■ THAILAND
Roadside bomb kills one
A roadside bomb planted by suspected separatist rebels killed one soldier and wounded five yesterday in the insurgency-torn south, police said. A 47-year-old sergeant major died after the powerful blast overturned a military pick-up truck in Pattani Province, police said. Among the five wounded soldiers, two of them were in serious condition in a Pattani hospital, the local police chief said. The bombing came as military-installed Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont traveled to the Muslim-majority south, which is observing Ramadan, for the ground-breaking ceremony of a new Islamic school.
■ CHINA
Shows deemed `too explicit'
Chinese regulators have ordered 11 radio shows off the air for talking too explicitly about sex. The order on Friday by China's broadcast agency added to a series of recent moves to ban radio or television programs deemed too vulgar or sexually oriented. The latest shows targeted broadcast material of an "extreme pornographic nature" about sex lives, the effectiveness of sex-related drugs and other topics, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television said. Regulators said those responsible would be "dealt with" but gave no indication whether they might face criminal charges.
■ MYANMAR
Junta cuts phone lines
Myanmar's military junta has cut off the phones of 50 activists and organizations, including the National League for Democracy (NLD), in an apparent attempt to halt weeks of protests, sources said on Friday. "They have cut off the phone line to my home and our headquarters," Myint Thein, an NLD spokesman, said. Other dissident sources said that, in all, 50 mobile and landline telephones had been cut off, possibly to prevent contact with the foreign media or exile news organizations whose reports are broadcast back into the former Burma on shortwave radio.
■ CAMBODIA
Sex trade recruits virgins
The strong demand for young virgin girls from men who patronize prostitutes in Cambodia fuels the entry of underage women into the commercial sex trade, a humanitarian group said in a report on Friday. More than one-third of female sex workers surveyed for the report by the International Organization for Migration said they entered the sector through the sale of their virginity. The report said 203 women and girls were interviewed in depth for the study. The average age of girls who sold their virginity was 16-17 years old, it said. Though some girls sold their virginity voluntarily, many were tricked into the trade by friends and relatives or were forced by poverty and domestic violence into it.
■ MALAYSIA
Workers stranded at airport
Thousands of foreign workers, mostly from Bangladesh, have been forced to camp in the parking lot of Kuala Lumpur's international airport while waiting for their employers, a report said yesterday. The Star newspaper said the immigration department had turned a section of the car park into a temporary shelter for the foreigners. One worker, Bangladeshi Kho Kan, told the daily that he had arrived two days ago with 24 other men who had been told they would be working in Malaysian factories. An agent said that delays were often caused by miscommunication. "Some agents had no idea that their workers had arrived, so they were not here to pick [them] up," he told the Star.
■ ALBANIA
Man keeps word, burns van
An Albanian fishmonger set fire to his van in a burst of anger after the national soccer team lost to the visiting Dutch side, and firefighters failed to extinguish the blaze because someone had stolen their water. Vilson Alushi had vowed to burn his fish-delivery van if Albania failed to win a point against the Netherlands on Wednesday. Dutch striker Ruud van Nistelrooy put paid to his hopes with a goal in injury time to end the game 1-0. Alushi duly doused his car with gasoline in the southern town of Delvine and watched indifferently as his friends alerted the firefighters, newspapers reported. They arrived promptly and unreeled the hose, only to find it was dry. It seems that residents had drained the tank to help them cope with Albania's chronic water shortage.
■ NIGERIA
Senate pans sexy banks
Nigerian banks must stop using attractive women to persuade customers to open accounts, Senate President David Mark was quoted as saying in newspapers on Thursday. Mark said that despite a consolidation of the sector in 2005 that reduced the number of banks to 25 from 89 and was supposed to make them more efficient, many banks still used women to attract new business. "Banks have made it a policy to employ beautiful ladies and give them targets to meet," Mark said during the inauguration of the new Senate committee on banking and insurance Wednesday. "Why is it that all these girls are now moving around hustling as if they are looking for something other than money?"
■ SPAIN
Hailstones kill man
A man was killed by hailstones in southern Jaen Province and two other people were missing after heavy rain, authorities said on Friday. The dead man was working in his garden when he was hit by a sudden storm. "[The storm] hit him by surprise and he didn't get a chance to react to the amount of hail which fell in such a short time," the mayor of the town of Chilluevar told state radio. Police are searching for two people after the remains of their car was found on a road in the Andalusian province.
■ ISRAEL
Madonna rings in New Year
Clapping and singing, pop music star Madonna joined in a Kabbalah conference on Friday in Tel Aviv to celebrate the Jewish New Year. Madonna was singing Jewish songs with the crowd of hundreds at the David Intercontinental Hotel where the conference on Jewish mysticism was being held. At one point she pressed another participant -- apparently a friend of hers -- up to the front where he danced excitedly, making her and the crowd giggle and clap enthusiastically.
