■ Nepal
US re-issues travel warning
US citizens were urged yesterday to defer non-essential travel to insurgency-hit Nepal as the US State Department renewed a travel warning issued in October last year. The department said it "remains concerned about the security situation" in the Himalayan kingdom and "continues to urge American citizens to defer non-essential travel to Nepal." Travel via road in some areas outside of the Kathmandu Valley continues to be dangerous and should be avoided, it said. Washington has labeled Maoist rebels fighting for a communist republic in Nepal since 1996 as terrorists.
■ Malaysia
Minister denies graft
A Cabinet minister suspended from the ruling party for six years over accusations of vote-buying said yesterday he could be a sacrificial lamb in the prime minister's drive against corruption. "I'm not very happy. I denied everything, both verbally and written," Federal Territories Minister Isa Samad said in his first public comments on the suspension that was handed down late on Friday. Isa, 56, a vice-president in the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), is the most senior UMNO politician to be found guilty of vote-buying in the party. He denied bribing UMNO delegates at last September's party polls to win his vice presidency.
■ India
Family dies over elopement
A couple and their three children committed suicide, unable to bear the humiliation caused when an older daughter eloped, a report said yesterday. Ranbeer Singh Rawat, a farmer in Parsauni village in northern Uttar Pradesh state, and his wife decided the family should kill themselves after their daughter's eloping became the talk of the district, the Asian Age newspaper said. The parents and the children put on new clothes, ate dinner and read excerpts from the Hindu holy book Bhagawad Gita before committing suicide last Tuesday by drinking poison. The daughter had eloped with a man from a nearby village, the newspaper said.
■ Hong Kong
Shark's fin off Disney menu
Hong Kong Disneyland has scrapped controversial plans to serve shark's fin soup at the park, a spokeswoman said yesterday, following weeks of protests from environmentalists who say millions of sharks are needlessly killed each year to supply the trade in the traditional Asian delicacy. Disney had originally planned to serve shark's fin soup to customers who request the dish at their banquets at the park -- scheduled to open on Sept. 12, despite pressure from green groups urging it to remove the dish. But the spokeswoman said the park was "not able to identify an environmentally sustainable fishing source, leaving us no alternative except to remove shark's fin soup from our wedding banquet menu."
■ Japan
Uranium device missing
A device containing a small amount of enriched uranium is missing from a Japanese nuclear power plant, its operator said yesterday at a time of heightened concerns about security at Japan's nuclear facilities. A small device that is coated on the inside with 1.7mg of enriched uranium was found to be missing on Friday from Kansai Electric Power Co's Takahama No.3 reactor in western Japan's Fukui prefecture, a company spokesman said. The radiation level of the device, used to measure the volume of neutrons inside nuclear reactors, was "extremely low" and would not affect humans, Kansai Electric said.
■ Iraq
Longhairs beaten by police
Students in the Shiite Muslim religious Iraqi city of Najaf said that police recently arrested and beat several of them for wearing jeans and having long hair. "They arrested us because of our hair and because we were wearing jeans," said student Mohammed Jasim, adding that the arrests took place two weeks ago in the city, the spiritual heart of Iraq's newly dominant Shiite majority. "They beat us in front of the people. Then they took us to their headquarters, beat us again, shaved our heads and tore our clothes. When we asked what we had done, they said that we had no honor," he told reporters this week.
■ Germany
Shoplifter abandons baby
A woman shoplifter in Germany abandoned her three-month-old baby after being caught stealing from a supermarket, authorities said Friday. "When the security man told the woman to enter his office so he could check her identification, the perpetrator took off, leaving behind the baby and the pram," police in the town of Offenbach just south of Frankfurt said in a statement. Police managed to track down the 36-year-old Bulgarian after she left her identification in the pram, German media said. She was reunited with her baby and released pending her trial.
■ France
Secret lover to sell Picassos
One of Pablo Picasso's former lovers is selling 20 sketches he gave her more than 50 years ago, showing the tender side of an artist often accused of treating women badly. "I have a mission -- rehabilitating Pablo," Genevieve Laporte, 79, told reporters in an interview before the sketches go up for auction in Paris Monday. Auction house Artcurial puts their value at about US$2.44 million. Laporte has also written a book about her love affair with Picasso and wants to show the world a hidden side of the Spanish artist, often described as "arrogant and scornful" with women. Laporte and Picasso were lovers when she was in her mid-20s although he was nearly 50 years older than her.
