■ MALAYSIA
Baby ‘sitter’ sentenced
A court official said a babysitter had been sentenced to 15 years in prison for causing the death of a toddler by sitting on her. The Kuala Lumpur High Court convicted Megat Shahrizat Megat Shahrur of culpable homicide not amounting to murder for causing injuries that led to the two-year-old girl’s death in 2001, the official said. Witnesses testified that Megat Shahrizat looked after Nur Izzatul Shahira while her mother was away. When she wouldn’t stop crying one night, he slapped her and sat on her, causing her liver and pancreas to rupture.
■ NEW ZEALAND
Lawmaker smashes watch
The country’s first Rastafarian lawmaker smashed his watch to pieces during his final speech in parliament on Thursday, saying that he was now free from “the prison bars of time.” Green Party legislator Nandor Tanczos said the first thing he had done when he entered parliament in 1999 was buy a watch and he had been “cuffed” to it ever since. “So today I remove that shackle,” the dread-locked lawmaker said before smashing his watch with a hammer. Tanczos, a Rastafarian who says he smokes marijuana “for religious reasons” and who has campaigned tirelessly but without success for it to be legalized, announced earlier this year that he intended to quit politics because it had changed his life. Tanczos said that most lawmakers began with honest intentions, but many were compromised by the system. He told lawmakers that he would go away to cleanse his soul.
■ INDIA
Pilots drink before flying
Around 50 pilots each year are being grounded because they consume alcohol before taking a flight, the country’s civil aviation authorities said on Tuesday. The Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), a body controlling airline operations in the nation, said dozens of pilots are found to have consumed alcohol during routine pre-medical tests every year. India is one of the fastest growing aviation markets in the world with dozens of new airlines competing with each other everyday, often resulting in pilots forced to fly at short notices.
■ CHINA
Drug makers pay for deaths
A court ordered a hospital and three pharmaceutical companies to pay 3.5 million yuan (US$509,800) in compensation for a fake drug case that killed 14 people, state media said yesterday. The patients died of kidney failure after being given the drug in a Guangzhou hospital made by a company in the northeastern city of Qiqihar, the official China Daily said. Five employees of the drug firm have already been given jail sentences of up to seven years, it said. The lawsuit was lodged by nine relatives of the victims and two former patients who fell ill after taking the drugs.
■ INDONESIA
18 missing in plane crash
An airplane belonging to the Indonesian Air Force with 18 people on board was missing and presumed crashed in thick jungle in West Java Province, officials said yesterday. Air Force spokesman Chaeruddin Ray said three among 18 people on board the aircraft were foreigners and their fate remained unknown. Officials from the national search and rescue agency said the plane disappeared from radar screens at 3:03pm on Thursday around Mount Salak, about 40km south of Jakarta. They said dense jungle and mountainous terrain were hampering the search.
■ SWEDEN
Drive-in nuptials lure many
The Church of Sweden will carry out drive-in weddings lasting about 7 minutes at a car rally next month in a bid to make marriage more accessible, it said on Thursday. Thirty-six couples have applied to get married at a gathering of auto enthusiasts in Vasteras in central Sweden, said priest Jerker Asterlund, the scheme’s initiator. “Weddings are getting more and more commercialized and that is not something we have any interest in. We would like to make things simpler and more down to earth when people take the plunge and get married,” he said. The wedding ceremonies will be carried by 10 priests alongside the focal point of the auto gathering, a motorcade of 1950s and 1960s cars. A gospel choir and a priest singing Elvis tunes will provide the soundtrack to the festivities, Asterlund said.
■ RUSSIA
Deal on Abkhazia offered
Georgia is offering to resolve its row with Russia over the breakaway Abkhazia region by splitting it into Georgian and Russian spheres of influence, Russia’s Kommersant newspaper said yesterday, citing officials in both countries. Abkhazia is recognized as part of Georgia, but it is run by separatists with support from Moscow. Kommersant said Georgia was offering to accept the separatists’ de facto control and the presence of Russian peacekeepers in the northern part of Abkhazia, including the capital, Sukhumi. In exchange, Tbilisi wants Russian peacekeepers to withdraw from the Gali and Ochamchira districts in the south of Abkhazia and for ethnic Georgians to be allowed to return, the newspaper said. Officials in Moscow and Tbilisi could not immediately be reached for comment.
■ NETHERLANDS
City to ban polluting cars
The Amsterdam City Council yesterday voted in favor of a bill to ban polluting cars like SUVs from entering the old city center. The opposition parties criticized the bill, which it called an “antisocial car plan, instead of a plan to improve the air quality in Amsterdam.” The air quality in several parts of the city center is below the acceptable level. Local politicians have been looking for ways to reduce car traffic. By prohibiting polluting cars from entering the city, the air quality could improve within the next two years, councilors said. Minister for Infrastructure and Traffic Camiel Eurlings said he favored the government initiating a national policy to improve air quality rather than allowing individual Dutch cities to initiate their own policies.
■ FRANCE
Hotel demolition party held
The dress code was strict for this season’s most happening party in Paris: white paper overalls, rubber boots and gloves, safety goggles, dust mask, orange hard hat. Oh, and the sledge hammer. Essential for smashing up the room of your choice on the fourth floor of the Royal Monceau. More than 1,200 revelers ran amok into the wee hours yesterday in the five-star hotel, a stately 265-room pile near the Arc de Triomphe. Its new owner, Alexandre Allard, 39, is shutting its doors for 15 months for a roof-to-cellar refit in collaboration with celebrated designer Philippe Starck, 59. Allard invited plenty to his “Demolition Party” — US indy rockers Gossip, Belgian electronic punk band 2 Many DJs and French rapper MC Solaar, to name just some of the musicians. Bemused by the goings-on were T-shirted workers from the contractor that would professionally finish gutting the hotel. Supervising the amateurs, one of them sniffed: “We’re the one who get to pick up this mess.”
