CAMBODIA
Court releases ‘First Lady’
A war crimes court yesterday ordered the release of Ieng Thirith, dubbed the “First Lady” of the murderous Khmer Rouge regime, saying she was unfit to stand trial. “As there is no prospect that the accused can be tried in the foreseeable future, the trial chamber has confirmed the severance of the charges [against the 80-year-old],” a statement from the UN-backed tribunal said. Explaining its decision to stay proceedings against Ieng Thirith — who was the sister-in-law of regime leader Pol Pot — the court said her “cognitive impairment is likely irreversible.” One of only a handful of people ever brought before a court over the 1975-1979 regime, blamed for the deaths of up to 2 million people, Ieng Thirith was accused of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. Three other ageing top former regime leaders — including her husband, former foreign minister Ieng Sary — remain on trial.
SOUTH KOREA
Transgender show pulled
A TV channel yesterday said it had pulled the plug on a newly launched talk show aimed at the transgender community, following strong objections from viewers. KBS Joy, an entertainment subsidiary of KBS TV, said on its Web site that it had reached the decision after “taking viewers’ opinions into account.” The midnight program, titled XY That Girl, was only launched last week, but the first airing sparked uproar from conservative groups, who staged protests outside the broadcaster and took out newspaper ads denouncing the show. The program invited transgender individuals to appear in person or to phone in to discuss their experiences living in the transgender community. Gay and transgender Koreans remain largely under the radar in a country that remains deeply conservative about matters of sexual identity and where many still regard homosexuality as a foreign phenomenon. Various teacher and parent groups bought a newspaper ad in which they attacked KBS Joy for “fanning” gay sexuality and warned that “children will blindly follow in the steps of transgenders.”
SWEDEN
Thief leaves man on tracks
Police are searching for a thief who found an inebriated man unconscious on subway tracks, stole his valuables and then left him there to be hit by a train. A surveillance camera captured the incident at a Stockholm subway station early on Sunday. A video clip broadcast on Wednesday by SVT showed the middle-aged man falling down from the platform. Another man in a blue jacket sees him and jumps down on the tracks, but instead of helping the man, he robs him, climbs back on the platform and walks away. Moments later the man is struck by a train. Police spokesman Dan Ostman said one of the man’s feet was crushed and he was also injured in the face and shoulder, but he survived.
DENMARK
Elephants go for a stroll
Two elephants said goodbye to the circus and took a walk along a Copenhagen street packed with rush-hour traffic on Wednesday, one following the other with trunk linked to tail. Sonia, 31, and Vana Mana, 41, star turns at the Circus Benneweis, strolled down the multi-lane Borups Alle in the Danish capital for about 200m before their trainer caught up with them. “They were walking past the morning traffic trunk-to-tail,” a police officer told Danish news agency Ritzau. Police blocked the road so the elephants could return to the circus site unhurt. “Nobody was hurt, so it was just two elephants out for a stroll,” the police officer said.
UNITED STATES
‘Ben & Cherry’ DVDs recalled
A movie studio has agreed to recall pornographic DVDs whose titles and packaging mimic those of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Caballero Video also agreed to stop marketing and to destroy materials used to make 10 titles in its “Ben & Cherry’s” X-rated film series while a lawsuit against it is pending. Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc sued Caballero on Sept. 5 for trademark infringement. It complained that its DVD titles, such as Boston Cream Thighs, Chocolate Fudge Babes and Peanut Butter D-Cups, were too similar to its ice cream flavors Boston Cream Pie, Chocolate Fudge Brownie and Peanut Butter Cup. Ben & Jerry’s also said Caballero’s packaging played off its own with images of puffy white clouds and grazing cows, just as the slogan, “Porno’s Finest,” punned on “Vermont’s Finest.”
BRAZIL
‘Husband’ breaks into palace
A woman claiming to be “the husband” of President Dilma Rousseff was overpowered as she tried to force her way into the presidential palace, officials said on Wednesday. The 29-year-old woman, identified as Edileine Celestino da Silva and sporting men’s clothes and haircut, showed at the palace late on Tuesday and tried to enter through a restricted entrance, the Correio Braziliense daily reported. A presidential guard warned her to stay away and fired his weapon into the ground to frighten her. However, the two “traded blows and rolled down the ramp” until security agents intervened, the paper said. “I came here to propose to Dilma. I am her husband,” the sobbing woman said. “I am not crying because of the blows I received. I am crying because I am in love,” she said. The woman was taken to hospital before being transferred to a police station.
UNITED KINGDOM
Roger Moore alleges abuse
Former James Bond actor Roger Moore on Wednesday said he was a victim of domestic violence during his first two marriages. The 84-year-old British star, who first played Agent 007 in 1973’s Live and Let Die, said his former wives, Doorn Van Steyn and Dorothy Squires, subjected him to a string of attacks in both of their doomed marriages. Van Steyn, an ice skater who married Moore when he was 19, once threw a teapot at him, he told TV presenter Piers Morgan in an interview due to be broadcast today. Moore, who is on his fourth marriage, said that on one occasion, Van Steyn had even attacked a doctor who was treating a cut on his hand. “She said to him: ‘Aren’t you going to do anything?’ and punched him,” he said. “Which made a change, because normally she punched me.” Moore divorced Van Steyn in 1953 and soon after married Welsh singer Dorothy Squires. However, this marriage was also stormy, and she once hit him over the head with a guitar, he said.
GUATEMALA
Villagers kill murder suspect
Angry villagers killed a man by setting fire to him after he allegedly hacked two children to death with a machete, authorities said. The villagers in Tactic, about 85km north of Guatemala City, grabbed the 35-year-old suspect, identified as Julio Saquil, doused him with gasoline and set him ablaze, local authorities said on Wednesday. “He walked into to one of the classrooms and assaulted the students, completely beheading a 13-year-old boy and slitting the throat of an eight-year-old girl with a machete,” Tactic firefighter Wilson Cahuec said. Local security officials said the dead man had a history of drug problems and violence, but they have not yet identified a motive for the attack.
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
CARTEL ARRESTS: The president said that a US government operation to arrest two cartel members made it jointly responsible for the unrest in the state’s capital Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Thursday blamed the US in part for a surge in cartel violence in the northern state of Sinaloa that has left at least 30 people dead in the past week. Two warring factions of the Sinaloa cartel have clashed in the state capital of Culiacan in what appears to be a fight for power after two of its leaders were arrested in the US in late July. Teams of gunmen have shot at each other and the security forces. Meanwhile, dead bodies continued to be found across the city. On one busy street corner, cars drove
‘DISAPPEARED COMPLETELY’: The melting of thousands of glaciers is a major threat to people in the landlocked region that already suffers from a water shortage Near a wooden hut high up in the Kyrgyz mountains, scientist Gulbara Omorova walked to a pile of gray rocks, reminiscing how the same spot was a glacier just a few years ago. At an altitude of 4,000m, the 35-year-old researcher is surrounded by the giant peaks of the towering Tian Shan range that also stretches into China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The area is home to thousands of glaciers that are melting at an alarming rate in Central Asia, already hard-hit by climate change. A glaciologist, Omarova is recording that process — worried about the future. She hiked six hours to get to
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