Sat, May 22, 2010 page5

• World News Quick Take

  • AGENCIES
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  ■CHINA

  Orgy host jailed

  A college professor has been jailed for running a sex club, whose members were the first to be convicted of “group licentiousness” in 20 years, media reported yesterday. Ma Yaohai, a 53-year-old computer science professor, was jailed for three-and-a-half years after pleading not guilty to holding orgies and said he would appeal against his sentence, the China News Service said. “What we did, we did for our own happiness,” Ma told media at a news conference in April at his home, where 14 of his 18 orgies, or “swinging games” as he called them, were held. “People chose to do it of their own free will and they knew they could stop at any time,” he said at the time. “We disturbed no one. Marriage is like water. You have to drink it. Swinging is like a cup of wine. You can drink it if you like. If you don’t like it, don’t drink it.” Eighteen people charged with taking part in the orgies were jailed for up to two-and-a-half years.

  ■CHINA

  Wen death penalty upheld

  A court upheld the death penalty yesterday of a former police chief convicted of taking bribes from gang leaders. The Chongqing Municipal Higher People’s Court rejected an appeal from Wen Qiang (文強), 55, who was convicted of taking millions in bribes from gang members while he was director of the Chongqing Municipal Judicial Bureau, the court’s Web site said.

  ■JAPAN

  Beauty goes pin deep

  The ancient treatment of acupuncture is gaining new popularity as a beauty secret. As aesthetic sessions increasingly go organic or employ traditional remedies, women, mainly in their 30s, at the “Beauty World Japan” exhibition this week lined up to try acupuncture. 

  ■SWITZERLAND

  Chocolate fights wrinkles

  The world’s largest chocolate maker says it may have come up with a chocolate bar that could fight wrinkles and slow the ageing process. Eating 20g of specially developed chocolate packed with antioxidants, or flavanols, each day may help prevent wrinkles and make skin more radiant by boosting elasticity and improving hydration, studies carried out by Barry Callebaut showed. The Swiss group has developed a way of preserving the flavanols found in cocoa beans during the chocolate-making process, allowing them to produce a bar that is richer in flavanols, chief innovation officer Hans Vriens said in an interview. “Chocolate and health do not seem to fit together but it is a very interesting proposition: If I can eat something I like and it is good for me, that is great,” Vriens said. “Chocolate is probably at the bottom of the list when you think about making food healthier.”

  ■NETHERLANDS

  Anxious testers may drive

  Some people flunk their driving tests because they can’t parallel park. Others flunk for not entering traffic safely. And an unlucky few flunk for fear of flunking itself. In response, the Netherlands has launched a special driving exam for people who suffer from acute test anxiety. Examiners try to put test-takers at ease. The exam pace is leisurely, and drivers are allowed to take a “time out” if the pressure becomes too much for them. But won’t this put people behind the wheel who are liable to freeze in the face of a stressful traffic situation? No, spokeswoman Irene Heldens of the country’s Licensing Bureau said on Thursday. Test anxiety is not linked to poor performance in real life. “It will remain safe on the roads,” she said.

  ■MADAGASCAR

  Two killed in mutiny

  Security forces seized control of a military camp on Thursday, quashing an attempted mutiny by a small group of military police. Two government soldiers were killed and three civilians wounded, a military police commander said, in the latest escalation of a political crisis that has rocked the Indian Ocean island since early last year. Political analysts say there is mounting frustration within some elements of the armed forces at President Andry Rajoelina’s failure to end the economically crippling turmoil, and they warn the situation could deteriorate further. Security forces overran the barracks when negotiations with the dissident military police inside broke down and a new gun battle erupted.

  ■ISRAEL

  Military bombs Gaza Strip

  The military launched aerial raids overnight in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, but no one was injured or killed in the sorties, witnesses and officials said yesterday. Israeli officials said the three raids, targeting a residential area in the north of the Palestinian enclave and two in the south, were in response to an earlier missile attack by Palestinian militants. “Our planes attacked terrorist installations in the north of the region and two tunnels located in the south which could serve for attacks against Israel,” an Israeli defense spokesman said, confirming the raids. On Thursday evening, “a rocket fired from the north of the Gaza Strip fell in the Ashkelon region without causing any injuries,” south of Tel Aviv, the spokesman told reporters. The Ansar al Sunna group claimed responsibility for the attack, in a statement.

  ■BRAZIL

  Handyman shot dead

  A man using a power drill on his balcony in a Rio de Janeiro slum was shot dead by police who mistook his handyman tool for an Uzi submachine gun, Brazilian media reported on Thursday. “It’d be funny if they thought I was waving a gun around,” were the last words Helio Ribeiro said to his wife, local media said, as he spotted a police unit close by looking for drug gang members in the tense neighborhood. Moments later, a police sniper’s bullet turned his joke into fatal reality, piercing the supermarket manager’s left arm and lung. The officer involved has been charged with involuntary homicide and the state security secretariat issued a statement lamenting the death of Ribeiro and promising compensation to his widow. Police, though, summoned reporters to show them photos showing similarities in the shape of the drill used and an Uzi.

  ■MEXICO

  Mexico celebrates revolution

  Viva Mexico! Pass me a cold one. The government announced plans on Thursday to disinter and display the remains of a dozen heroes of Mexico’s struggle for independence, while a brewer has a different sort of honor in mind for leaders of the revolution — putting their names and famous visages on bottles of beer. Mexico is pulling out all the stops this year to mark both the bicentennial of its 1810 independence struggle and the centennial of the 1910 to 1917 Mexican Revolution. The government’s bicentennial commission said it would hold a ceremony May 30 to remove the remains sealed in crypts in Mexico City’s Independence Monument, where they were placed in 1925. Meanwhile, Cerveceria Revolucion launched a beer named for General Emiliano Zapata, who led a peasant army in a fight for land rights before he was killed in an ambush on April 10, 1919.

  ■PUERTO RICO

  ‘Gangster’ wife arrested

  The wife of a 1970s heroin dealer who inspired the movie American Gangster has been arrested after officials said she tried to sell 2kg of cocaine at a local hotel. Julianna Farrait, 70, appeared on Thursday in court and did not say anything except to request that the judge speak to her in Spanish. A judge will decide whether to grant her bail at an upcoming hearing. She is charged with conspiracy to violate narcotics law and has not yet entered a plea. Farrait is married to Frank Lucas, the infamous Harlem heroin dealer who was arrested in January 1975 at his New Jersey home, where police seized more than US$500,000. Lucas was convicted that year and sentenced to 40 years in prison. He was released in 1991.

  ■UNITED STATES

  District sued over ‘sexting’

  A school district at the center of a highly publicized “sexting” case was sued on Thursday by a teenager who claims her principal confiscated her mobile phone, found nude images she had taken of herself and turned it over to prosecutors. The principal of the Tunkhannock Area High School in Pennsylvania illegally searched the 17-year-old’s phone in January last year, even though she intended the racy photos to be “seen only by herself and, perhaps, her long-time boyfriend,” according to the federal lawsuit. It says the principal gave the phone to George Skumanick Jr, at the time the Wyoming County district attorney, who threatened to file felony child pornography charges against the girl unless she took a class on sexual violence.
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