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Sport
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Zugliget parish, a transit stop for East German refugees in 1989
16 Pages Number 437 1st Year
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Results at the Czech Motorcycle Grand Prix 1. Valentino Rossi (ITA/Yamaha), 118.866 km in 43:08.991, 2. Dani Pedrosa (ESP/Honda) +11.766, 3. Toni Elias (ESP/Honda) +20.756, 4. Andrea Dovizioso (ITA/Honda) +21.418, 5. Loris Capirossi (ITA/Suzuki) +21.538, 6. Nicky Hayden (USA/Ducati) +25.544, 7. Colin Edwards (USA/Yamaha) +25.676, 8. Alex de Angelis (RSM/Honda) +34.109, 9. James Toseland (GBR/Yamaha) +35.617, 10. Randy de Puniet (FRA/Honda) +39.824, 11. Chris Vermeulen (AUS/Suzuki) +40.776, 12. Niccolo Canepa (ITA/Ducati) +50.661, 13. Gabor Talmacsi (HUN/Honda) +59.188 DNF: Mika Kallio (FIN/Ducati), Marco Melandri (ITA/Kawasaki), Jorge Lorenzo (ESP/Yamaha), Michel Fabrizio (ITA/Ducati)
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Corby granted another remission on RI’s Independence anniversary PAGE 8
Overall MotoGP standings (11 of 18 races):
AP Photo/Eckehard Schulz
Spain’s Dani Pedrosa, left, Italy’s Valentino Rossi, center, and Spain’s Toni Elias, right, pose for photographs during the winners ceremony of the MotoGP race of the Czech Republic Motorcycle Grand Prix at the Brno circuit in Brno, Czech Republic, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2009. Rossi won ahead of Pedrosa on second place and Elias, who placed third.
Rossi wins Czech MotoGP Agence France Presse
BRNO - Italy’s Valentino Rossi on a Yamaha won the MotoGP race at the Czech Grand Prix meeting here on Sunday to extend his overall championship lead and move a big step closer to clinching a ninth world title. After a thrilling head-to-head duel with Spanish stablemate Jorge Lorenzo, Rossi profited from the latter’s fall five laps from the finish to extend his lead to 50 points going into the final seven races, starting with Indianapolis on August 30. Lorenzo had passed Rossi three laps earlier but his spectacular tumble - from which he emerged unscathed although he angrily threw his gloves down and kicked out at his machine handed Rossi a clear run through to the finish and a 102nd career victory. The 30-year-old Rossi, nicknamed The Doctor, is now closing in on Giacomo Agostini’s all-time mark of 122 race wins.
After crossing the line exuberantly on one wheel in 43min 08.991sec he leapt over the barrier to celebrate with his crew, warmly embracing them in turn. Afterwards, he had time to offer a word of sympathy to Lorenzo while insisting that he could not think of putting yet more title champagne on ice. “It’s really a shame for Jorge,” said the Italian, noting that, despite his handsome lead “there’s a long way to go. I have to stay focused.” Dani Pedrosa of Honda placed second 11.766ec adrift of Rossi while fellow Honda rider Toni Elias, who predicted a tough future despite his
first season podium as he is looking for a new team for 2010, completed the podium. Rossi, Lorenzo and Pedrosa shot out of the blocks and had put more than 2sec between themselves and the chasing pack led by Elias. Rossi, who had gone into the race on pole for the 56th time, was furiously jousting for the lead with Lorenzo with the Italian just in the ascendency as the Yamaha pair left the rest trailing with Pedrosa third at 2.6 sec and the gap then 9sec on Elias and company. The 14th lap saw Lorenzo make his all-or-bust move for the lead as he set the fastest lap time of 1:56.674, a time he then bettered by 0.004sec on lap 16 before nipping through the gap into the lead. But his 18th-lap fall brought his brave challenge to naught as Rossi stayed doggedly with him before his rival’s misfortune allowed him to breeze home in the knowledge that Pedrosa was trailing by a huge 14.772sec.
