■MALAYSIA
Anger over nude race
The producer of a Danish reality TV show has apologized to Muslim-majority Malaysia for shooting a nude scene on a southern island earlier this month, a report said yesterday. Photographs of contestants from Expedition Robinson, the Danish version of the Survivor series, taking part in a nude race were published recently on the front page of a Malay-language tabloid, prompting authorities to launch an investigation. Malaysia has strict film regulations that ban obscenity. Scandinavian production house Strix Television AB, which produces the show, said a nude race was not part of the script, the Star newspaper reported. A female contestant who refused to take off her clothes was kicked off the show. Strix has fired the director, the report said.
■NEW ZEALAND
Quake hits remote islands
A 6.7 magnitude earthquake hit the Kermadec Islands in the South Pacific yesterday, but no tsunami warning was issued and there were no reports of injury or damage. The quake struck at 12:53pm local time, some 270km southwest of Raoul Island at a depth of just 10km, according to New Zealand geological agency GNS Science. The islands are about 1,000km northeast of New Zealand. The islands have no permanent population.
■CHINA
Eleven missing at sea
Rescuers are searching for 11 people missing after a ship capsized off the northeastern coast. CCTV reported yesterday that one body had been found. Divers were searching the ship for other bodies or anyone who might have survived the accident in an air pocket. The boat was transporting sand when it foundered in rough seas off the coast of northeastern Liaoning Province on Thursday night.
■AUSTRALIA
Court halts kangaroo cull
A court suspended a government program to kill 7,000 kangaroos on federal land near Canberra on Thursday, halting efforts to thin a mushrooming population of the marsupials that authorities say are threatening endangered species. Animal activists challenged the government’s contention that thousands of common eastern grey kangaroos must be slaughtered to protect endangered plants, reptiles and insects. Population control through vasectomies and oral contraceptives remain experimental alternatives. Civilian marksmen had killed 4,000 kangaroos over nine nights since last week. Australian Capital Territory Administrative Appeals Tribunal President Linda Crebbin suspended the shooting permits until a panel could hear conflicting scientific evidence early next month.
■CHINA
Doctors remove old bullet
Doctors in Chongqing have cut a bullet out of a woman’s face 42 years after it lodged there, local media said on Friday. The 3.3cm bullet was removed from He Wenying (何文英), 65, on Thursday at a hospital in the city, the Chongqing Evening News reported. The bullet apparently hit He when it ricocheted through a thin wall during a fight in 1967 between rival factions of Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. The stray bullet lodged in the right side of He’s face between her jaw and ear. It was first found by doctors in He’s remote home town in 1978, but surgery failed to remove it. After complaining of pain in her face and head for 30 years, He sought medical help again last week when the pain worsened and spread to her whole body, the report said.
■CHINA
Theme park draws criticism
A sex theme park in Chongqing that exhibits naked human sculptures, giant genitals and boasts a sex technique workshop is stirring up howls of protest, state press said on Friday. “Love Land,” billed as the country’s first-ever sex theme park, is scheduled to open in October, but detractors hope the project will never see the light of day, the China Daily reported. Besides displays on sex history and techniques, the park boasts a giant rotating statue of the lower portion of a nearly naked woman bent over at the waist.
■JAPAN
Recession hits melons
The latest victim of the recession is round, sweet and famous for being shockingly expensive. The first two Yubari melons of the season were auctioned on Friday and fetched ¥500,000 (US$5,200), compared with last year’s winning bid of ¥2.5 million. Weighing about 3.5kg, the premium cantaloupes were part of the season’s initial harvest at Sapporo Central Wholesale Market. Buyers flock to the market for a shot at the prestige of winning the year’s very first melons which are grown only in Yubari, a small town on Hokkaido island.
