■MALAYSIA
More Chinese in sex trade
Chinese women topped the list of foreign prostitutes arrested last year, the New Straits Times daily reported yesterday. A total of 4,496 Chinese women were detained during anti-vice raids conducted nationwide. Police also nabbed 1,389 Indonesian women, 1,049 Thai nationals, 1,090 Filipinas and 512 Vietnamese women, all of whom were believed to be working as prostitutes in entertainment outlets and budget hotels, Bakri Zinin, the director of criminal investigations, was quoted as saying by the daily. He said a newly formed anti-trafficking unit has also rescued 39 foreign nationals forced into the trade.
■CHINA
Uruguayan president visits
Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez arrived in China yesterday for a six-day visit during which he will hold talks with his Chinese counterpart and witness the signing of several cooperation agreements. Vazquez is scheduled to hold talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) and Wu Bangguo (吳邦國), the No. 2 official in the Communist Party.
■AUSTRALIA
Jet makes quick landing
An Emirates flight with 225 passengers on board made an emergency landing in Melbourne after the Airbus A340’s tail struck the tarmac during take-off, officials said yesterday. Flight EK407, headed for Dubai, circled the airport for more than 30 minutes to dump fuel before landing safely and without any injuries to passengers late on Friday. Passengers described their fear as the plane had to circle to lighten its load of fuel before returning to land. “It was terrifying, it really was scary. I’d hate to go through it again,” Catherine Edmunds told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
■KYRGYZSTAN
Election date fuels suspicion
Parliament voted on Friday to hold an early presidential election on July 23, timing that the opposition alleged indicated incumbent Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s government would try to rig the vote. Bakiyev said last month that he would seek a second term. Many observers believe he wants to hold the elections before the disunited opposition has a chance to regroup. “It is likely the election date was set for the middle of summer to make it easier to falsify the outcome, by taking advantage of the fact that people are on holiday and uninterested in politics in that period,” said Bakyt Beshimov, leader of the opposition Social Democrat party faction in parliament. Bakiyev was elected to a four-year term in 2005 after opposition protests drove his predecessor from office, but the Constitution was later amended to increase the maximum presidential term by a year.
■INDIA
Police want attacker dead
Mumbai police have demanded the death penalty for the lone surviving suspect from November’s militant attacks on the city, ahead of a trial expected to begin tomorrow. Pakistani national Mohammed Ajmal Amir Iman, also known as Kasab, has been in police custody since Nov. 26 and faces trial for murder and “waging war against India.” The penalty was called for because it was the rarest of rare cases, Jayant Patil, home minister for Mumbai’s state of Maharashtra, told reporters. Iman appeared before an Indian court via videolink on March 9 and was remanded in custody for a further two weeks.
■IRAQ
Al-Zaidi was lucky: al-Maliki
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said yesterday that Baghdad reporter Muntazer al-Zaidi, who famously hurled his shoes at then-US president George W. Bush, was lucky to get away with three years’ jail. Al-Maliki, speaking in Canberra during an official visit to Australia, said a longer jail sentence or even execution could have been his punishment. Iraq had paid a high price in death and destruction in the six years since the US invasion, but it was still preferable to life under former president Saddam Hussein, al-Maliki told local broadcaster SBS. He said many of those who died would have been killed by Saddam had he continued in power. “They would have been killed,” al-Maliki said. “To get rid of this regime and the danger that was posed against the region, there had to be sacrifices and losses.”
■NEW ZEALAND
Grandmother swims strait
Pam Dickson, a 55-year-old grandmother, has become the oldest person to swim the 26km Cook Strait separating New Zealand’s North and South Islands, a news report said yesterrday. She completed the crossing from north to south on Friday in 9 hours and 23 minutes, Radio New Zealand reported. Her guide, veteran Strait swimmer Philip Rush, said it was a “great effort” by the massage therapist and marathon runner at her first attempt on the notoriously tough stretch of water in gusty winds.
■MALAYSIA
Alleged smuggler detained
Customs authorities detained an Indian national attempting to smuggle in 14.84kg of the drug ketamine at an airport in northern Penang state, a news report said yesterday. The suspect, aged in his 50s, had stuffed the drugs into three stainless steel food containers, state customs director Matrang Suhaili said. Matrang said the suspect claimed he did not know the contents of the containers, and was just following the directions of another person in New Delhi.
■SPAIN
Dinner set seized
Police said on Friday they had detained a man who received a parcel in the mail from Venezuela containing a dinner set that was made with 20kg of cocaine. The 35-year-old was arrested as he received the package containing the 42-piece dinner set made up of cups, plates and bowls at his home in Barcelona, police said in a statement. The package was sent to Barcelona from Maracaibo, Venezuela’s second-largest city, via London in the middle of last month. Police suspect the man had been recruited by a Venezuelan drug trafficking gang to receive the package, which he was supposed to hand over to members of the group who would then extract the cocaine from the dinner set.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Robo-fish fight pollution
A school of mechanical, battery-powered robots in the shape of fish will be released into a Spanish port to help monitor pollution there, scientists said on Friday. The 1.5m robots work by mimicking the swishing movements of a fish’s tail, said University of Essex robotics expert Huosheng Hu, whose team is manufacturing the machines. He said the robo-fish would be equipped with sensors to monitor oxygen levels in the water, detect oil slicks spilled from ships or contaminants pumped into the water from underground pipes. The robotic fish will patrol the harbor of Gijon, northern Spain, under a US$3.6 million grant from the EU.
