■MALAYSIA
State ‘tackles’ divorce
A state government fretting about rising divorces said on Monday it will offer classes on romance to help Muslim couples stay together — even encourage them to bathe together to promote intimacy. Officials will hold workshops providing tips for wives on how to remain attractive, including using perfume and wearing lingerie to spice up their sex life, said Muhammad Ramli Nuh, a lawmaker in northern Terengganu state. Husbands should wear clean pajamas and reduce body odor. The state will also invite cosmetics manufacturers to come up with special scents meant to “help sustain the happiness” in marriage. Muhammad Ramli did not immediately have data on divorces in Terengganu, but said it was “becoming a problem that must be tackled.”
■HONG KONG
Widower uses wife’s gym ID
A man who wore women’s clothing to use his dead wife’s gym membership has appeared in court, a report said yesterday. Lau Siu-wah, 51, was charged after he allegedly used his wife’s identification card to exercise in the female-only section of the gym at the city’s Sheraton hotel, the Standard daily reported. Lau, who appeared in court on Monday in women’s clothes and wearing red nail polish, was granted bail, the paper said.
■MALAYSIA
Maid sentenced in poisoning
An Indonesian maid has been sentenced to six years in jail for attempting to murder her elderly Malaysian employer by putting weedkiller in her coffee and soup, reports said yesterday. State news agency Bernama said Nurhayati Ahmad, 22, from Lombok, Indonesia, pleaded guilty to trying to poison Jaharah Daud, 77, who survived the attempt.
■CHINA
Court rules in Chongqing
A court sentenced the ringleader of an illegal gambling syndicate to 18 years in prison and a 1.02 million yuan (US$150,000) fine yesterday, the latest verdict in a massive series of trials targeting organized crime. A municipal court in Chongqing convicted Xie Caiping (謝才萍) — sister-in-law of the former head of the city’s judiciary, Wen Qiang (文強) — of crimes linked to the gambling syndicate, the verdict said. Xie, 46, allegedly ran 20 illegal gambling dens across Chongqing and bribed police to turn a blind eye, press reports said. Twenty-one other suspects were sentenced to jail terms ranging from one to 13 years, the court said. The case has fascinated the nation, with state media reports spotlighting Xie, who reportedly drove a Mercedes-Benz, owned several luxury villas and kept a stable of 16 young men to provide her with sexual services. Her brother-in-law, Wen, served as a top Chongqing police official for 16 years before taking over the city’s judiciary. He is the highest-ranking official ensnared in the crackdown that has led to the arrest of more than 1,500 suspects.
■MARIANAS
Driver nabbed for drugs
The governor of the US-administered islands is driving himself after his chauffeur-bodyguard pleaded guilty to dealing drugs from the official car. Governor Benigno Fitial is at the wheel around Saipan, the capital of the Pacific island territory, after Peter Reyes last month pleaded guilty to drug charges. Court documents said Reyes sold 0.12 grams of crystal methamphetamine hydrochloride to an undercover drug agent. The drug deal occurred in the parking lot of the governor’s office.
■CZECH REPUBLIC
EU treaty challenge lost
The Constitutional Court ruled yesterday that the EU’s Lisbon Treaty is legal, clearing the final hurdle to it becoming law throughout the 27-nation bloc. President Vaclav Klaus, the last EU leader holding out against the treaty, had promised not to put up any more obstacles if it was cleared by the court. He did not immediately say however whether or when he would sign the treaty. But Prime Minister Jan Fischer said he was “satisfied” with the verdict and that he expected Klaus to sign the treaty.
■TANZANIA
Albino killers sentenced
The High Court has sentenced four men to death by hanging for killing a 50-year-old albino man, local media reported late on Monday. Lyaku Willy’s killing was one of a spate of attacks on the country’s estimated 200,000 albinos in the past two years, mostly in the remote northwest of the country near Lake Victoria, where superstition runs deep. Witchdoctors say albinos bring luck in love, life and business. Albino hunters kill their victims and harvest their blood and body parts such as hair, genitals and limbs for potions.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Beefeaters in hot water
Two yeoman warders at the Tower of London have been suspended for allegedly bullying a female colleague — the first woman appointed to the post at the royal fortress in more than 500 years. The Tower of London said Monday that a third warder was under investigation over the alleged harassment of 44-year-old Moira Cameron. In 2007, Cameron became the first female yeoman warder. Cameron’s uniform was defaced and “nasty” notes were left in her locker, the Sun newspaper reported on Monday. Her Wikipedia was also tampered with, the report said.
■LIBERIA
Government official slain
Media reports say a government official has been shot and killed by a gang of men while visiting his rubber farm outside the capital. Star Radio and the Daily Observer newspaper reported on Monday that Public Procurement and Concession Commission chief Keith Jubah was killed late on Sunday while visiting his farm 55km north of Monrovia. Jubah’s commission is one of several institutions set up to fight corruption.
