THAILAND
Hat Yai recovers after floods
Floodwaters that swamped the southern part of the country and inundated its largest city have killed 12 people, officials said yesterday, bringing the flooding death toll from across the country to more than 120. The Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department said 122 people have died and nearly 6 million residents in 39 been affected by two weeks of heavy floods that started last month. Hat Yai, the urban hub of the south, was coming back to life yesterday after the floodwaters quickly receded on Wednesday. “It will take three days to clear up the garbage and make the city livable like before,” mayor Prai Pattano said in a telephone interview. He stimated damage from the flooding to be about 7 billion baht (US$234 million).
SINGAPORE
British author found guilty
The High Court on Wednesday found a 75-year-old British author, Alan Shadrake, guilty of insulting the judiciary in his book Once a Jolly Hangman: Singapore Justice in the Dock on the hanging of criminals in the city-state. Shadrake, who will be sentenced next week, faces a possible jail term, a fine or both for contempt of court. “This is a case about someone who says among other things the judges in Singapore are not impartial ... [and are] influenced by political and economic situations and biased against the weak and the poor,” Justice Quentin Loh said. The book contains a profile of Darshan Singh, the former chief executioner at Changi Prison who, according to the author, executed about 1,000 men and women from 1959 until he retired in 2006.
AUSTRALIA
Woman too white for charity
An Aboriginal woman said she was “humiliated” yesterday after being told she was too white to work for an indigenous rights charity. Tarran Betterridge, a Canberra university student, was told she would be a “perfect” campaigner for Generation One, but that the group was looking for “someone that looked indigenous.” “I couldn’t believe a company that advocates increasing indigenous employment would question hiring a person because they do not meet the color standard,” she wrote for public broadcaster ABC’s Web site. Chief executive Tim Gartrell said Generation One was “shocked and appalled” by the story and had terminated its contract with the recruitment firm, Epic Promotions.
CHINA
Dozens injured in riot
Hundreds of villagers clashed with police and construction workers in Zhaotong City, Yunnan Province on Tuesday, Hong Kong broadcaster RTHK reported yesterday. Hong Kong cable TV yesterday showed footage of the riot. RTHK said the villagers were unhappy with the amount of compensation they had received for government-acquired land used in the project. The broadcaster quoted Zhaotong City authorities as saying a special team had been mobilized to handle the matter.
JAPAN
Domino’s offers dream job
The popular US pizza outlet Domino’s said yesterday that it will hire one person for a one-hour job, which requires neither experience nor education, only that the salary will be ￥2.5 million (US$31,000) and applicants must be over 18. The job is part of a campaign commemorating the 25th anniversary of domino’s arrival in the country. The company said it will provide details on Nov. 10.
UNITED KINGDOM
‘Nonsuch’ painting for sale
A 16th-century watercolor of King Henry VIII’s “lost” palace, one of the earliest and most detailed depictions known to exist, is expected to fetch up to ￡1.2 million (US$1.9 million) at auction. Nonsuch Palace, next to no traces of which survive, was commissioned by the Tudor king to outshine palaces built by his archrival King Francois I of France and in celebration of the birth of his first legitimate son. The palace was named “Nonsuch” because no other palace could apparently match its splendor. Archeologists believe the ink, chalk and watercolor painting to be the only surviving impression of what it actually looked like. Christie’s will offer the picture next month. The picture, painted by Joris Hoefnagel in 1568 as a record of the most important buildings in Europe, has only been displayed in public twice and was last seen 25 years ago in the US.
UNITED KINGDOM
Staines mulls name change
The town of Staines is sandwiched between an airport and an industrial park, has been ridiculed by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen and is saddled with an -unfortunate-sounding name. Now business leaders in the commuter town near London are hoping a name change might dispel its gritty image. Critics say the rebranding effort would be prohibitively expensive and note the new proposed name — Staines-upon-Thames — also sounds ridiculous.
VIETNAM
Well-known blog hacked
A well-known political and social blog has been hacked, its founder said yesterday, adding to what watchdogs say is a mounting crackdown in the country. The anhbasam blog has been damaged since Tuesday, said its founder, Nguyen Huu Vinh, 54. He did not specify who he thinks was behind the attack. At first glance, the hacked blog appears to look normal, but all the files have disappeared and been replaced by an article and photos critical of an overseas-based Vietnamese dissident writer. Vinh vowed to re-launch his blog.
