AUSTRALIA
Gender option for passports
Passports will now have three gender options — male, female and indeterminate — under new guidelines to remove discrimination against transgender people, the government said yesterday. Transgender people and those of ambiguous sex will now be able to list their gender on passports with an “X” if their choice is supported by a doctor’s statement. Previously, people were not allowed to change their gender on their passport without having had a sex-change operation. Senator Louise Pratt, whose partner was born female and is now identified as a man, said the reform was a major improvement for travelers who face questioning and detention at airports because their appearance does not match their gender status.
CAMBODIA
New Thai PM visits
Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra made her first official visit to Phnom Penh yesterday, holding talks with Prime Minister Hun Sen during her one-day trip. “The visit will restore ties and cooperation in all fields between the two countries,” foreign ministry spokesman Koy Kuong said, adding that relations were “normalizing” after a spate of border clashes over contested land near the 900-year-old Preah Vihear temple. Yingluck’s trip comes one day before her brother, fugitive former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, arrives in Phnom Penh.
PHILIPPINES
Four killed in rebel clash
Fighters of the nation’s largest Muslim rebel group have clashed with a breakaway faction in fierce fighting that killed four combatants and wounded five others. Moro Islamic Liberation Front spokesman Von Al Haq says its men were ambushed on Wednesday by followers of radical commander Ameril Umbra Kato. Al Haq said yesterday that two combatants from each side were killed in the five-hour gunbattle in Datu Piang township in Maguindanao Province and that five others were wounded. The fighting forced hundreds of residents of two farming villages to flee, Brigadier General Ariel Bernardo said, adding that government troops did not intervene in the fighting.
INDONESIA
Thousands strike at US mine
About 9,000 staff demanding better pay at Freeport McMoRan’s huge gold and copper mine began a month-long strike yesterday, as hundreds of police watched over them. About 700 paramilitary police gathered at the mine in Papua Province for the demonstration. “Since this morning, dozens of buses have transported workers from the mining site down to Timika town, where thousands of protesters are gathering,” Freeport workers’ union spokesman Virgo Solossa said. The protest follows a weeklong demonstration in July that disrupted production at the mine. The workers decided to resume their strike action because of continued disagreements with management over pay.
JAPAN
Quake rocks northeast
An offshore quake with a magnitude of 6.2 shook the northeast and swayed buildings in Tokyo yesterday, but no tsunami warning was issued, seismologists said. The quake struck at 5pm off Ibaraki Prefecture in the Pacific, about 10km under the seabed, the US Geological Survey said. Tokyo Electric Power Co said the quake caused no damage to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, which was crippled following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
DENMARK
Voters go to polls
People voted in general elections yesterday, with opinion polls suggesting voters will end a decade of far-right influence and hand power to the center-left opposition and the country’s first woman prime minister. Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen, 47, is struggling to get his minority center-right coalition government elected for a fourth straight term. Pre-vote polls have consistently indicated the odds are against him. If the government, made up of Rasmussen’s Liberal Party and the Conservative Party, loses, it will also end the powerful influence wielded by the populist, anti-immigration Danish People’s Party. Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the head of the Social Democrats, seems likely to become prime minister.
UNITED KINGDOM
‘The Fonz’ receives honor
The Fonz has earned some respect. Henry Winkler, the actor best known for his work on the US sitcom Happy Days, has been made an honorary member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for his work helping children with dyslexia. Ambassador Nigel Sheinwald presented the award to Winkler at the Washington embassy on Wednesday. Winkler’s dyslexia was diagnosed as an adult. He has toured schools in Britain in the last two years to talk about the condition, and has written books about Hank Zipzer, a boy with dyslexia.
BELARUS
Sanction-breaking suspected
The nation is the latest that Western powers suspect of helping Iran skirt UN sanctions aimed at preventing it from expanding its ballistic missile and nuclear programs, Western diplomats said. If the suspicions are confirmed, the already isolated country would join China, Russia, Syria, North Korea, Turkey and other states Western powers believe have helped Tehran flout UN measures since the Security Council adopted its first sanctions resolution against Iran in late 2006. The suspicions were expected to be raised during a visit by several members of a UN panel of experts to the country this month to discuss compliance with the UN ban on selling Iran nuclear and missile technology.
SPAIN
Saudi rape probe reopened
A court has reopened a probe into allegations a Saudi billionaire prince raped a model on a yacht in the Mediterranean three years ago, according to a ruling seen by reporters on Wednesday. The case concerns Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a nephew of King Abdullah and one of world’s richest men, who is being asked to respond to a complaint of sexual assault against him in August 2008 by a model who was 20 at the time. A May 24 ruling by a court in the Balearic Islands said the complainant, who was not named, believed a drug was added to her drink in a nightclub on the island after she met the prince.
UNITED STATES
Bolt-hole for sale
For sale: New York house with great privacy recently given up after a short rental by Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Price: US$13.99 million. The Manhattan townhouse used by the former IMF managing director while he was under house arrest on sex assault charges. Those charges were dropped last month. He returned home to France earlier this month. The listing appeared on www.townrealestate.com. It boasts a home movie theater, gym, spa, four bedrooms and roof deck access, all luxuries apparently valued by Strauss-Kahn and his millionaire wife, Anne Sinclair, who rented the property for US$50,000 a month.