1. Valentino Rossi 2. Jorge Lorenzo 3. Casey Stoner 4. Dani Pedrosa 5. Colin Edwards 6. Andrea Dovizioso 7. Randy de Puniet 8. Marco Melandri 9. Loris Capirossi 10. Chris Vermeulen
(ITA/Yamaha) (ESP/Yamaha) (AUS/Ducati) (ESP/Honda) (USA/Yamaha) (ITA/Honda) (FRA/Honda) (ITA/Kawasaki) (ITA/Suzuki) (AUS/Suzuki)
212 pts, 162, 150, 135, 112, 107, 80, 79, 77, 72
In death, as in life, Jackson surrounded by wackiness PAGE 12
People of Tengger tribe perform a flag hoisting ceremony marking Indonesia’s 64th anniversary of independence at the caldera of Mount Bromo, a 7,641-foot (2,329-meter) active volcano, in Probolinggo, East Java, Indonesia, Monday, Aug. 17, 2009. Indonesia straddles the “Pacific Ring of Fire,” a system of fault lines stretching across the tropical archipelago, that give it more active volcanoes than any other country. AP Photo/Trisnadi
Chiding Obama, Chavez warns Venezuelans to prepare for war Agence France-Presse
CARACAS - President Hugo Chavez Sunday bridled at US plans to use military bases in Colombia, asserting that Venezuela was the top US target in the region and that Venezuelans should prepare for war.
WEATHER FORECAST CITY
TEMPERATURE OC
DENPASAR
21 - 30
JAKARTA
24 - 33
BANDUNG
20 - 30
YOGYAKARTA
25 - 32
SURABAYA
24 - 33
SUNNY
BRIGHT/CLOUDY
Speaking in his weekly live radio and television broadcast, Chavez also chided US President Barack Obama for accusing leftist Latin
leaders of “hipocrisy” for demanding that Washington intervene more forcefully to reinstate Honduras’ ousted President Manuel Zelaya.
Agence France-Presse
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Continued on page 6
Plane skids off runway in Bangladesh
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Obama “is lost in the clouds. I think he is entering a terrible labyrinth,” Chavez said. “Obama doesn’t understand. He needs to
study a bit more. He is a young man, full of good intentions.” “Obama, we are not asking you to intervene in Honduras. To the contrary, we are asking that the empire remove its hand from Honduras and that the empire remove its claws from Latin America,” he said.
AFP PHOTO/Munir uz ZAMAN
A Jet Airways Boeing 737-800 is seen skidded off the runway at the Zia International Airport in Dhaka on August 17, 2009.
DHAKA - An aircraft bound for Delhi skidded off the runway at Dhaka’s Zia International Airport Monday morning, disrupting flights in and out of the Bangladeshi capital, an official said. Airport chief Saeedul Hasan Khan told AFP that Jet Airways flight 271, carrying 121 passengers and 10 crew members, was preparing for takeoff to the Indian capital when it skidded around 3.5 metres (12 feet) off the runway.
“After line up before the engines were about to open up for taxi, the plane skidded off the runway,” he said, adding that there were no immediate reports of any injuries. “All flights have been shut down for the time being.” The incident happened at 10.40am (0340 GMT) local time. He said an investigation would be conducted to determine what caused the incident and the Boeing 737 aircraft would be removed later Monday.
2
International
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
News WORLD NEWS
Obamas marvel at Grand Canyon Agence France-Presse
GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK - US president and city slicker Barack Obama plunged into the American wilderness Sunday, gazing out with his two young daughters at the awesome void of the Grand Canyon.
Hosni Mubarak CAIRO - When Egypt’s leader meets Tuesday with President Barack Obama in Washington, U.S. officials may find themselves caught up in the country’s No. 1 guessing game: How much longer can Hosni Mubarak go on? The 81-year-old president has looked weakened and pale in several appearances in recent months.
Gay killings BAGHDAD Militiamen are torturing and killing gay Iraqi men with impunity in a systematic campaign that has spread from Baghdad to several other cities, a prominent human rights group says.
