Wed, Jul 08, 2009 page6

• World News Quick Take

  • AGENCIES
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  ■SOUTH KOREA

  Cleavage bothers colleagues

  Almost three-quarters of male office workers feel uncomfortable when female colleagues show too much leg or cleavage in the workplace, a survey of 1,254 employees by the job portal site CareerNet has found. Some 56 percent of male respondents cited micro-miniskirts as their chief complaint, while 51 percent objected to excessive cleavage. Low-rise trousers that reveal women’s underwear, “killer heels” and flashy outfits in general were also cause for complaint. Women complained mostly of stains on the shirts and ties of their male colleagues.

  ■AUSTRALIA

  Rudd slammed for saint bid

  Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was accused of “sheer arrogance” yesterday over moves to press Pope Benedict XVI to create the country’s first saint. Opposition frontbencher Christopher Pyne hit out at Rudd’s plan to raise the canonization of nun Mary MacKillop during a meeting with the pope this week. “The sheer arrogance of the prime minister, believing he can lobby the Pope on behalf of Mary MacKillop, is quite frankly offensive,” Pyne told Sky News. “The path to sainthood is a very serious process and it doesn’t include lobbying by the leaders of countries.” But Labor Member of Parliament David Bradbury said there was no suggestion that Rudd, a Catholic, would produce evidence of the miracle needed to turn MacKillop into a saint. MacKillop, founder of the Sisters of St. Joseph, was beatified in 1995 after the Vatican agreed that prayers to her in 1961, some 52 years after her death, had saved a woman from cancer. MacKillop needs one more approved miracle to become a full saint.

  ■MALAYSIA

  Judge can’t cane robber

  A court has overruled a judge who sparked a legal stir because he wanted to personally cane a convicted robber, a lawyer said yesterday. Sessions Court Judge Zainal Abidin Kamarudin last month ordered that a 20-year-old man be whipped with a rattan cane 10 times and insisted that he wanted to carry out the sentence himself in court on July 15. Muhammad Syafiq Abdul Wahab had pleaded guilty to a charge of armed robbery after he was arrested for brandishing a knife while stealing a mobile phone from a student. The High Court decided on Monday that the judge should not cane offenders himself. It also ruled that Muhammad Syafiq should serve 200 hours of community service instead of being caned.

  ■AUSTRALIA

  Police seek skull’s owner

  Baffled police launched an appeal for information yesterday after a 700-year-old skull washed up on a beach. Police believe the skull must belong to a private collector or museum, but are mystified as to how it arrived on the Sydney beach in September. “Detectives are now looking for the owner of the skull, who they believe may be a private collector or from a museum or research facility,” they said. Tests showed the skull belonged to a non-Aboriginal child aged between four and six who lived about seven centuries ago.

  ■INDIA

  Court rejects injections

  The nation’s top court has refused to replace hanging with lethal injection as the country’s sole method of execution, saying there is no evidence it is less painful than other ways. Monday’s ruling rejected a petition by rights activist Ashok Kumar Walia, who said hanging was a “cruel and painful” method of execution and should be replaced by lethal injection. The judges suggested that Walia instead campaign for abolition of the death penalty.

  ■GERMANY

  Thieves nab potency pills

  A gang of four looted 4.9 million euros (US$6.9 million) worth of potency pills in a burglary at Bayer AG’s headquarters in Frankfut, the company said on Monday. Five weeks after burglars stole two barrels filled with 320,000 of Bayer’s Levitra pills, Bayer said it had put up a reward of 20,000 euros for information leading either to the perpetrators being caught or the retrieval of more than half the swag. The thieves cut through a wire fence and smashed a window in a building where the pills were stored before escaping, police said. Bayer, whose products range from Aspirin painkillers to Yasmin birth control pills, said on its Levitra Web site that the pill may help men fight erectile dysfunction when other oral treatments do not work.

  ■SWEDEN

  C-section may hurt immunity

  Swedish researchers have detected a possible link between babies born by planned Cesarean section and the increased risk of developing diseases like diabetes, cancer and asthma in later life, a study published in this month’s edition of Acta Paediatrica said. Babies delivered with planned Cesarean section had changes to the DNA pool in their white blood cells, possibly connected to altered stress levels, the study conducted at the Karolinska Institute said. “Our results provide the first pieces of evidence that early so-called epigenetic programming of the immune system during birth may have a role to play,” Mikael Norman of the Department of Clinical Science, Intervention and Technology said. The findings are interesting as Cesarean section delivery is on the rise worldwide. At present it is the most common surgical procedure among women of child-bearing age. The team took blood samples from umbilical cords from 37 newborn infants just after delivery, and collected new samples three to five days after birth. The blood samples were analyzed to study the degree of DNA-methylation, or chemical altering of the DNA, in the white blood cells. These cells are a key part of the immune system.

  ■SERBIA

  Tito’s widow granted ID

  The widow of former Yugoslavia’s communist dictator Josip Broz Tito has been granted a Serbian passport after nearly 30 years of life in seclusion. Jovanka Broz, 84, has lived in Belgrade without travel or identity documents in a decrepit government-owned house since Tito’s death in 1980. Interior Minister Ivica Dacic handed her the documents on Monday at a highly publicized ceremony. “This means a lot to me,” Broz told Dacic. Told by Dacic that it was “nothing special” and everyone had the right to the documents, she responded: “To me, it is special.” Jovanka Broz fell out of favor shortly before Tito’s death and was forced out of the dictator’s luxurious Belgrade residence. Some reports at the time said that she had ambitions to take over the country after his death.

  ■IRAQ

  Hussein grave visits banned

  The government imposed a ban on Monday on all organized visits to the grave of executed president Saddam Hussein after some schools near his stronghold of Tikrit arranged trips for their pupils. “The Cabinet secretariat has sent instructions to the education ministry and to Salaheddin Province and its provincial council banning the organization of visits to the tomb of the president of the former regime,” a statement said. Saddam loyalists regularly hold commemorations by his graveside in his native village of al-Awja, outside the northern town of Tikrit, on the anniversaries of his birth and execution.
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