■NEW ZEALAND
Clark may get UN post
Former prime minister Helen Clark is on a short list of candidates being considered to head the UN Development Program, local media reported yesterday. Prime Minister John Key, who has lobbied for Clark to get the job, said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was preparing to make an announcement “very soon.” “If Helen Clark was to get the job obviously we would be delighted for her,” Key said. “It’s the sort of job she would carry out very well, the reason the government has been fully supportive” of her candidacy. The Trans-Tasman political newsletter reported that Clark’s appointment to the UN job was imminent and state-owned TV One News said it also had confirmation. Clark’s camp declined to confirm those reports.
■INDIA
Editor killed in northeast
Gunmen shot and killed the editor of a newspaper that supported government negotiations with militants in the troubled northeastern state of Assam, police said yesterday. Anil Majumdar, editor of the daily newspaper Aji, was shot in the chest seven times outside his house late on Tuesday in Assam’s main city of Guwahati. Majumdar had backed talks with the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom, an ethnic guerrilla force that has fought for an independent homeland since 1979. “He was returning from his office and was about to enter his residence when unidentified gunmen fired at him,” senior police official G.P. Singh said.
■PHILIPPINES
Fashion designer under fire
Fashion designer Angelo Fajardo was under fire yesterday for berating and insulting employees of a duty-free shop in a “creative outburst” caught on video. Fajardo even demanded a cashier at the duty-free shop outside Manila’s international airport kneel for his forgiveness after his tantrum on March 13. Fajardo’s flare-up was caught on a surveillance video and the footage was uploaded on YouTube. Ricky Rivera, Fajardo’s spokesman, defended the designer’s behavior as a “creative outburst.” “As a fashion designer, as an artist, sometimes he has creative outbursts maybe because of the fatigue he felt at the time of the incident,” Rivera said. The fracas erupted when the cashier asked for an identification card to support the credit card Fajardo used for purchasing several items at the store. Fajardo allegedly threatened to have the cashier fired unless he agreed to be slapped or to kneel down. The cashier knelt down to satisfy the furious designer. The embattled designer issued a public apology late on Tuesday, but the duty free’s union members have vowed to file criminal complaints against Fajardo.
■NEW ZEALAND
Hacker fights cyber-crime
A teenage computer hacker who caused millions of dollars of damage as part of a global cyber-crime ring has been hired by a telecom company to provide security advice. Owen Thor Walker was discharged without conviction as an 18-year-old last year after admitting six cyber-crime charges. He was the alleged brains behind a group of international hackers who used his programs to access personal data, send viruses around the world and commit other crimes, causing US$20 million in losses, police said last year. Walker — who went under the online name of “Akill” — designed an encrypted virus that was undetectable by anti-virus software, they said. He is now providing security advice for TelstraClear, the local arm of Australia’s largest telecoms firm Telstra.
■ITALY
School quotas sought
The government wants to introduce a 30 percent cap on the number of foreigners per school class in the belief that it will help immigrant children integrate with Italians, a minister said on Tuesday. “We are thinking of a 30 percent quota,” Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini told local TV. “There have been many cases of classes almost entirely made up by immigrant students and obviously such conditions are not ideal for proper integration.” Immigrant children would learn more Italian if they mixed with more local students, she said.
■GREECE
Old murals returned to Italy
The government has returned two murals smuggled from an Italian church more than 20 years ago, the Culture Ministry said on Tuesday. The frescoes dating to the 13th century were seized from the church in the Campania region in 1982. Greek police found them in 2006 on a small Aegean island during an anti-smuggling mission. “This is one step further in our cooperation with the Italians,” Culture Minister Antonis Samaras said in a statement. “We are together in this ‘war’ against the disease which bedraggles our countries.”
■ITALY
Venice eyes algae for fuel
Venice’s seaport plans to become self-sufficient in its energy needs by building a power plant fueled by algae, in what would be the first facility of its kind in the country and the third in Europe, the port authority said. The plant will be operative in two years and produce 40 megawatts of electricity, officials said, adding that an emissions-free energy source would help preserve the city’s delicate ecological balance. The plant would be built in collaboration with renewable energy services firm Enalg at a cost of 200 million euros (US$272.6 million), a port spokeswoman said.
