CHINA
CRCC receptions punished
Eight employees of the country’s largest railway building firm have been punished for spending more than US$137 million on receptions, the state-run Global Times reported yesterday, the latest move in the leadership’s much-publicized anti-corruption drive. The newspaper did not give details of the punishment, but said another 57 employees of the state-owned China Railway Construction Corp (CRCC) have been reprimanded, and one faces prosecution. According to the company’s annual report in March last year, CRCC spent 837 million yuan (US$137 million) on receptions in one year — equivalent to about 10 percent of its profits last year. The report comes amid public anger at official misconduct and a campaign by President Xi Jinping (習近平), who took office earlier this year pledging to tackle corruption at all levels of government.
AUSTRALIA
Territory allows gay marriage
Provincial lawmakers for the Australian Capital Territory, which includes the capital, voted yesterday to allow same-sex marriage, a first for the country, but the federal government says it will try to stop gay weddings from happening. The territory’s parliament passed the law in a 9-8 vote, drawing a standing ovation from the 200-strong crowd in the parliament’s public gallery. Many sang John Paul Young’s 1970s pop hit Love is in the Air, in celebration. Gay couples are expected to rush to Canberra, the national capital and the territory’s only city, to tie the knot before the federal government can overturn the law, either through a court ruling or a federal parliamentary vote.
MALDIVES
Election set for Nov. 9
Officials rescheduled the presidential election for Nov. 9 after police prevented the scheduled vote this past weekend due to a conflict with a Supreme Court ruling. While the new schedule may break through a political stalemate and reassure the troubled young democracy, it may not produce a new president before the incumbent’s term ends, creating a constitutional vacuum. If no candidate wins 50 percent of the Nov. 9 vote, a runoff would be held on Nov. 16, according to the schedule Vice Elections Commissioner Ahmed Fayaz announced to reporters on Monday. The constitution requires a president to be elected by Nov. 11, when President Mohamed Waheed Hassan’s term ends. The Supreme Court had annulled results of a Sept. 7 election, finding that the voters’ registry had phony names and those of dead people. The revote had been set for Saturday, but police stopped it because the Elections Commission failed to obtain approval for the voting registry from all the candidates.
CHINA
Fresco restoration cartoonlike
Authorities have “restored” ancient Buddhist frescoes in a temple by painting them over with cartoon-like figures from Taoist myths, reports said yesterday, prompting outrage online. It is the latest example of controversial heritage preservation in the country, where many ancient structures have been destroyed in recent decades, sometimes to be replaced by replicas of the original. The temple in Chaoyang, Liaoning Province, was built more than 270 years ago and the delicate original paintings had survived, albeit crumbling, until the “refurbishment.” The new paintings are bold, simplistic and of completely different subjects, pictures showed. Internet users lashed out at the works on the country’s Weibo microblogging sites, branding the new paintings “even worse than cartoons.”
RUSSIA
Suicide bus bomber kills six
A female suicide bomber blew herself up on a city bus in Volgograd on Monday, killing six people and injuring about 30, officials said. The suspected bomber was from the North Caucasus, a region where an Islamic insurgency has been simmering for more than a decade following two separatist wars in Chechnya. A local official said the suspected attacker was married to an Islamic militant. Volgograd lies 650km to the northeast of the North Caucasus. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing, but it was the first outside the North Caucasus since Chechen rebel leader Dokka Umarov three months ago called for a resumption of attacks on civilians.
MEXICO
Hurricane hits Acapulco
Ports were closed, school classes were suspended and hundreds of people were evacuated along the southern Pacific coast on Monday as a major hurricane loomed over a region still recovering from record flooding a few weeks ago. Raymond, a Category 3 hurricane, weakened slightly on Monday night as it hovered about 145km offshore. The hurricane was already dumping steady rain on coastal areas including Acapulco, where storms wrecked homes, roads and cars and stranded tourists last month. By early afternoon, parts of the city were covered with water, its port was closed and many roads were washed out.