Aboriginal rights CANBERRA - A United Nations indigenous rights expert says that Australian government policy to stamp out child abuse in Outback communities appears to discriminate against Aborigines. Source: ap
Topping off a weekend of hiking, fishing and white-water rafting in US national parks, the Obamas strolled along the top of the deep red rock gorge in Arizona which is one of America’s most famous natural landmarks. “The last time I was here is when I was 11 years old,” Obama told his wife Michelle and daughters Malia and Sasha. Asked by a guide whether the chasm still looked the same, he answered “it does,” prompting the First Lady to joke “he’s not that old!” Obama, known more as a basketball player and a gym rat than a backcountry man, and who once pounded gritty inner city Chicago streets as a community organizer, is retracing a childhood vacation from his native Hawaii. At Powell Point, which overlooks the south rim of the Grand Canyon, Obama and daughters asked park ranger Scott Kraynak questions about wildlife and the geological make-up of the gorge’s rocks. The Obamas have combined political and ceremonial duties with private sightseeing and dining in places like London, Paris and New York this year. Their mountain west tour included
a visit on Saturday to the “Old Faithful” geyser in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. “Oh, that’s pretty cool,” Obama was heard to say as Old Faithful, tucked in a natural amphitheater formed by Yellowstone’s towering mountains, spurted thousands of gallons of boiling water and steam into the air. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama, taking time out from selling his health care reform plan amid Washington’s corrosive political wars, “had a tremendous amount of fun at Yellowstone.” On Friday, the First Lady and her daughters braved driving rain and hail for the thrills and spills of a whitewater raft ride in Montana. “They had a blast,” said Gibbs. Obama meanwhile went fly fishing, a goal he often expressed on the campaign trail, but did not manage to land a trout. “Literally, we — every time we’d been to Montana... he said, ‘I’m going to come back here and learn how to fly fish,’” Gibbs said. “He was dying to do that, and finally got a chance to do that — though was a bit frustrated he didn’t get to hold one of the fish,” the
AFP PHOTO/Mandel NGAN US
President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and their daughters Sasha (3rd R) and Malia (L) tour Hopi Point with Park Ranger Scott Kraynak at Grand Canyon National Park August 16, 2009 in Arizona. spokesman said. Saturday, in Colorado, while Obama stepped up his defense of his health care plan, his wife and daughters went on a peach picking expedition, coming away with a sumptuous haul of fruits bigger than baseballs. Next weekend, the first family be-
gins a week-long stay on the wellheeled East Coast getaway destination of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Obama was due to return to Washington from Arizona on Monday after giving a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars service organization.
BANGKOK - An ailing American who was spared a seven-year prison sentence in Myanmar underwent medical testing in Bangkok on Monday, while the U.S. senator who secured his release called for a “new approach” in dealing with the military-ruled country. John Yettaw’s family in the United States said the 53-year-old was hospitalized in the Thai capital and not in good health after three months in a Myanmar prison, where he was held for sneaking into the home of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. “Our first priority is ensuring the health of Mr. Yettaw,” said Cynthia Brown, the U.S. Embassy spokeswoman in Bangkok, who declined to say where Yettaw was
receiving medical care or when he was expected to return home. Yettaw flew to Bangkok on Sunday with Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia, who held rare talks in Myanmar with the junta’s reclusive Senior Gen. Than Shwe and with Suu Kyi during a high-profile, three-day trip. Webb said he believes years of U.S. and EU sanctions have failed to move the Southeast Asian country toward democratic reforms or talks with Suu Kyi. “My view is that we don’t have any more sanctions to put on Myanmar and we need a new approach,” Webb told reporters after meeting with Thailand’s foreign minister. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has said the administration is reviewing its policy toward Myanmar since sanctions haven’t worked and serve to further
isolate its people. Webb told reporters in Bangkok he would discuss his conclusions and recommendations with Clinton and others on his return to Washington. He declined to speculate on what the Obama administration would do. Webb can rally support for changes to U.S. policy in Asia as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s East Asia and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee. Webb told reporters Sunday that Yettaw “is not a well man” and would be “undergoing thorough medical review” in Bangkok. Yettaw had been held at Insein Prison in Myanmar’s biggest city Yangon since his arrest in early May. Myanmar state television said Sunday night that Yettaw, from Falcon, Missouri, was freed on humanitarian grounds because of his health.