■MADAGASCAR
Deposed leader in S Africa
Ousted president Marc Ravalomanana has based himself in South Africa, from where he traveled to Swaziland for meetings this week over his ouster, a Swazi official said yesterday. Leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) met in the Swazi capital Mbabane on Monday to discuss former opposition leader Andry Rajoelina’s rout of Ravalomanana last week, including possible sanctions. SADC has condemned Rajoelina’s arrival to power as “unconstitutional” and has refused to recognize him as interim president.
■IRAN
Home-made booze kills 10
Ten people have died from drinking poisoned home-made booze in Rasht, the capital of Gilan Province, the Mehr news agency reported on Tuesday. The agency quoted a local police commander as saying at least 27 people were being treated in hospital after consuming the spirits and that two were in critical condition. The production and consumption of alcohol is prohibited in the country and violators face jail time or whipping.
■EGYPT
Horror rumor strikes
Cairo is trying dispel rumors that a cellphone text message “from unknown foreign quarters” can kill, amid press reports that an SMS containing a special combination of numbers killed a man in the town of Mallawi. “He died vomiting blood, followed by stroke, shortly after he received a message,” the Egyptian Gazette said yesterday. The interior ministry has detained three workers at an oil company for allegedly starting the rumors.
■UNITED STATES
Captain Kirk’s chair on sale
You’ve got the boxsets and you’ve learned Klingon. Is there anything left for the Trekkie who wants to take their devotion up a warp factor or two? The answer’s logical. Beam your very own replica of Captain Kirk’s command chair into your living room. The chair was a central part of Kirk’s voyages. From its seat at the heart of the Enterprise bridge, William Shatner guided the crew through their voyages with the full authority of a man in a powerful chair. The original chair from the 1960s series was auctioned in 2002, fetching US$305,200. But thanks to the joys of the replicator (a company called Diamond Select Toys), any Trekkie can now own a little bit of Trek furniture for US$2,717.01.
■UNITED STATES
Prison number a lottery hit
Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff is a lucky charm for one New York City construction worker. Queens resident Ralph Amendolaro says he saw Madoff’s prison number in a newspaper and had a good feeling so he played the last three digits of it in the state lottery’s Numbers game. It hit on March 15, paying US$1,500. Lottery officials said other people had the same idea. The number combination 0-5-4 produced 501 winning tickets the Sunday after Madoff’s guilty plea, up from 120 winners the previous day. Madoff’s prison registration number is 61727-054.
■UNITED STATES
Woman shackles husband
A woman handcuffed herself to her sleeping husband in an apparent attempt to resolve an argument, but police ended up breaking into their home and charging her with assault and other crimes, authorities said on Tuesday. Helen Sun, 37, handcuffed herself to Robert Drawbough as he slept in their Fairfield, Connecticut, home on Monday in an effort to reconcile their differences, police said. But when Drawbough called police with his cellphone, Sun responded by biting him on the arms and torso, police said. Sun was charged with third-degree assault, disorderly conduct, reckless endangerment and unlawful restraint.
■SPACE
Shuttle, ISS crews part
After eight days together, it’s time for the space shuttle and space station crews to say goodbye.The hatches between the linked spacecraft were to be sealed early yesterday afternoon. Three hours later, Discovery was to undock. Discovery will be bringing back five months’ worth of science experiments from the International Space Station (ISS). The blood, urine and saliva samples need to be kept cold for as long as possible, and will remain in the station freezer until the last possible moment. The shuttle is also bringing back four to five liters of recycled water made from astronauts’ urine and condensation. NASA wants to ensure the water is safe before astronauts start drinking it.
■VENEZUELA
Mosque robbed, ransacked
An administrator at the country’s biggest mosque said thieves have ransacked its offices, stealing jewels, computers and other objects and throwing books across the floor. Muhammad Ali Bokhair says it was the second time since September that the Ibrahim Al-lbrahim mosque had been robbed. The theft took place early on Monday morning. No suspects have been identified. The mosque is located in downtown Caracas, where a scant police presence makes robberies and murders relatively common. The Ibrahim Al-lbrahim building is Latin America’s second-largest mosque after the Rey Fahd Islamic Cultural Center in Argentina.
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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