■NEW ZEALAND
MP red-faced over porn
A former government minister once tipped as a likely future national leader admitted yesterday to charging pornographic movies in hotels to his official expenses. Shane Jones, now an opposition legislator after his center-left Labour Party lost the 2008 election, charged about 20 pornographic movies to his official credit card as a government minister, along with other personal expenses. “In actual fact I’m not a sex fiend or a sex addict etc, but the reality’s there, I watched blue movies, I’m not going to deny it,” a rueful Jones told reporters. “I’ve obviously got to watch BBC more.” Jones said he repaid personal expenses totaling about A$5,000 (US$3,400) in 2008, but admitted yesterday he had been wrong to charge the personal expenses to his official card in the first place. “It’s not a flash title to be known as the minister of porn ... but that’s what they’re saying, I’ve got to cop that,” he told Radio New Zealand. Jones said he did not intend to resign as a member of parliament.
■NEW ZEALAND
Police to probe Google
Police are to investigate Google over its collection of data from wireless networks, officials said yesterday. The move follows similar probes in Australia, Europe, the US and Canada after Google admitted that its cars taking photographs of cities in more than 30 countries had inadvertently gathered personal data sent over unsecured Wi-Fi systems. Assistant Privacy Commissioner Katrine Evans said police would investigate whether the Web giant committed a criminal offence by collecting data from Wi-Fi networks while taking photos of streets and houses for its street maps service.
■MALAYSIA
Captive rhino seeks mate
Authorities are trying to trap a female mate for Tam, a rare Borneo Sumatran rhino, in a last-ditch effort to produce an offspring in captivity and save his species from extinction, an official said yesterday. Laurentius Ambu, a top wildlife official, said Tam’s current mate is too old to reproduce. Tam is one of the handful of Borneo Sumatran rhinos believed to be alive. The trap is in an area on Borneo island where a remote-controlled camera captured an image of a rhino believed to be a female.
■CHINA
N Korea to punish shooters
China said yesterday that North Korea would severely punish the guards responsible for shooting dead three Chinese on the countries’ border last week. The incident, which left a fourth person wounded, prompted a rare formal complaint from Beijing to its close communist ally Pyongyang. “The North Korean border department said that according to a preliminary investigation it was an accidental incident,” state broadcaster China Central Television said on its noon report. “It said it would severely punish those who caused the incident,” CCTV reported.
■INDONESIA
Country suffers ‘trust deficit’
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono yesterday acknowledged his country lacked credibility as it seeks billions of dollars in foreign aid to battle climate change. He said Indonesia suffered a “trust deficit” in the international community that was hampering its ability to win backing for initiatives such as a moratorium on deforestation and cuts to greenhouse gas emissions. Indonesia is one of the top emitters of climate-warming gases blamed for rising global temperatures, largely through deforestation due to illegal logging and clearing for palm oil plantations.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Mourners remember dead
Thousands of mourners observed a minute’s silence on Wednesday for the 12 people killed by a taxi driver in a gun rampage a week ago. Eight open-air services were held in west Cumbria, on the fringes of the picturesque Lake District National Park, and local people paused at midday to remember the dead. Prime Minister David Cameron told members of parliament in London, who also observed a minute’s silence for the victims, that gun laws would be looked at again following the tragedy, but vowed there would be no “knee-jerk” legislation.
■SPAIN
Maalouf wins Asturias
Lebanese-born French writer Amin Maalouf won this year’s Prince of Asturias Award for literature on Wednesday for his exploration of Mediterranean culture “as a symbolic space of coexistence and tolerance.” The 61-year-old’s works include Samarkand, Leo the African and The Gardens of Light and his books have been translated into more than 20 languages. Maalouf was born in Beirut, where he studied political economics and sociology at the French University and worked for the daily newspaper An-Nahar, the Prince of Asturias foundation said. Because of the 1975 to 1990 Lebanese civil war, he moved to France in 1976 and worked as editor of Jeune Afrique. He also covered the Vietnam War and the Iranian revolution. Many of his works specialize in fiction based around historical events, such as the novel The Crusades Through Arab Eyes.
■COLOMBIA
Former colonel sentenced
A judge sentenced a retired army colonel to 30 years in prison on Wednesday for the disappearance of 11 people in 1985 when soldiers stormed the Palace of Justice to retake it from leftist guerrillas. Retired Colonel Luis Alfonso Plazas was the commander of the Bogota Cavalry School, which led the military assault on the rebels. He is the first officer to be convicted in the siege. Rebels from the M-19 guerrilla group seized the Palace on Nov. 6, 1985, taking hostages and demanding to hold a trial of then-president Belisario Betancur.