UNITED KINGDOM
Smoking workers not paid
Workers at a district council in Norfolk must now clock off and back on if they take a cigarette break. Staff at Breckland Council will no longer be paid for time spent smoking after proposals agreed earlier this year came into force on Monday. Council leader William Nunn said the policy formalized an agreement made in consultation with staff. Smokers’ lobby group Forest said everyone was entitled to a break during work and described the plan as “tyrannical,” the BBC reported.
UNITED KINGDOM
BBC apologizes to Geldof
The BBC yesterday apologized unreservedly to Band Aid over reports that millions of pounds raised by the charity to fight famine in Ethiopia had been spent on weapons. The broadcaster also said sorry to rock star Bob Geldof, who said he hoped the apology could begin to fix some of the “appalling damage” done by the allegations. The on-air apology came after a report on the World Service in March which claimed large sums of aid money which went to Ethiopia’s Tigray Province in 1985 was used by rebel forces to buy weapons. The Band Aid Trust was enraged by the reports, which it said gave the impression most of the money raised by the charity had been diverted. A BBC spokeswoman said the original World Service report did not make the allegation that relief aid provided by Band Aid was diverted, but added that “this impression could have been taken from the program.”
CUBA
US troupe performs in Cuba
Members of the American Ballet Theater danced in Cuba for the first time in 50 years on Wednesday in a tribute to the troupe’s former prima ballerina, Cuban ballet legend Alicia Alonso. The dancers performed in Havana’s Karl Marx Theater before an audience that included Alonso, who turns 90 on Dec. 21. The ballet troupe last appeared in Cuba in 1960. Alonso danced with the American Ballet Theater in the 1940s and 1950s and performed some of its most famous works. She returned to Cuba after the Cuban Revolution and, with Fidel Castro’s support, formed the Cuban National Ballet.
UNITED STATES
Starbucks defeats lawsuit
A Manhattan woman has failed to persuade an appeals court that Starbucks Corp should be held liable for severe burns she suffered after spilling tea served in a double cup. The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld on Tuesday a lower court’s dismissal of a US$3 million lawsuit brought by Rachel Moltner against the coffee chain.
FRANCE
Morrison receives award
US author Toni Morrison, whose poetic novels on slavery and the black American experience earned her the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes, was on Wednesday awarded France’s highest decoration, the Legion of Honour. Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand handed the award to Morrison, who received the Pulitzer for her best-known work Beloved in 1988 and the Nobel Prize for Literature five years later. “I want to tell you that in our eyes you embody the best part of America, that which founds its love of liberty on the most intense dreams,” Mitterrand told the award ceremony in Paris. “The one that allowed a black child born into a poor family in deepest Ohio, in the years of segregation, to have the exceptional destiny of the greatest American woman novelist of her time.”
CANADA
Provincial premier quits
Gordon Campbell, the Liberal premier of British Columbia, suddenly quit on Wednesday, citing “nasty” politics and the struggling economy in his surprise announcement. Campbell’s personal approval rating plummeted to 9 percent and his government suffered a drop in support after introducing a new consumption tax in July. “At a time like this, everyone’s attention should be focused on helping our economy rebound from the global recession and move forward with an agenda that families can see is in their long-term interests,” he said. “It’s time for a new person to lead the province.” Campbell also thanked his family for their support, saying: “They have all paid a price for my 26 years of public service. Politics can be a very nasty business, and at times that nastiness spilled over into their own personal lives. For that I am sorry.”
FRANCE
Stolen Degas resurfaces
A painting by celebrated master Edgar Degas has been found at a New York auction nearly 40 years after being stolen from a French museum, France’s culture ministry said on Wednesday. Sotheby’s removed Blanchisseuses souffrant des dents (Laundry Women with Toothache) from its impressionist art sale after France alerted the auction house that it belonged to the Louvre Museum in Paris, ministry officials said. The work was stored in 1960 at the Havre Museum in Normandy, from where it was stolen in 1973. A member of the Havre museum recognized the work as he was rifling through the Sotheby’s catalogue, the ministry official said.
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
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