■ Spain
Mosquito fells bullfighter
After surviving 57 bullfights this season with the usual share of gorings, tramplings and tossings, bullfighter Jose Maria Manzanares has been hit by dengue fever. Manzanares, 25, likely contracted the tropical virus transmitted by mosquito bite during a Latin America tour involving appearances in Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela, doctors say. Manzanares had been fainting and generally feeling unwell for months, but doctors could not decide what was wrong with him until detailed tests showed he was suffering from one of the milder forms of dengue.
■ CANADA
Man fined for going to work
A sick bakery worker has been fined C$1,000 (US$970) for ignoring an order to stay at home until he recovered from symptoms of salmonella poisoning, medical officials said on Thursday. Health inspectors in Edmonton, Alberta, had told Adam Duerr to stay at home until tests showed he had recovered. But Duerr, 20, failed to have himself tested and went back to work. He appeared in court on Wednesday. In addition, the bakery was fined C$1,500 and the owner C$1,000.
■ UNITED STATES
Carriage horse dies in NYC
A carriage horse died near Central Park on Friday after it was startled by a loud noise and darted onto a sidewalk, where it became stuck between two poles and died while it tried to lunge forward, police and witnesses said. The events began about 4:50pm on Central Park South between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas, where several carriage horses waited in a row. According to witnesses, a man walked past the horses while beating a small drum, which caused a brown horse that was hitched to a carriage to bolt onto the sidewalk, darting between two poles that were about 60cm apart. The horse made it through but the carriage did not, and as the horse struggled to move forward, it collapsed and died, witnesses said.
■ UNITED STATES
Fake obit investigated
Prosecutors are investigating whether a phony obituary was placed in an Indiana newspaper in an attempt to keep a convicted forger out of prison. The obituary reporting the supposed death and cremation of Shawnda Hatfield was faxed to Delaware Circuit Court Judge Robert Barnet Jr. But Hatfield, 41, was later found at her home and arrested. Barnet sentenced her on Thursday to four years in prison for altering a check drawn on the account of White Feather Farms, where she formerly worked. Hatfield said she had no idea how her obituary ended up in the Star Press.
■ UNITED STATES
O.J. Simpson investigated
O.J. Simpson says he went into a casino hotel room only to retrieve memorabilia that he felt was stolen from him. But police are investigating it as an armed robbery and named the fallen football star as a suspect in yet another surprising chapter to his legal saga. In an interview on Friday, Simpson insisted there were no guns involved and that he went to the room at the Palace Station casino on Thursday night only to get stolen mementos that included his Hall of Fame certificate and a picture of the running back with former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. "It's stolen stuff that's mine. Nobody was roughed up," Simpson said.
■ UNITED STATES
Nudity no longer as shocking
Two decades after a nude photo scandal helped cost a Miss America her title, Americans may be adopting a more ho-hum attitude toward people who bare it all for the cameras. Specialists say the Internet and more explicit TV are fostering a more relaxed response to public displays of bare flesh. Take, for example, the muted reaction to nude photos of 18-year-old Vanessa Hudgens, the star of Walt Disney squeaky clean High School Musical franchise. One day after the photos surfaced on the Web on Thursday, Hudgens issued an apology and family-friendly Walt Disney Co said it would continue negotiating her appearance in the third installment of the popular series.
FRAUD ALLEGED: The leader of an opposition alliance made allegations of electoral irregularities and called for a protest in Tirana as European leaders are to meet Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s Socialist Party scored a large victory in parliamentary elections, securing him his fourth term, official results showed late on Tuesday. The Socialist Party won 52.1 percent of the vote on Sunday compared with 34.2 percent for an alliance of opposition parties led by his main rival Sali Berisha, according to results released by the Albanian Central Election Commission. Diaspora votes have yet to be counted, but according to initial results, Rama was also leading there. According to projections, the Socialist Party could have more lawmakers than in 2021 elections. At the time, it won 74 seats in the
A Croatian town has come up with a novel solution to solve the issue of working parents when there are no public childcare spaces available: pay grandparents to do it. Samobor, near the capital, Zagreb, has become the first in the country to run a “Grandmother-Grandfather Service,” which pays 360 euros (US$400) a month per child. The scheme allows grandparents to top up their pension, but the authorities also hope it will boost family ties and tackle social isolation as the population ages. “The benefits are multiple,” Samobor Mayor Petra Skrobot told reporters. “Pensions are rather low and for parents it is sometimes
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
CANCER: Jose Mujica earned the moniker ‘world’s poorest president’ for giving away much of his salary and living a simple life on his farm, with his wife and dog Tributes poured in on Tuesday from across Latin America following the death of former Uruguayan president Jose “Pepe” Mujica, an ex-guerrilla fighter revered by the left for his humility and progressive politics. He was 89. Mujica, who spent a dozen years behind bars for revolutionary activity, lost his battle against cancer after announcing in January that the disease had spread and he would stop treatment. “With deep sorrow, we announce the passing of our comrade Pepe Mujica. President, activist, guide and leader. We will miss you greatly, old friend,” Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi wrote on X. “Pepe, eternal,” a cyclist shouted out minutes later,
RSS