■CANADA
Court discusses ‘niqab’
A court is weighing a rape victim’s right to testify in court while wearing the Islamic veil, as defense lawyers argue two suspects had the right to face their accuser. The Ontario Court of Appeal started hearing arguments in the case on Tuesday after a lower court ordered the victim to remove her niqab while testifying against her alleged assailants. The case dates back several decades. The now 32-year-old woman said she was sexually assaulted and abused by an uncle and cousin between 1982 and 1987.
■RUSSIA
Police launch manhunt
More than 300 police launched a manhunt on Wednesday in the Far East for an armed gang they say are behind a series of attacks on officers. Investigators believe the five wanted men are responsible for the May 27 fatal shooting of a policeman in a village in the Primorsky Krai region on the Pacific Ocean, two more attacks that injured three policemen and the burning of a police station in other towns. A correspondent saw scores of policemen clad in bullet-proof vests and helmets patrolling the roads leading out of the capital Vladivostok on Wednesday, while helicopters buzzed overhead.
■UNITED STATES
New transgender rules
The State Department on Wednesday announced new more flexible passport regulations for transgender people, ending an earlier requirement that reassignment surgery precede change in gender on a passport. “Sexual reassignment surgery is no longer a prerequisite for passport issuance,” it said in a statement. Beginning yesterday, “when a passport applicant presents a certification from an attending medical physician that the applicant has undergone appropriate clinical treatment for gender transition, the passport will reflect the new gender,” the statement said.
■MEXICO
Explosives seized in raid
The navy seized 20kg of powerful explosives on Wednesday in a residential neighborhood in the capital after exchanging information with US authorities.Four Mexicans suspected of links to organized crime were being questioned after a pre-dawn raid on a hostel in Mexico City’s Roma neighborhood, the navy said in a statement. Investigators declined to say whether the case is linked to drug traffickers, but federal authorities have said they recently intercepted communications that reveal cartel gunmen are seeking explosives for attacks. The discovery of the explosives suggests that the war on drugs could be inching closer to Mexico City.
■UNITED STATES
Husband-seeker arrested
An Ohio woman spent three days in jail for calling the police emergency line five times looking for a husband. The dispatcher was flabbergasted by the requests and asked Audrey Scott, of Alliance, “You need to get a husband?” The 57-year-old Scott responded, “Yes.” Told that she could face arrest for misusing the emergency call line, Scott responded, “Let’s do it.” She was convicted last week of improper use of the emergency system and sentenced to three days in jail. After her release, Scott blamed the case on alcohol.
■MEXICO
Eight cartel members killed
Eight suspected members of the Beltran Leyva drug gang, among them two Colombian nationals, were killed on Wednesday in a clash with soldiers, naval officials said. A military patrol was attacked by the cartel in the western state of Colima and in an ensuing gun battle “eight suspected gang members were killed, including a man and woman of Colombian nationality,” said a statement from officials. Five soldiers were wounded, one seriously in the clash, that also recovered a grenade launcher, eight grenades, five rifles and nine handguns, officials said.
■COLOMBIA
Clintons dine out in Bogota
Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton spend a lot of time traveling separately, he for his foundation and she in her job as US secretary of state, but husband and wife crossed paths in Bogota and managed to enjoy a dinner out together. The Clintons met with a group of Colombian and American friends for a meal at a Bogota steakhouse across from their hotel, something that would have been too dangerous just a few years ago because of the threat of kidnapping or violence. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said the dinner on Tuesday night was great publicity for the transformation of his country. “The best PR for confidence in Colombia is that last night Madame Secretary of State of the United States and President Bill Clinton were in a restaurant enjoying complete peace of mind, enjoying this beautiful city,” Uribe told reporters at a joint news conference with Hillary Clinton.
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
Some things might go without saying, but just in case... Belgium’s food agency issued a public health warning as the festive season wrapped up on Tuesday: Do not eat your Christmas tree. The unusual message came after the city of Ghent, an environmentalist stronghold in the country’s East Flanders region, raised eyebrows by posting tips for recycling the conifers on the dinner table. Pointing with enthusiasm to examples from Scandinavia, the town Web site suggested needles could be stripped, blanched and dried — for use in making flavored butter, for instance. Asked what they thought of the idea, the reply
US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen on Monday met virtually with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) and raised concerns about “malicious cyber activity” carried out by Chinese state-sponsored actors, the US Department of the Treasury said in a statement. The department last month reported that an unspecified number of its computers had been compromised by Chinese hackers in what it called a “major incident” following a breach at contractor BeyondTrust, which provides cybersecurity services. US Congressional aides said no date had been set yet for a requested briefing on the breach, the latest in a serious of cyberattacks
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
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