■ UNITED STATES
Odd ducks in bird family tree
The largest study ever of bird genetics has uncovered some surprising facts about the avian evolutionary tree, US researchers said on Thursday, including many that are bound to ruffle some feathers. Falcons, for example, are not closely related to hawks and eagles, while colorful hummingbirds, which flit around in the day, evolved from a drab-looking nocturnal bird called a nightjar. Parrots and songbirds are closer cousins than once thought and water-loving flamingos and some other aquatic birds did not evolve from water birds but adapted to life on water. The findings challenge many assumptions about bird family relationships and suggest many biology textbooks and bird-watchers’ field guides may need to be changed. “Modern birds as we know them evolved really rapidly, probably within a few million years, into all of the forms we see. That happened 65 to 100 million years ago,” Sushma Reddy of Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History said in a telephone interview. The study appears in the journal Science.
■ BRAZIL
Wood exporters to sign pact
Wood exporters in an Amazon state have agreed to shun illegally logged wood, the environment ministry said on Thursday. Environment Minister Carlos Minc said he would sign the deal with the Para State Wood Exporters’ Association on July 18. “The objective is to keep illegal wood from getting exported and to allow consumers to get engaged in this campaign,” he said in a statement. The agreement is similar to a 2006 pact with soy crushers, who agreed not to purchase soybeans grown in illegally deforested areas of the Amazon.
■ UNITED STATES
‘Titanic’ life jacket sold
An unused life jacket from the Titanic sold for US$68,500 in New York on Wednesday, Christie’s auction house said. The cork-filled life preserver — still largely intact, but stained and torn in parts —- was thought to have been found by farmer John James Dunbar on the Halifax, Canada, shoreline after the passenger ship sank off Newfoundland in April, 1912. Maritime specialist Gregg Dietrich said the jacket — believed to be one of six remaining —- appeared to have been unused because the shoulder straps were still intact. Titanic passengers tended to have had their life preservers cut off to ease removal from their damaged skin.
■ UNITED STATES
Suspect hits police garage
A man being sought by police for questioning in a series of traffic accidents was arrested after crashing his truck in a state police garage in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The 36-year-old man faces charges including criminal trespass, reckless endangerment and possession of drug paraphernalia. Police said the man broke through the access arm at the front gate of state police headquarters on Thursday, drove his pickup into an open garage door and then crashed into a vehicle lift. The suspect was arrested when he attempted to flee.
■ UNITED STATES
Wheeled brothel’s ride ends
Miami Beach undercover detectives who paid a US$40 entry fee and boarded a stretch limousine bus on Sunday found women onboard offering oral sex and lap dances for money, Florida authorities said. Authorities arrested Christine Morteh, 29, of Miramar, and the driver, Clyde Scott, along with four other people on Sunday. Morteh faces charges including offering to commit or engage in prostitution and conducting business without a license.
The pledge by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to “work, work, work, work and work” for her country has been named the catchphrase of the year, recognizing the effort Japan’s first female leader had to make to reach the top. Takaichi uttered the phrase in October when she was elected as head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Many were initially as worried about her work ethic as supportive of her enthusiasm. In a country notorious for long working hours, especially for working women who are also burdened with homemaking and caregiving, overwork is a sensitive topic. The recognition triggered a
‘HEART IS ACHING’: Lee appeared to baffle many when he said he had never heard of six South Koreans being held in North Korea, drawing criticism from the families South Korean President Lee Jae-myung yesterday said he was weighing a possible apology to North Korea over suspicions that his ousted conservative predecessor intentionally sought to raise military tensions between the war-divided rivals in the buildup to his brief martial law declaration in December last year. Speaking to reporters on the first anniversary of imprisoned former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol’s ill-fated power grab, Lee — a liberal who won a snap presidential election following Yoon’s removal from office in April — stressed his desire to repair ties with Pyongyang. A special prosecutor last month indicted Yoon and two of his top
The Philippines deferred the awarding of a project that is part of a plan to build one of the world’s longest marine bridges after local opposition over the potential involvement of a Chinese company due to national security fears. The proposals are “undergoing thorough review” by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which acts as a lender and an overseer of the project to ensure it meets international environmental and governance standards, the Philippine Department of Public Works and Highways said in a statement on Monday in response to queries from Bloomberg. The agency said it would announce the winning bidder once ADB
IN ABSENTIA: The MP for Hampstead and Highgate in London, a niece of deposed Bangladesh prime minister Sheik Hasina, condemned the ‘flawed and farcical’ trial A court in Bangladesh yesterday sentenced British Member of Parliament Tulip Siddiq to two years in jail after a judge ruled she was complicit in corrupt land deals with her aunt, the country’s deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina. A judge found Siddiq, the Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate, guilty of misusing her “special influence” as a British politician to coerce Hasina into giving valuable pieces of land to her mother, brother and sister. Siddiq’s mother, Sheikh Rehana, was given seven years in prison and considered the prime participant in the case. The trial had been carried out in absentia: Neither Hasina, Siddiq,
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