■INDIA
Purification ritual probed
Hindu priests in an eastern state are under investigation for conducting a purification ritual soon after a minister belonging to a lower caste visited a famous temple, officials said yesterday. Minutes after Orissa State Minister Pramila Mallick prayed at the temple this week, Hindu priests shut the doors and threw away holy offerings, washed the floors and changed the idol’s clothes, one official said. “Some priests opposed the minister’s entry into the interior chamber of the temple,” Upendra Mallik, a senior government official said. “We are investigating.” In India, millions of people formerly known as “untouchables” remain oppressed at the bottom of the ancient Hindu caste system.
■NEW ZEALAND
Fiji appeals for aid
New Zealand and Australia yesterday announced new emergency aid packages for Fiji as officials said nearly 12,000 people were homeless after floods wreaked widespread havoc. As cleanup efforts began after a week of heavy rains swept torrents of water through towns and villages, killing at least 11 people and ruining 300 businesses, Fiji’s military government appealed to 20 countries for help. The damage was so bad in the tourist center of Nadi that there were calls to bulldoze shops and restaurants, which have been flooded to roof height twice, and rebuild the town entirely, Radio New Zealand reported from the capital Suva. Earlier, Fijian Foreign Affairs Secretary Ratu Isoa Gavidi told Radio New Zealand that it could be two or three weeks before fresh water supplies could be restored to some flood-stricken areas and clothing, bedding and tents were also needed. New Zealand and Australia, which had imposed sanctions on Fiji’s military regime which seized power in a coup two years ago, have so far supplied aid only to the Red Cross and nongovernmental relief organizations.
■THAILAND
Visa waiver considered
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said his government may waive visa fees for all tourists for three months in a bid to boost visitor numbers following last year’s siege of Bangkok’s airports. Abhisit said late on Thursday there could also be discounts on aircraft landing fees. “The plan to revive the tourism sector will be tabled at the cabinet meeting next Tuesday and will include a three months’ waiver for visa fees and discounting landing fees,” he told a seminar. “I hope these measures will help the tourism sector one way or another.” Nationals of 41 countries, including the US, most European nations, Japan, Australia and New Zealand already do not require a visa to enter Thailand if their stay does not exceed 30 days.
■SOUTH KOREA
Spousal rape a crime
A district court in the southern city of Busan yesterday, making a landmark decision in this male-dominated society, found a husband guilty of raping his wife. The decision marked the first time that a South Korean court has recognized the existence of sexual coercion in marriage, Yonhap news agency said. The court found the 42-year-old man guilty of raping his 25-year-old Filipino wife and passed a 30-month suspended jail sentence. “The accused, who should have taken good care of the victim with love and sincerity, put her through numerous hardships and threatened her with weapons to satisfy his desire, in breach of her right to self-determination on sexual acts,” it said in a statement. The man was charged with forcing his wife to have sex by threatening her with a stun gun or a knife in July last year.
■MALAWI
Beijing promises aid
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi (楊潔篪) said Beijing would not abandon Africa, despite the global recession. Yang told reporters on Thursday the rich world should do the same. He was in the country during what has become China’s traditional New Year’s tour of Africa. Yang signed an agreement to build a US$90 million hotel conference center in the capital, Lilongwe. China is also building a parliament house and a highway linking the north to Zambia. Chinese Ambassador Lin Songtian (林松添) said Chinese businessmen who accompanied Yang discussed buying tobacco from the country for what he said were 350 million Chinese smokers.
■MOROCCO
Caracas embassy closed
Rabat said on Thursday it had closed its embassy in Venezuela in protest over Caracas’ support of the Polisario Front, which seeks an independent state in Western Sahara that Rabat claims as its territory. The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the decision followed “increasing hostility by the Venezuelan authorities regarding the Kingdom of Morocco’s territorial integrity and recent measures to support [Polisario].” The ministry gave no details on the new measures taken by Venezuela to back the Polisario Front, which had enjoyed diplomatic support from Caracas even before Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez came to power.
■MOZAMBIQUE
Scores die from cholera
At least 38 people died in a cholera outbreak in the northern province of Nampula, SAPA news agency quoted a state-controlled newspaper as saying yesterday. The outbreak began late last month and 210 people have been diagnosed with the disease in that province, the Maputo-based Daily Noticias said. Poor hygienic conditions were cited as the major cause of the disease.
■SPAIN
Bomb explodes in north
Police said a bomb exploded at a television retransmitter outside a town in the northern Basque region, causing damage but no injuries. A spokesman for the Ertzaintza Basque regional force said the blast occurred around 1am on a hill outside the town of Hernani. He said the installation was not located near houses. The official was speaking yesterday on customary condition of anonymity in keeping with department regulations. He said no group had claimed responsibility. The armed separatist group ETA has planted several bombs at television retransmitters. The group has killed more than 825 people since 1968.
■SPAIN
Too many TV commercials
The main association of advertisers on Thursday urged the government to limit the number of commercials that TV stations could air because it said “saturation advertising” was hurting the effectiveness of their messages. In a statement, the Spanish Association of Advertisers asked the government to enforce an EU-wide limit of 12 minutes of adverts per hour. In May the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, warned Madrid that it faced court action for failing to comply with the advertising limits, which aim to prevent viewers from having their shows interrupted excessively and promote television quality across Europe. The Commission monitored local television in 2005 and 2006 and found the 12 minutes per hour limit was regularly broken.
