■MALAYSIA
Court upholds book ban
PHOTO: AFP
A court upheld a ban on a book about racial clashes that erupted in 2001, ruling on Friday that its publication could upset ethnic sensitivities already strained by recent attacks on places of worship. The Kuala Lumpur High Court ruled that the Home Ministry was correct to issue the ban three years ago on March 8, written by K. Arumugam, which recounts clashes between ethnic Malay Muslims and ethnic Indians. The strife killed six people on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur in 2001. High Court Judge Mohamad Ariff Mohamad Yusof said the book ban was justified “based on public order grounds,” according to a lawyer representing Arumugam, who sued to overturn the ban. March 8 is based on eyewitness accounts and academic research. About 3,000 copies were sold within six months of its publication before it was banned in late 2006, Bon said.
■UNITED STATES
‘Physical’ sexiest song
Move aside Madonna and watch out Barry White. The winner of the sexiest song of all time is — Olivia Newton-John with Physical, according to music publication Billboard. The magazine compiled a list of the 50 most popular songs about sex in time for Valentine’s Day with each song given points according to its performance on the Billboard hot 100 chart from August 1958 until last month. While Physical certainly speaks to sex with lyrics such as “There’s nothin’ left to talk about, unless it’s horizontally,” it became known as well-known as a track for aerobics classes in line with the singer’s exercise-themed video. Following is a list of the top 10 of the top 50 sexiest songs:
1. Physical — Olivia Newton-John.
2. Tonight’s The Night — Rod Stewart.
3. I’ll Make Love To You — Boyz II Men.
4. Too Close — Next.
5. Let’s Get It On — Marvin Gaye.
6. Hot Stuff — Donna Summer.
7. Do That To Me One More Time — Captain and Tennille.
8. Like A Virgin — Madonna.
9. Kiss You All Over — Exile.
10. Do Ya Think I’m Sexy? — Rod Stewart.
■MALAWI
Man jailed for rain spell
A court in the drought-plagued country has jailed a man accused of casting a spell that blocked rain from falling on his neighbor’s field, police said on Friday. Chikumbeni Mwanatheu, 35, was sentenced to two months in prison with hard labor after he admitted a charge of witchcraft, police said. Mwanatheu had pleaded guilty to a charge of “conduct likely to cause a breach of peace” after he boasted that he had prevented rain from falling on his neighbor’s field. Magistrate Lameck Mkwapatira ruled he “needed to be given a custodial sentence to let the community enjoy peace in his absence and for his own safety.”
■FRANCE
Art school censors student
A Chinese artist has accused the art school Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts (ENSBA) of censorship after it removed her work, echoing a slogan of President Nicolas Sarkozy, from its facade. The exhibit — four banners hanging from ENSBA buildings in central Paris and emblazoned with the words “Work,” “Less,” “Earn” and “More” — refer to “Work More to Earn More,” the ruling UMP party’s slogan in the 2007 presidential campaign. “I find it despicable. In China, we speak a lot about censorship but my work has never been censored in such a brutal fashion in China,” artist Ko Siu-lan said. The French ministry of culture declined to comment.
■ISREAL
Protesters pose like ‘Avatar’
Palestinian protesters have added a colorful twist to demonstrations against Israel’s separation barrier, painting themselves blue and posing as characters from the hit film Avatar. The demonstrators also donned long hair and loincloths on Friday for the weekly protest against the barrier near the village of Bilin. They equated their struggle to the intergalactic one portrayed in the film.
■UNITED STATES
Wife loves stinky Valentine
Nothing says “I love you” like a nearly kilometer wide heart made out of manure. A Minnesota man created the Valentine’s Day gift for his wife of 37 years in their farm field about 19km southwest of Albert Lea. Bruce Andersland told the Alberta Lea Tribune that he started the project with his tractor and manure spreader on Wednesday and finished on Thursday. His wife, Beth, said it was the biggest and most original Valentine she has ever received. She said some people might think it’s gross, but she said it’s cute and “Why not do something fun with what you got?”
■UNITED STATES
N Korea envoy not visiting
State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said on Friday there were no discussions or plans “at this point” for North Korea’s chief nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan to make a rare visit to the US. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said Kim would visit the US next month, following a trip to Pyongyang in December by US envoy Stephen Bosworth. Crowley also hinted at US disappointment over North Korea’s failure to return to the six-party nuclear disarmament talks, after UN envoy Lynn Pascoe said North Korea was “not eager” to return to the negotiations. “We have heard from the North Koreans that they recognize the importance of the six-party process. What we need from them is to pull the trigger, actually come back to that process,” Crowley said, his choice of words causing chuckles.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Woman poisons lover
A British woman was jailed for a minimum of 23 years on Thursday for murdering her former lover by lacing his curry with poison. Lakhvir Singh, 45, killed Lakhvinder “Lucky” Cheema, 39, because she was consumed by jealousy about his engagement to another woman, her trial at the Old Bailey in London was told. Cheema had been due to wed fiancee Gurjeet Choongh, 21, on Valentine’s Day last year, but three weeks before the wedding, the couple fell ill after eating vegetable curry at their home in Feltham, west London. Singh was found guilty on Wednesday of murdering Cheema and causing grievous bodily harm to Choongh.
■UNITED STATES
Bill Clinton back at work
Former president Bill Clinton was back to work on Haiti relief and doing ‘very well” on Friday, a day after a successful heart procedure to open a blocked artery to his heart that caused him chest discomfort. TV footage showed Clinton walking to his vehicle as he left the hospital in Manhattan and arriving home later in the New York suburb of Chappaqua. “I’m doing very well. I feel very blessed. I was fortunate that you know I kind of had a feeling about it,” Clinton told reporters in televised comments after returning home.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
ACCESS DISPUTE: The blast struck a house, and set cars and tractors alight, with the fires wrecking several other structures and cutting electricity An explosion killed at least five people, including a pregnant woman and a one-year-old, during a standoff between rival groups of gold miners early on Thursday in northwestern Bolivia, police said, a rare instance of a territorial dispute between the nation’s mining cooperatives turning fatal. The blast thundered through the Yani mining camp as two rival mining groups disputed access to the gold mine near the mountain town of Sorata, about 150km northwest of the country’s administrative capital of La Paz, said Colonel Gunther Agudo, a local police officer. Several gold deposits straddle the remote area. Agudo had initially reported six people killed,
TIT-FOR-TAT: The arrest of Filipinos that Manila said were in China as part of a scholarship program follows the Philippines’ detention of at least a dozen Chinese The Philippines yesterday expressed alarm over the arrest of three Filipinos in China on suspicion of espionage, saying they were ordinary citizens and the arrests could be retaliation for Manila’s crackdown against alleged Chinese spies. Chinese authorities arrested the Filipinos and accused them of working for the Philippine National Security Council to gather classified information on its military, the state-run China Daily reported earlier this week, citing state security officials. It said the three had confessed to the crime. The National Security Council disputed Beijing’s accusations, saying the three were former recipients of a government scholarship program created under an agreement between the
SUSPICION: Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing returned to protests after attending a summit at which he promised to hold ‘free and fair’ elections, which critics derided as a sham The death toll from a major earthquake in Myanmar has risen to more than 3,300, state media said yesterday, as the UN aid chief made a renewed call for the world to help the disaster-struck nation. The quake on Friday last week flattened buildings and destroyed infrastructure across the country, resulting in 3,354 deaths and 4,508 people injured, with 220 others missing, new figures published by state media showed. More than one week after the disaster, many people in the country are still without shelter, either forced to sleep outdoors because their homes were destroyed or wary of further collapses. A UN estimate
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