■ United Kingdom
Mushroom ban approaching
Bad news for British psychedelic fungi fans. There are just 24 more shopping days before magic mushrooms are declared illegal in the UK -- and that's official. Ignoring pleas from mushroom retailers and consumers, the government on Friday announced that clause 21 of the Drugs Act 2005, reclassifying <
■ United Kingdom
Israel measure approved
Anglicans on Friday voted to urge their member churches to consider divesting from companies involved in Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands. The Anglican Consultative Council voted unanimously for the measure, which was opposed by the last Archbishop of Canterbury and the Chief Rabbi, who fears it will damage Jewish and Christian relations. Among those voting for yesterday's measure was Dr Rowan Williams, the current Archbishop of Canterbury, a council spokesman said. The vote was prompted by the Anglican Justice and Peace Network, and is being seen as largely symbolic.
■ United States
Bolton likely to be appointed
The Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said that it would be a mistake for the White House to bend further to Democratic demands related to John Bolton's handling of intelligence material. Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas said he now expected that President Bush would grant a recess appointment to Bolton, whose nomination as ambassador to the UN has been blocked by Senate Democrats for more than a month. Roberts said that a recess appointment expiring in January 2007 would be preferable to the potential security risks of providing Congress with wider access to names in the security agency reports. Senate Democrats have vowed to continue to block any vote on Bolton unless the White House meets its request for the documents.
■ Ecuador
Inmates crucify themselves
Thirteen inmates, among them a Brazilian, a Chilean and a Colombian, have crucified themselves in Ecuadoran prisons as part of a protest to demand reduced sentences. The crucifixions in two penitentiaries in the port city of Guayaquil were part of a protest involving 10,000 inmates. Other gruesome forms of protest included bloodletting, hunger strikes, stitching up of prisoners' lips, and partial burials. "We have initiated a series of crucifixions in all the prisons to demand from Congress a structural change in the penal system," the inmates' spokesperson said. The three foreign inmates all were accused of drug trafficking and had been imprisoned for more than a year without being formally sentenced.
■ Spain
Due process denied
The Bush administration has refused to allow the Spanish authorities to interview a man accused of being an operative of al-Qaeda whose testimony could be crucial to the prosecution of two men on trial charged with helping to plan the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. With little more than a month left in the trial, the chief prosecutor in the case said he was still pressing the request to interview the accused man, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who is suspected of playing a central role in organizing the attacks in New York and at the Pentagon. The two defendants, Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas and Driss Chebli, are charged with arranging a meeting in Spain for one of the Sept. 11 hijackers.
■ Brazil
AIDS drug patent challenged
Brazilian Health Minister Humberto Costa signalled his government was set to move to break the patent on Abbott Laboratories' Kaletra AIDS drug because it would reduce treatment costs. Citing "public interest," Costa said the US group Abbott had 10 days in which to respond and seek a negotiated agreement. "The discovery and development of innovative new treatments depends on the reasonable return on investment for existing treatments," Abbott, the drug-maker argued.
■ United States
Grassy knoll fence for sale
An online casino has bought a white picket fence from the grassy knoll in Dallas, Texas that overlooked US president John F. Kennedy's motorcade when he was assassinated in 1963. The gambling website, which has made a name for itself with outrageous stunts and acquisitions, paid US$32,664.47 dollars for the weathered picket fence which has handwritten markings include names, symbols, dates, Biblical passages, simple tributes like "RIP, JFK" and opinions like "Oswald Was Framed" and "Blame the Government."
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
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‘DISCRIMINATION’: The US Office of Personnel Management ordered that public DEI-focused Web pages be taken down, while training and contracts were canceled US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday moved to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off. The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs. Trump has called the programs “discrimination” and called to restore “merit-based” hiring. The executive order on affirmative action revokes an order issued by former US president Lyndon Johnson, and curtails DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients. It is using one of the
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