognize same-sex partnerships. Last year’s march drew an estimated 3 million revelers.
ISRAEL
Memorial Day observed
Israel has opened its annual Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism. Sirens wailed on Sunday night across the country, bringing it to a standstill. Israelis stopped in their tracks at 8pm and stood silently for a minute to honor and remember the dead. The main memorial ceremony took place at Jerusalem’s Western Wall. Israel says 23,169 security personnel have been killed since 1860, when Jews began moving back to the area. The observance marks one of the most somber dates on the Israeli calendar. Places of entertainment shut. Radio and TV air documentaries about wars and soldiers killed. Another siren was to sound yesterday at 11am. The sad atmosphere ends sharply at sundown. Israelis then joyfully take to the streets for independence day celebrations.
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