RUSSIA
Bolshoi dancer to stand trial
Dancer Pavel Dmitrichenko, who made his name on stage at Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater, was to go on trial yesterday for an acid attack that nearly blinded the Bolshoi Ballet’s artistic director, Sergei Filin. Dmitrichenko, 29, is accused of organizing the assault on Filin earlier this year. He and two alleged accomplices could be sentenced to up to 12 years in prison if they are convicted of intentionally causing grievous bodily harm. Filin was returning home on Jan. 17 when a masked assailant threw acid in his face. At a hearing in March, Dmitrichenko admitted he had wanted Filin to be roughed up, but had been shocked to learn that acid was used.
UNITED STATES
Runner sets knitting record
A University of Central Missouri graphic design professor has knitted his way into the record books while running the Kansas City Marathon. The Kansas City Star reports that David Babcock finished Saturday’s marathon in 5 hours, 48 minutes and 27 seconds. Knitting experts measured the scarf he created along the route at just more than 3.6m long. The scarf-knitting-while-running-a-marathon record was previously held by Susie Hewer, who runs to raise money for Alzheimer’s disease research. She knitted a 2m scarf at the London Marathon in April last year. Like Hewer, the 41-year-old Babcock hopes that people will donate to the Alzheimer’s Association.
UNITED STATES
Cartoon gravestone removed
An Iraq war veteran’s towering SpongeBob SquarePants headstone was removed from her final resting place earlier this month because officials at Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio, deemed it inappropriate. The headstone of Kimberly Walker, 28, was made in the likeness of her favorite cartoon character and erected on Oct. 10, almost eight months after she was found slain in a Colorado hotel room. Despite getting approval for the headstone’s design — a smiling SpongeBob in an army uniform, with Walker’s name — Walker’s family on Monday said cemetery staff called them the day after it was installed to say it had to come down.
The pledge by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to “work, work, work, work and work” for her country has been named the catchphrase of the year, recognizing the effort Japan’s first female leader had to make to reach the top. Takaichi uttered the phrase in October when she was elected as head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Many were initially as worried about her work ethic as supportive of her enthusiasm. In a country notorious for long working hours, especially for working women who are also burdened with homemaking and caregiving, overwork is a sensitive topic. The recognition triggered a
‘HEART IS ACHING’: Lee appeared to baffle many when he said he had never heard of six South Koreans being held in North Korea, drawing criticism from the families South Korean President Lee Jae-myung yesterday said he was weighing a possible apology to North Korea over suspicions that his ousted conservative predecessor intentionally sought to raise military tensions between the war-divided rivals in the buildup to his brief martial law declaration in December last year. Speaking to reporters on the first anniversary of imprisoned former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol’s ill-fated power grab, Lee — a liberal who won a snap presidential election following Yoon’s removal from office in April — stressed his desire to repair ties with Pyongyang. A special prosecutor last month indicted Yoon and two of his top
The Philippines deferred the awarding of a project that is part of a plan to build one of the world’s longest marine bridges after local opposition over the potential involvement of a Chinese company due to national security fears. The proposals are “undergoing thorough review” by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which acts as a lender and an overseer of the project to ensure it meets international environmental and governance standards, the Philippine Department of Public Works and Highways said in a statement on Monday in response to queries from Bloomberg. The agency said it would announce the winning bidder once ADB
IN ABSENTIA: The MP for Hampstead and Highgate in London, a niece of deposed Bangladesh prime minister Sheik Hasina, condemned the ‘flawed and farcical’ trial A court in Bangladesh yesterday sentenced British Member of Parliament Tulip Siddiq to two years in jail after a judge ruled she was complicit in corrupt land deals with her aunt, the country’s deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina. A judge found Siddiq, the Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate, guilty of misusing her “special influence” as a British politician to coerce Hasina into giving valuable pieces of land to her mother, brother and sister. Siddiq’s mother, Sheikh Rehana, was given seven years in prison and considered the prime participant in the case. The trial had been carried out in absentia: Neither Hasina, Siddiq,
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