■THAILAND
Penis survives love bite
A Thai woman bit her Belgian boyfriend’s penis out of jealousy during sex, but doctors managed to save the nearly severed organ, police said on Friday. The 56-year-old man was being treated for severe injuries after the incident early on Thursday in Pattaya. “We still don’t know the identity of the suspect or whether he wants her to be prosecuted,” police Lieutenant Colonel Norwich Chulavanich said. The penis was “severely bitten” but not severed, he said. Media reported the pair quarreled after she learned the Belgian was having an affair with another Thai woman.
■RUSSIA
Police kill three militants
A Russian news agency said police in Chechnya have killed three militants working with a suicide bomber who struck the Chechen capital. ITAR-Tass reported yesterday that the militants were part of a group planning attacks in Grozny. The suicide bomber struck on Friday near the Russian Interior Ministry’s Grozny headquarters. The blast killed four police officers and wounded five other people. The news agency said the three were killed in a police operation on Friday.
■NIGERIA
Hostages freed
Nigerian security forces freed six Filipinos and four Nigerians held hostage by militants aboard a ship in the volatile Niger Delta, an army spokesman said yesterday. “We were able to secure the hijacked ship, MV Spirit, a chartered oil tanker. In the night, we rescued all the sailors on board the ship. We freed all the six Filipinos and four Nigerians on board the ship,” Colonel Rabe Abubakar said. “They are all in good condition,” he said.
■TURKEY
First flu case confirmed
Turkey has confirmed the first case of swine flu in the country. The Health Ministry said yesterday the case was detected in a man who had traveled to Istanbul from the US via Amsterdam. Private NTV television said the man was placed under observation in a hospital in Istanbul.
■GAZA STRIP
Explosion kills boy
An explosion in the southern Gaza Strip yesterday killed a 12-year-old boy, Palestinian emergency services said, adding that the cause of the blast was not yet known. “Ahmed Hamdan died in an explosion of unknown origin at his home in Khan Yunes,” an official said. Witnesses said the boy was killed while playing with an object that detonated. There were no reports of any other casualties.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Man sought prostitute for son
A man who tried to hire a prostitute to take his 14-year-old son’s virginity as a present was spared jail by a court on Friday. The Polish national took the boy out in his car and allowed him to pick out the prostitute, who was standing at the side of the road in the red-light district of Nottingham. But the 42-year-old father was arrested because the teenager had chosen an undercover police officer, Nottingham Crown Court heard. The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was handed a 10-month prison sentence, suspended for a year, after he admitted a charge of trying to solicit a woman to have sex with a child, the Press Association reported. The court heard that the father, who came to Britain eight years ago, was arrested last July during an undercover operation by the city’s vice squad. Prosecutor Adrian Harris said the man and his son had approached the undercover officer whose code name was Sarah and beckoned her over. He asked “Sarah” how much it would cost for her to have sex with his son and they agreed on a £20 (US$30) fee. However, when the car pulled over, the man was arrested by plainclothes police officers. “The boy said that they had driven past the girl and his dad pointed to her and said ‘will she do?’” Harris said. “He said ‘yes’ and they had turned round. He said his dad did this because he was still a virgin and he was taking care of that for him.” Judge Jonathan Teare said he would spare the father jail because of his excellent character and that he believed he did not mean any harm to his son.
■UNITED STATESA
Boy found buried
A dead boy was found buried in the sand of a public playground, authorities said. A woman who brought her children to Alvarado Park in Albuquerque, New Mexico, spotted part of the child’s shoe sticking out of the sand and called police on Friday afternoon, Albuquerque Police Chief Ray Schultz told a news conference. The boy is believed to be between three and five years old. Forensic experts with the state’s Office of the Medical Investigator at the scene told police the boy could not have been dead longer than 48 hours, police spokesman John Walsh said. Schultz would not say whether there were any wounds on the body.
■CANADA
New flu cases announced
Authorities reported on Friday that 47 new swine flu cases had been confirmed, bringing the total number of people in the country infected with the A(H1N1) virus to 496. Thirty-two of the new cases were reported in the province of Ontario, nine in Quebec, four in British Columbia and two in Saskatchewan, officials said.
