SRI LANKA
Search on for porn actors
Colombo police have launched a campaign to trace 80 women and three men who have appeared in pornographic films by printing their pictures in newspapers. More than three dozen porn actors were pictured in a full-page advertisement in one newspaper earlier this week. Police plan to publish images, taken from the films, of about 50 more in the coming days. The mug shots have been obtained by a special police squad viewing films “round the clock,” officers said. Superintendent Prishantha Jayakody said police had requested permission from a magistrate for the new initiative because they had become increasingly concerned over schoolchildren downloading and exchanging clips of locally made pornographic films on their mobile phones. The actors could face six months’ imprisonment and a fine if convicted of indecent behavior.
NEW ZEALAND
Minister red-faced over gaffe
Immigration Minister Jonathan Coleman has been left red-faced after accidentally dusting off a colleague’s two-year-old speech and delivering it to parliament in an impassioned address. Coleman waxed lyrical for 10 minutes late on Tuesday about the benefits of the government’s taxation legislation as puzzled members of the opposition Labour Party looked on. In a mix-up worthy of the British comedy Yes Minister, Coleman only realized after completing his address that a government staffer had accidentally handed him a speech originally delivered by Revenue Minister Peter Dunne in 2008. Dunne said yesterday that the mix-up “wasn’t a good look” for politicians and accepted responsibility for the gaffe. A sheepish Coleman, “mortified” at the parliamentary blooper, said he had realized there was a problem with the speech but decided to press on.
NEW ZEALAND
Redbacks establish colonies
Australia’s deadly redback spider has established itself in the country, posing a significant risk to humans as it threatens to colonize major cities, researchers in Wellington said. The venomous redback, a relative of the black widow, probably hitched a ride on goods imported from Australia and had established itself at sites on both the North and South Islands, scientists said. The government’s AgResearch institute said in a study published this month that the redback had proved more resilient to the cold, wet winters than initially expected. AgResearch scientist Cor Vink said the spider, named for its distinctive red stripe, threatened endangered native spider and insect populations. The Australian Venom Research Unit’s Web site says at least 14 people have died from redback bites, although there have been no fatalities since an anti-venom was developed in the 1950s.
PHILIPPINES
Poll rates food over sex
Women rank food a lot higher than their sex life among the main things that make them happy, according to a government survey released in Manila yesterday. Both Filipino men and women ranked family, health and religion in that order as the three most important things that made them happy, the National Statistical Coordination Board found. Women, however, put food in fifth place, just ahead of work. Love life came 10th and and sex life at 18th, just one rank above the bottom. For men, love life figured in 6th place and sex life 10th, with food at 9th. Among poor people, the survey found that men ranked their sex, love lives and food at the top while women said family, love life and food were top of their lists.
UNITED KINGDOM
Cricket testes stun scientists
A species of cricket has the largest testes in relation to its body weight of any known creature in the world, stunned scientists reported yesterday. The tuberous bushcricket (Platycleis affinis) has testes that amount to 13.8 percent of its body mass — the equivalent of a man hauling around tire-sized testicles weighing 10kg. “We couldn’t believe the size of these organs. They seemed to fill the entire abdomen,” said Karim Vahed, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Derby. The tuberous bushcricket beat all rivals in a testicular comparison of 21 species of bushcrickets, also known in North America as katydids. However, for all its gonad grandstanding, the insect did not produce more sperm per ejaculate than others. Its large reserves of sperm enable it to ejaculate, in tiny amounts, with a bigger number of females, thus boosting its chances of reproductive success. The research appears in Biology Letters, a journal of Britain’s Royal Society.
GERMANY
Doctors lured with sausage
A small village community left in the lurch after their local doctor retired in September has pulled together to try and attract a new GP — by offering free bread, meat, flowers, haircuts and accommodation. Niko Ringhoff, who runs the butcher’s shop in the northwestern village of Lette, is offering a doctor willing to move to the 2,200-strong community free meaty lunches and a complimentary sausage-themed feast when the new surgery opens. “Everybody wants to do something to help get a doctor,” he said on Tuesday. “We desperately need a doctor, but it’s difficult to attract one to the countryside.” Marion Funke, who runs the local hotel with her husband, is offering a doctor a place to stay for free until he or she finds permanent accommodation.
RUSSIA
Prison to install sunbeds
One of the country’s most notorious prisons will soon install sunbeds to improve the health of its inmates, its head said on Tuesday. The Butyrka prison in Moscow has held a slew of notable figures behind its bars, from writers Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Isaak Babel to Adolf Hitler’s nephew Heinrich. The sunbeds, which are intended to be used for medical purposes, will be installed by the end of the year, the state-run RIA news agency said. Russia’s crowded, poorly managed prison system came under increased scrutiny after the death last year of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who spent much of the last months of his life in Butyrka. Butyrka’s head Sergei Telyatnikov said inmates could even have spa facilities such as mud baths in the future.