■ECUADOR
Most of nation loses power
A power failure on Thursday plunged 70 percent of Ecuador in darkness starting at 5pm, a spokesman for the National Center for Energy Control (CENACE) said. “It’s a national problem. About 70 percent of the country is without electricity,” Ivan Morales told Ecuadorian radio station Sonorama. In Quito, power returned slowly to some neighborhoods in the early evening before failing again at about 8pm. The power failure, CENACE said, apparently came after a problem on powerlines linking Ambato in central Ecuador to Quito that serves the northern part of the country.
■UNITED STATES
Pedro Aguilar dies at 81
Pedro Aguilar, whose innovative style of mambo dancing made him a legend at the Palladium ballroom in Manhattan and a one-man encyclopedia of Latin dance, died on Tuesday in Miami. He was 81 and lived in Hallandale, Florida. The cause was heart failure, said Barbara Craddock, his dance partner for the last 11 years. Aguilar, known as Cuban Pete, translated his footwork as a boxer and his childhood tap-dance training into a rhythmically complex, visually arresting dancing style that electrified audiences at the Palladium, the premier showcase for Latin music in the 1940s and 1950s.
■UNITED STATES
Cernan donates his papers
Former astronaut Eugene Cernan, a 1956 Purdue University, Indiana, graduate and the most recent person to walk on the moon, is donating his personal papers to the school’s flight archives. The Purdue collection also includes the papers of Neil Armstrong, who in 1969 became the first to walk on the moon, and Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean and a Purdue staff member in the 1930s. Cernan, one of 14 astronauts selected by NASA in 1963, went into space three times. As a pilot on Gemini 9, he became the second person to walk in space in 1966. He was a lunar module pilot on Apollo 10 in 1969 and he was commander of Apollo 17 in 1972, when he became the last to walk on the moon’s surface.
■COLOMBIA
Hostages found unharmed
Ten Colombians kidnapped nearly a month ago by leftist rebels have been released, apparently unharmed, near the capital city Bogota, police said on Thursday. “We have information that they were freed and are in the hands of the army,” a police spokesman said. The former captives, rural laborers, were abducted on Dec. 20 by rebel fighters with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The exact date of their release was not immediately clear. The freed hostages were taken to a military base in western Bogota, where they were to receive medical check-ups. They were said to have traveled on foot after having been abandoned by their FARC captors.
■MEXICO
Cops accused of paint attack
Four teenagers say police spray-painted their hair, shoes and buttocks to teach them not to paint graffiti on public property. Emilio Alfaro of Nuevo Leon state’s Human Rights Commission said on Thursday the youths have filed a complaint alleging that police in Guadalupe slapped, kicked and painted them with spray cans after detaining them for vandalism. The youths are aged between 14 and 16. They presented paint-stained shoes and photos of their painted heads as evidence. Guadelupe’s police department says several officers have been suspended while the matter is being investigated.
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is constructing a new counter-stealth radar system on a disputed reef in the South China Sea that would significantly expand its surveillance capabilities in the region, satellite imagery suggests. Analysis by London-based think tank Chatham House suggests China is upgrading its outpost on Triton Island (Jhongjian Island, 中建島) on the southwest corner of the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), building what might be a launching point for an anti-ship missile battery and sophisticated radar system. “By constraining the US ability to operate stealth aircraft, and threaten stealth aircraft, these capabilities in the South China Sea send
HAVANA: Repeated blackouts have left residents of the Cuban capital concerned about food, water supply and the nation’s future, but so far, there have been few protests Maria Elena Cardenas, 76, lives in a municipal shelter on Amargura Street in Havana’s colonial old town. The building has an elegant past, but for the last few days Maria has been cooking with sticks she had found on the street. “You know, we Cubans manage the best we can,” she said. She lives in the shelter because her home collapsed, a regular occurrence in the poorest, oldest parts of the beautiful city. Cuba’s government has spent the last days attempting to get the island’s national grid functioning after repeated island-wide blackouts. Without power, sleep becomes difficult in the heat, food
Botswana is this week holding a presidential election energized by a campaign by one previous head-of-state to unseat his handpicked successor whose first term has seen rising discontent amid a downturn in the diamond-dependent economy. The charismatic Ian Khama dramatically returned from self-exile six weeks ago determined to undo what he has called a “mistake” in handing over in 2018 to Botswanan President Mokgweetsi Masisi, who seeks re-election tomorrow. While he cannot run as president again having served two terms, Khama has worked his influence and standing to support the opposition in the southern African country of 2.6 million people. “The return of
SOUTH CHINA SEA TENSIONS: Beijing’s ‘pronounced aggressiveness’ and ‘misbehavior’ forced countries to band together, the Philippine defense chief said The Philippines is confident in the continuity of US policies in the Asia-Pacific region after the US presidential election, Philippine Secretary of Defense Gilberto Teodoro said, underlining that bilateral relations would remain strong regardless of the outcome. The alliance between the two countries is anchored in shared security goals and a commitment to uphold international law, including in the contested waters of the South China Sea, Teodoro said. “Our support for initiatives, bilaterally and multilaterally ... is bipartisan, aside from the fact that we are operating together on institutional grounds, on foundational grounds,” Teodoro said in an interview. China’s “misbehavior” in the South
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