■CANADA
New mad cow case found
Ottawa on Friday said it discovered the country’s 16th case of mad cow disease in an animal at a farm in the province of Alberta. “No part of the animal’s carcass entered the human food or animal feed systems,” the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) said in a statement. “The animal’s birth farm has been identified and an investigation is underway,” the CFIA said, adding that the age and location of the infected cow “are consistent with previous cases detected in Canada.” The six-year-old dairy cow from Alberta has confirmed bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) — the scientific name for mad cow disease — the CFIA said. The case was detected through the BSE surveillance program, “which continues to play an important role in Canada’s strategy to manage BSE,” the statement read.
■CURACAO
Voters seek autonomy
Voters narrowly endorsed a plan to gain more political autonomy from the Netherlands as tens of thousands of islanders turned out for a nonbinding referendum on Friday. More than 41,000 voters supported a 2006 pact that granted the Caribbean island more freedom while preserving its ties to the Dutch kingdom. About 38,000 people voted against the plan, according to the elections commission. “We won. The people decided that the process will continue,” said one voter, Ersilia de Lannoy. “We are going to be an autonomous country.” The vote was largely symbolic because the Netherlands Antilles — comprising Curacao, Bonaire, Saba, St Eustatius and St Maarten — has been self-governing for 55 years except on matters of defense and foreign policy.
■BRAZIL
Dam overflows in north
Emergency officials say a rain-swollen reservoir overflowed a dam in the country’s flood-stricken north, forcing 500 people from their houses. Piaui state Civil Defense said in a statement that officials worried the Algodoes I dam could be in danger of collapsing. It was not immediately clear on Friday whether officials were releasing water to relieve pressure. Heavy rains and devastating floods have been punishing the north for weeks. The federal government says more than 313,000 people have been left homeless in 11 states, an area three times the size of Alaska. Thirty-nine people have died.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday declared martial law in an unannounced late night address broadcast live on YTN television. Yoon said he had no choice but to resort to such a measure in order to safeguard free and constitutional order, saying opposition parties have taken hostage of the parliamentary process to throw the country into a crisis. "I declare martial law to protect the free Republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean communist forces, to eradicate the despicable pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people, and to protect the free
‘ANCIENT AND MODERN’: The project, which took 22 years to complete, unearthed more than 300,000 treasures now on display across the network It caused untold commotion, decades of disruption and — among historians and archeologists — controversy and despair, but at midday on Saturday, the antiquities-rich subterranean world of Thessaloniki opened to a world of driverless trains and high-tech automation with the inauguration of its long-awaited subway. The excitement on the streets of the northern Greek port city is almost palpable. “Archaeologically, it has been an extremely complex and difficult endeavor,” said Greek Minister of Culture, Education and Religious Affairs Lina Mendoni of the more than 300,000 finds made since construction began 22 years ago. “To get here required a battle on many
The US deployed a reconnaissance aircraft while Japan and the Philippines sent navy ships in a joint patrol in the disputed South China Sea yesterday, two days after the allied forces condemned actions by China Coast Guard vessels against Philippine patrol ships. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the joint patrol was conducted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone by allies and partners to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight “ and “other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace.” Those phrases are used by the US, Japan and the Philippines to oppose China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the
‘AMERICA FIRST’: Patel, 44, previously called for stripping the FBI of its intelligence-gathering role and purging its ranks of anyone who refuses to support Trump’s agenda US president-elect Donald Trump has tapped Kash Patel to be FBI director, nominating a loyalist to lead the chief US law enforcement agency — which Trump has long derided as corrupt. Patel rose to prominence expressing outrage over the agency’s investigation into whether Trump’s campaign conspired with Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. With the nomination of Patel, Trump is signaling that he is preparing to carry out his threat to oust FBI Director Christopher Wray, a Republican first appointed by Trump during his first term as president, whose 10-year term at the FBI does not expire until 2027. FBI
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