UNITED KINGDOM
Pricey calendar for sale
London department store Harrods gave a luxurious new spin to the humble Christmas advent calendar on Tuesday by unveiling a version worth 720,000 euros (US$995,000) featuring a speedboat and a designer kitchen. The calendar is one of five available worldwide, one for each continent. Harrods is displaying one in its flagship London store, although the designers have had to show an image of some of the larger items on illuminated plates. Instead of the traditional piece of chocolate, behind the 24 windows of the calendar — a sleek black box — are a galaxy of luxury gifts designed by Porsche Design aimed at bringing festive joy to the Christmas-loving tycoon. Three highlights include a chronograph watch worth 100,000 euros in rose gold, a designer kitchen and the 8.5m speedboat. A Harrods spokesman said the calendar was a “serious product and we do expect to sell it.”
UNITED STATES
Woman tried to sell son
A Florida woman was charged with trying to sell her infant son in order to pay for a new car, police said on Tuesday. The baby’s grandmother brokered the deal and initially demanded US$75,000 but agreed to cut the price to US$30,000, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) said. The mother of the eight-week-old boy, Stephanie Bigbee Fleming, 22, of Bradenton, Florida, was to receive US$9,000 of the proceeds, the FDLE said. “Fleming planned to purchase a new vehicle from the money received,” an FDLE spokeswoman said. Fleming was arrested on Tuesday. The grandmother, Patty Bigbee, 45, was arrested last week with her boyfriend Lawrence Works, 42. All three were charged with the illegal sale of a child, the department said. The arrest report said Patty Bigbee offered to sell the baby to a female relative, explaining she had been caring for her grandchild but “was not mother material.” The relative alerted police and worked with them during the negotiations.
UNITED STATES
Man dies after being cleared
A Mississippi man who spent more than 30 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit has died less than two months after his name was cleared in the case. Bobby Ray Dixon died on Sunday from cancer. He was 53. Jerry Dixon says he’s glad his brother lived long enough to see himself cleared by DNA evidence in the 1979 rape and murder of a Hattiesburg woman.
UNITED KINGDOM
Facebook page sparks debate
A day after the Queen made her official debut on Facebook, the royal family’s profile has become a lightning rod for debate about the monarchy, with the palace Web team forced to censor a string of offensive comments. More than 150,000 people have “liked” the British Monarchy page since it was published yesterday, with thousands of comments added to the profile’s news and photographs. Alongside postings of support from monarchists, the profile has become the focus of comments from anti-royalists as well as Argentinians angry about the ongoing dispute over the Falkland Islands, Cornish nationalists and republicans. A Buckingham Palace spokesman said that moderators were forced to step in and take down abusive comments but added that there was no selective targeting of postings made by republicans. The launch of the official Facebook profile has sparked a host of online spoofs with profile pictures including the Queen in a McDonald’s uniform and wearing Rangers and Arsenal soccer tops.
THE NETHERLANDS
Cops’ idea not to be sniffed at
Police have asked citizens to use their noses to help track down illicit cannabis plantations. Police and municipalities in Rotterdam and The Hague this week mailed 30,000 scratch and sniff cards that give off the pungent odor of cannabis plants to help people identify the smell of a plantation. “From now on, you’ll be able to smell the possible danger of an illegal cannabis crop in your neighborhood,” the card says, advising citizens to call police if they think they have sniffed out a plantation. The campaign is backed by energy network company Stedin, because most cannabis plantations illegally syphon off electricity to power lights used to make plants grow. “Cannabis cultivation has to stop,” police said in a statement. “It might seem innocent, but it’s not. Apart from the fact that it is illegal, interfering with water and electricity supplies often creates life-threatening situations.”
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
‘SHOCK TACTIC’: The dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has fired his vice premier, compared him to a goat and railed against “incompetent” officials, state media reported yesterday, in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory. Vice Premier Yang Sung-ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.” “Please, comrade vice premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said. “He is ineligible for an important duty. Put simply, it was
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Sunday announced a deal with the chief of Kurdish-led forces that includes a ceasefire, after government troops advanced across Kurdish-held areas of the country’s north and east. Syrian Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi said he had agreed to the deal to avoid a broader war. He made the decision after deadly clashes in the Syrian city of Raqa on Sunday between Kurdish-led forces and local fighters loyal to Damascus, and fighting this month between the Kurds and government forces. The agreement would also see the Kurdish administration and forces integrate into the state after months of stalled negotiations on
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