■FRANCE
Arrests over BB gun battle
Several teenagers were taken into custody on Friday night after 11 adults were injured in a pellet gun shooting near a nursery school in the city of Lyon, the city’s prosecutor said. Prosecutor Xavier Richaud told reporters it appeared that a 17-year-old had been trying out a new BB gun from his parents’ apartment earlier on Friday, injuring adults near the Harmony nursery school as they collected children before the lunch break. Two or three teens were detained after a police investigation of the trajectory of the 4.5mm shots led them to the apartment, Richaud said. The teens didn’t “realize the seriousness of the events,” he told reporters.
■GERMANY
‘Berlin wall’ to be rebuilt
Berliners plan to topple a 2km-long chain of giant “dominoes” along the path of the wall that once separated communist east from the west to mark the 20th anniversary of its fall. “We want to knock over the wall once again,” Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit said. Assembly of more than 1,000 styrofoam slabs, each 2.5m-high and 1m-wide, is beginning this week. At a ceremony on Nov. 9, the day in 1989 on which crowds of east Germans swept through the wall and began tearing it down, the slabs will be pushed over.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Virus suspected at Fat Duck
Chef Heston Blumenthal and health officials said a virus may have caused an outbreak of illness among diners at England’s Michelin-starred Fat Duck restaurant. The restaurant was closed for more than two weeks starting on Feb. 24 after scores of diners were struck by bouts of diarrhea and vomiting. Initial reports said 40 diners had fallen ill, but the Health Protection Agency said on Friday that 529 people have now reported becoming sick after eating at the Fat Duck. Blumenthal was quoted by Australia’s Hospitality magazine as saying several members of staff and customers had tested positive for norovirus, an easily transmitted bug known as “winter vomiting” disease.
■UNITED STATES
Transgender sentenced
A transgender woman was sentenced on Friday to four years in prison for killing her frail husband by forcing him to exercise. Chris Mason, 41, was sentenced for reckless homicide in the death of 73-year-old James Mason. She pleaded guilty earlier and could have received five years in prison. Mason’s voice quivered as she tearfully apologized for the June death of her husband, who had heart problems. A surveillance camera caught Mason forcing her husband around in the pool. Chris Mason also goes by Christine Newton-John, the name she took after her 1993 sex change.
■UNITED STATES
Dinosaur skeleton on sale
A bit of the Jurassic era will go on sale this weekend when a gallery auctions off a rare, 150-million-year-old complete skeleton of a dinosaur. The fossil of the 2.7m-long dryosaurus could bring up to US$500,000, said Josh Chait, who runs the I.M. Chait Gallery in Manhattan. The skeleton is being sold by Utah-based Western Paleontological Laboratories. Founded in 1989 by paleontologists, the lab in Lehi, Utah, scours private quarries for dinosaurs, keeping some for display and scientific research and selling others to museums. Museum founder Cliff Miles said his company has only sold specimens at an auction once before. He said there were few private individuals who buy large and rare dinosaur skeletons like the dryosaurus, and he hopes it goes to a museum so research on it can continue.
■UNITED STATES
Brazil wax given the OK
New Jersey is smoothing out differences over a plan to ban bare-it-all bikini waxing. The state is reversing course on the proposal after angry salon owners complained about losing business ahead of swimsuit season. The state Cosmetology and Hairstyling Board proposed banning so-called “Brazilian” bikini waxing after two women were hospitalized for infections following the procedure. But on Friday, Consumer Affairs Director David Szuchman effectively killed the plan. In a letter to the board, Szuchman said he wouldn’t support the ban. He said the procedure could be performed safely and recommended that the board consider a review of waxing procedure training.
■UNITED STATES
Clorax pursues toilet torcher
A cleaning products manufacturer is offering a US$5,000 reward and a year’s supply of toilet cleaning products for tips leading to the arrest of an arsonist who has been torching portable toilets across the city. The Clorax Company deployed a special toilet team in the city on Tuesday to make residents aware of its offer, marrying marketing and community service. Since November, more than two dozen construction site toilets have been set on fire in the city, causing an estimated US$50,000 in property damage and leaving a trail of foul-smelling evidence.
■UNITED STATES
Zoos trade cheetahs
Zoos in Colorado and Michigan are trading female cheetahs in hopes that both will have cubs with new mates. The Denver Zoo said on Friday it had sent a five-year-old cheetah named Kibara to the Binder Park Zoo in Battle Creek in exchange for an eight-year-old cheetah named Katili. Kibara was Denver’s only female cheetah. In Denver, Katili will be paired with a male cheetah named Barafu, who is Kibara’s twin. Cheetahs are classified as endangered by the World Conservation Union. About 10,000 cheetahs are believed to exist in the wild, and 96 are in captivity in North America.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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