UNITED STATES
Non-clipper sets record
Chris Walton has been working on her fingernails for 18 years and it’s finally paying off. Guinness World Records on Wednesday named Walton the woman with the longest fingernails, introducing “The Dutchess” and her nails at a New York City event. The Las Vegas woman helped launch next year’s edition of the Guinness World Records book, which goes on sale this month. Dalton’s nails measure 3.1m on her left hand and 2.92m on her right. She said she does her own nails and make-up and does household chores even though her nails twist and turn.
UNITED STATES
Blame for oil spill spreads
A key government report on Wednesday spread the blame for the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, citing a bad cement job, poor management by BP and its subcontractors and risky shortcuts. The findings by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement are largely in line with other investigations into last year’s disaster, but offer the most detailed analysis to date. Regulators said they planned to issue seven new citations based upon the report’s conclusions. The 500-page report wraps up a 17-month investigation by the bureau and the Coast Guard, and concluded that a “central cause of the blowout was failure of a cement barrier.”
UNITED STATES
Mystery light likely fireball
A brilliant bright light seen streaking in the night sky over the southwest was most likely a fireball — a fragment of an asteroid that entered Earth’s atmosphere, NASA scientist Don Yeomans said on Wednesday. Residents from Phoenix, Arizona, to Las Vegas to Southern California’s coastal areas reported seeing the light move quickly from west to east about 7:45pm on Wednesday. Many reported the light as bluish-green and others as yellow and orange. Some captured video of the object. “We can’t say 100 percent,” said Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program, “but it’s almost certain that the object was a fireball” or very bright meteor.
UNITED STATES
Colorado cat found in NYC
A pet cat that went missing in Colorado five years ago was found wandering in Manhattan, and will soon be sent on a plane to reunite with its former owners, an animal pound spokesman said on Wednesday. Pet shelter workers traced Willow the cat back to a family in Colorado, thanks to a microchip embedded in its neck, said Richard Gentles, spokesman for Animal Care & Control of New York City. “The cat was in very good condition, clean, a little chunky,” Gentles said. “So obviously someone was taking care of her.”
UNITED STATES
More ‘sextortion’ charges
A man charged with extorting a teenager into sexual favors victimized other teens in several states after he was released on bond, federal prosecutors in Indianapolis, Indiana, said on Wednesday. They said Trevor Shea, 20, has agreed to plead guilty to charges of sexual exploitation of children stemming from both cases. Prosecutors say he blackmailed and convinced 10 girls aged between 13 and 16 to send him sexually explicit photographs or videos. He could face 15 to 30 years in prison on each of the seven counts against him.
China’s military news agency yesterday warned that Japanese militarism is infiltrating society through series such as Pokemon and Detective Conan, after recent controversies involving events at sensitive sites. In recent days, anime conventions throughout China have reportedly banned participants from dressing as characters from Pokemon or Detective Conan and prohibited sales of related products. China Military Online yesterday posted an article titled “Their schemes — beware the infiltration of Japanese militarism in culture and sports.” The article referenced recent controversies around the popular anime series Pokemon, Detective Conan and My Hero Academia, saying that “the evil influence of Japanese militarism lives on in
ANTI-SEMITISM: Some newsletters promote hateful ideas such as white supremacy and Holocaust denial, with one describing Adolf Hitler as ‘one of the greatest men of all time’ The global publishing platform Substack is generating revenue from newsletters that promote virulent Nazi ideology, white supremacy and anti-Semitism, a Guardian investigation has found. The platform, which says it has about 50 million users worldwide, allows members of the public to self-publish articles and charge for premium content. Substack takes about 10 percent of the revenue the newsletters make. About 5 million people pay for access to newsletters on its platform. Among them are newsletters that openly promote racist ideology. One, called NatSocToday, which has 2,800 subscribers, charges US$80 for an annual subscription, although most of its posts are available
GLORY FACADE: Residents are fighting the church’s plan to build a large flight of steps and a square that would entail destroying up to two blocks of homes Barcelona’s eternally unfinished Basilica de la Sagrada Familia has grown to become the world’s tallest church, but a conflict with residents threatens to delay the finish date for the monument designed more than 140 years ago. Swathed in scaffolding on a platform 54m above the ground, an enormous stone slab is being prepared to complete the cross of the central Jesus Christ tower. A huge yellow crane is to bring it up to the summit, which will stand at 172.5m and has snatched the record as the world’s tallest church from Germany’s Ulm Minster. The basilica’s peak will deliberately fall short of the
Venezuelan Nobel peace laureate Maria Corina Machado yesterday said that armed men “kidnapped” a close ally shortly after his release by authorities, following former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro’s capture. The country’s Public Prosecutor’s Office confirmed later yesterday that former National Assembly vice president Juan Pablo Guanipa, 61, was again taken into custody and was to be put under house arrest, arguing that he violated the conditions of his release. Guanipa would be placed under house arrest “in order to safeguard the criminal process,” the office said in a statement. The conditions of Guanipa’s release have yet to be made public. Machado claimed that
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