INDONESIA
Aussie cooperation halted
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said yesterday that the nation is suspending cooperation with Canberra on people smuggling following allegations that Australian spies tried to tap his telephone and those of his inner circle. He told reporters in Jakarta that Jakarta would temporarily halt coordinated military cooperation with Australia, which includes assistance on people smuggling. “You are well aware that we are facing a joint problem of people smuggling that has been a problem for both Australia and Indonesia,” he said. He said that Canberra and Jakarta work together in an area called “coordinated military cooperation,” which involves patrols at sea. “I have asked for that to be halted until everything is clear,” he said.
PHILIPPINES
Jail hunting for escapees
It is 103 and counting — that is the number of prisoners on the loose after escaping Tacloban City Jail when a super typhoon devastated the central Philippines, flooded the prison and smashed open the main gate. The prisoners had been freed from their cells so that they could seek higher ground, but while some rode the water to the safety of the warden’s second-floor office, others followed the water out the front door. “They swam through,” warden Joseph Nunez said. “We are still missing 117.” That number had come down to 103 by late on Tuesday as some inmates turned themselves in and a team of correction officers, armed with M-16 rifles and 9mm handguns, hunted down a handful of others on the streets.
SOUTH AFRICA
Mandela charges dropped
The state prosecutor announced it had withdrawn charges of grave tampering and bigamy against Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Mandla, on Tuesday because of insufficient evidence. In July, Mandla — embroiled in a bitter family feud — was charged with tampering with the graves of his famous grandfather’s children, after he exhumed them without consent. “We have decided to drop the charges of grave violation because of insufficient evidence,” said Luxolo Tyali, a spokesman for the National Prosecuting Authority. Mandla had also faced a long-standing charge of bigamy after his unceremonious separation from his first wife, Thando Mabunu, in 2008. “After studying the police docket on this matter, we also decided not to prosecute,” Tyali said. The 39-year-old is still facing a charge of pulling a gun on a motorist during a road rage incident last month.
BELGIUM
Widow sleeps with corpse
A Brussels widow slept next to her mummified husband’s corpse for a year, her landlord said after making the macabre discovery during an eviction, a Belgian daily reported on Tuesday. La Derniere Heure published striking pictures of a shawl-wrapped, emaciated body with a long white mustache, sunken eye sockets and protruding rib-cage, covered in a film of dried skin. The newspaper said the images were of a man who had died at the age of 73 after living in the Anderlecht district of the Belgian capital for a dozen years or so with his wife. According to initial medical tests, he died of natural causes a year ago. The gruesome find emerged because the rent on their apartment had not been paid since November last year and the landlord launched eviction proceedings. “I have seen dead people before ... but never in this condition,” the landlord was quoted as saying. “The lady slept next to her husband’s body.” Neighbors said the widow had told them her husband was away “receiving treatment.”
RUSSIA
Foreign activists get bail
A court on Tuesday granted bail to nine foreign Greenpeace protesters, the first non-Russians jailed and awaiting trial over a demonstration near a Russian oil rig to be made eligible for release. The decision came a day after the Primorsky court in St Petersburg refused to release an Australian activist and another court granted bail to three Russians, including prominent photographer Denis Sinyakov. The Primorsky court set bail at 2 million rubles (US$61,500) each for the activists from Argentina, Canada, Brazil, Finland, France, Italy, New Zealand and Poland. The court said they will be released if the bail is paid within the next four days.
UNITED KINGDOM
Train refuses obese man
A clinically obese Frenchman stranded in the US because he was deemed too heavy to fly finally took a plane to London on Tuesday — only to be refused travel home by the Eurostar cross-channel train. Kevin Chenais, 22, who weighs 230kg, arrived at London’s Heathrow airport with his parents after Virgin Atlantic agreed to fly him back from New York. He had been in the US since May last year for treatment for a hormone imbalance and had been set to return home on British Airways last month, but the airline refused to accept him as a passenger, saying he was too heavy. Chenais praised Virgin for flying him out from New York’s JFK airport and paying for the economy-class flights for him and his parents. Chenais and his parents were met at Heathrow by French consular staff who arranged for them to try for a Paris-bound Eurostar train later on Tuesday. However, Eurostar then said that he had been refused travel because of its regulations for evacuation procedures.
UNITED STATES
Senator’s son stabs him
The son of a state senator stabbed his father in the head and chest on Tuesday before apparently killing himself with a gun, according to initial reports from police. Authorities were still piecing together a motive and the circumstances that led to the stabbing of Virginia State Senator Creigh Deeds. Deeds’ 24-year-old son, Gus, died at his home of a gunshot wound. Geller said Creigh Deeds and his son were the only people at the home and police were not looking for a suspect. The senator was in fair condition in hospital. He had previously been listed as critical. After the stabbing, Deeds was able to walk away from his rural home to a nearby road and a cousin who was driving by happened to notice the senator, police said.
CANADA
Anesthesiologist assaults 21
An anesthesiologist was found guilty on Tuesday of sexually assaulting 21 women while they were helplessly under anesthesia, but aware of what was happening. George Doodnaught was accused of kissing, fondling and forcing oral sex on the patients at North York General Hospital in Toronto during a four-year period that ended in 2010. The victims were aware of what was happening, but could not move, the court heard. The defense argued that the victims actually had vivid sexual dreams caused by sedatives and that Doodnaught could not have assaulted them undetected by others separated only by a surgical screen in the operating room. A researcher confirmed at trial that the drugs can cause hallucinations, but he added that it is unlikely that all of the women, who did not know each other, would come forward separately with similar accusations against the same doctor.
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
Filipino farmers like Romeo Wagayan have been left with little choice but to let their vegetables rot in the field rather than sell them at a loss, as rising oil prices linked to the Iran war drive up the cost of harvesting, labor and transport. “There’s nothing we can do,” said Wagayan, a 57-year old vegetable farmer in the northern Philippine province of Benguet. “If we harvest it, our losses only increase because of labor, transportation and packing costs. We don’t earn anything from it. That’s why we decided not to harvest at all,” he said. Soaring costs caused by the Middle East
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s officially declared wealth is fairly modest: some savings and a jointly owned villa in Budapest. However, voters in what Transparency International deems the EU’s most corrupt country believe otherwise — and they might make Orban pay in a general election this Sunday that could spell an end to his 16-year rule. The wealth amassed by Orban’s inner circle is fueling the increasingly palpable frustration of a population grappling with sluggish growth, high inflation and worsening public services. “The government’s communication machine worked well as long as our economic situation remained relatively good,” said Zoltan Ranschburg, a political analyst
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