■ISRAEL
Biggest export is hippos
Ramat Gan Safari says it has become the world’s top exporter of hippopotamuses, having successfully sent more than a dozen to zoos worldwide in the past few months. “There is no profit in this export field, but without a doubt we are a unique zoo because zoos in general have only a small number of hippos,” spokeswoman Sagit Horowitz said, adding that it had a long list of requests. The Tel Aviv has more than 40 hippopotamuses and a high birth rate. The secret is catching the hippos while they are sleeping, Horowitz said, adding: “If you shoot a tranquilizer at them when they are awake, they run into the pond and there is no chance of catching them there.”
■EQUATORIAL GUINEA
Mercenary pardoned
British ex-special forces officer Simon Mann, jailed last year for his role in a plot to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, has been pardoned, the Communication Ministry said on its Web site. Mann had “shown sufficient and credible signs of repentance and a desire to take his place in society,” it said. He must leave the country within 24 hours and is banned from returning, it said.
■VENEZUELA
Security chief gunned down
A key figure in charge of security in Caracas was shot to death in an attack over the weekend, police sources told local media on Monday. Delio Hernandez Da Costa, the man in charge of the city’s security plan, was in his car on Saturday when two armed men gunned him down before escaping, El Universal newspaper reported. Hernandez, 38, was reportedly on his way to an inspection in the west of Caracas, one of the most dangerous areas of the Venezuelan capital, when he was attacked. Between Friday night and Sunday, 36 people were killed in Caracas, including four policeman, according to figures compiled by local media. Venezuela’s government has not published crime statistics for several months.
■BRAZIL
Drum king dead at 54
Hundreds of people in Salvador de Bahia turned out on Monday for the funeral of Antonio Alves de Souza, Brazil’s king of drums and Olodum group leader, who accompanied Michael Jackson in a 1996 video filmed by Spike Lee. Alves, 54, died from a heart attack on Saturday and was to be buried yesterday, local media reported. Alves’ funeral in Bahia’s colonial neighborhood of Pelourinho, where part of Jackson’s They Don’t Care About Us music video was shot, was attended by authorities, musicians, friends and admirers of the famous Neguinho do Samba. Under Alves’ direction, Olodum perfected its distinctive samba-reggae blend of Brazilian and African rhythms that fired Jackson’s video.
■MEXICO
Armed men steal bicycles
About 20 armed attackers stole 5,000 children’s bicycles from a manufacturing company in Mexico City after threatening and locking up company workers. The National Association of Bicycle Manufacturers told the daily Reform in a report published on Monday that the attack happened two weeks ago. Attackers reportedly stormed the premises of the firm Grupo Oriental and within two-and-a-half hours took the bikes, which had been set for distribution for the Christmas season.
■UNITED STATES
Ring lost on Halloween
A Halloween trick-or-treater in Terrace Park, Ohio, may have gotten a bigger treat than expected — a diamond ring. Elizabeth Olson told WXIX-TV she thinks she may have lost her wedding ring when she was tossing candy into trick-or-treaters’ bags on Halloween. She said she had the ring enlarged and thinks it may have slipped off her finger when she was throwing candy into the bags, buckets and pillowcases. Olson asked people to keep an eye out for the ring and to return it to her if they find it.
■UNITED STATES
Mexican drug kingpin jailed
The leader of a Mexican drug trafficking ring, Aaron Quintero-Soto, was on Monday sentenced to 21 years in prison in the US, the US Justice Department said. Quintero-Soto, a 41-year-old native of Mexico’s Sinaloa state, pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and cocaine in the US, a department statement said. His organization brought drugs into the US from Mexico through Phoenix, Arizona, from which they were distributed around the US. Four other members of the same group were sentenced to between one and eight years in jail, the statement added.
DEATH CONSTANTLY LOOMING: Decades of detention took a major toll on Iwao Hakamada’s mental health, his lawyers describing him as ‘living in a world of fantasy’ A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.44 million in compensation, an official said yesterday. The payout represents ￥12,500 (US$83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last. It is a record for compensation of this kind, Japanese media said. The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others. The case sparked scrutiny of the justice system in
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
‘HUMAN NEGLIGENCE’: The fire is believed to have been caused by someone who was visiting an ancestral grave and accidentally started the blaze, the acting president said Deadly wildfires in South Korea worsened overnight, officials said yesterday, as dry, windy weather hampered efforts to contain one of the nation’s worst-ever fire outbreaks. More than a dozen different blazes broke out over the weekend, with Acting South Korean Interior and Safety Minister Ko Ki-dong reporting thousands of hectares burned and four people killed. “The wildfires have so far affected about 14,694 hectares, with damage continuing to grow,” Ko said. The extent of damage would make the fires collectively the third-largest in South Korea’s history. The largest was an April 2000 blaze that scorched 23,913 hectares across the east coast. More than 3,000
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