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Agence France Presse
MANCHESTER - Sir Alex Ferguson has challenged Wayne Rooney to beat last season’s scoring tally of 20 goals after the United striker’s finish was enough to earn Manchester United a 1-0 win over Birmingham City at Old Trafford on Sunday. Rooney’s 34th-minute finish was the difference as United shrugged of the absence of usual centre-backs Rio Ferdinand with a thigh complaint and Nemanja Vidic to a calf injury, to record an opening day win. Ferguson said: “He took his goal well. The header was a good one and his following up for the rebound was quick and he reacted the right way. “Hopefully that gets him on the road, after his goal last week, to a very significant total for us this season because it’s good if you can get two or three strikers that get you more than
Teams
P W D L Gf
Arsenal Man City Stoke West Ham Wigan Chelsea Tottenham Fulham Man Utd Sunderland Hull Liverpool Birmingham Bolton Portsmouth Aston Villa Blackburn Burnley Wolverhampton Everton
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
6 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Ga Po 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 2 2 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 6
3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
20 goals. “He’s capable of that and we’re not asking the impossible of the boy.” United, who will be looking to win their fourth consecutive title this season, got off to a positive start as they seemed intent on proving the club still has attacking potential without Cristiano Ronaldo following his transfer to Real Madrid in June. Dimitar Berbatov failed to make the most of a clear early chance inside the box as goalkeeper Joe Hart rushed out while Rooney also had a good opportunity from the rebound that was foiled by the committed Birmingham defence. Hart had to again be on top form soon after as a wonderful curling Rooney effort from 25 yards was destined for the top corner until Hart acrobatically leapt to punch over the bar. Birmingham, did try to break with the ball on occasion as James McFadden persevered down the left wing. But he rarely had a team-mate to choose from in the United box as the away side got most men behind the ball, a policy that worked until Rooney finally scored. He watched his header from a Nani cross cannon onto the base of the post but fortunately for him, the ball bobbled back to him and he easily tapped over the line. However, in a remarkable 60 seconds of play, Birmingham could then conceivably have been 2-1 up. Firstly, Cameron Jerome unleashed a terrific 20-yard shot which just went wide courtesy of a slight Paul Scholes deflection and from the
resulting corner, Patrice Evra was forced into a fine diving header off his own line to keep out Franck Queudrue’s effort. The half should have been concluded with a second goal for United but Darren Fletcher somehow missed from point-blank range after solid work from Evra down the right wing. After the interval Rooney saw a speculative 40-yard effort force Hart to go full stretch but the pace of the game was distinctly less intense than the first half. Lee Carsley saved Birmingham when he cleared a Berbatov effort of the line with 20 minutes to go before the visitors also had a golden chance with 12 minutes remaining. However, Christian Benitez could not beat Foster from close out as the United keeper made a stunning one handed save to divert the ball to safety. Rooney had the a last chance to cap off a brilliant performance with another header as the end approached but he steered Ryan Giggs’ cross wide. Birmingham manager Alex McLeish was satisfied with his side’s attempt and was impressed with how they did not shrink from the challenge of playing the champions at Old Trafford. He said: “We have to use that as a confidence booster, we can go into the next game with the evidence of a great performance. I was very encouraged by it. The players should take enormous credit from that because they have to play in that cauldron without being intimidated.”
AP Photo/Tim Hales
Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney, center, is tackled by Birmingham City’s Gregory Vignal, on ground, during their English Premier League soccer match at Old Trafford, Manchester, England, Sunday Aug. 16, 2009.
Barcelona beat Athletic Bilbao 2-1 in Supercup first leg
He reportedly suffers from diabetes, epilepsy and asthma and was hospitalized for a week during the trial after suffering seizures. Yettaw was apprehended May 6 as he swam away from Suu Kyi’s lakeside residence, where he had sheltered for two days after sneaking in uninvited. He was convicted last week of breaking the terms of Suu Kyi’s house arrest and related charges, and sentenced to seven years in prison with hard labor. Suu Kyi, who has been detained for 14 of the last 20 years, was herself sentenced to three years in prison with hard labor for violating her house arrest conditions through Yettaw’s visit, although that was reduced to 18 months under house arrest by order of junta chief, Senior Gen. Than Shwe.
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Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Sir Alex urges Rooney to focus on 20-plus vision
English Premier League table
American gets medical tests after Myanmar jailing Associated Press Writer
Sport
International
Agence France Presse
BILBAO - European champions Barcelona beat Athletic Bilbao 2-1 in the first leg of the Spanish Supercup on Sunday with second-half goals by Xavi and reserve forward Pedro Rodriguez. Athletic striker Oscar de Marcos opened the scoring in the 44th minute as he evaded both Gerard Pique and Daniel Alves before
AP Photo/Juan Manuel Serrano
Barcelona’s Xavi Hernandez from Spain, left, duels for the ball with Athletic Bilbao’s Pablo Orbaiz from Spain, during their Spanish Supercup soccer match at the San Mames stadium in Bilbao, Spain, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2009.
seeing his shot clip off Carles Puyol and fly over Barcelona keeper Victor Valdes into the corner of the net. Barcelona leveled in the 58th minute as Eric Abidal sent a cross to the far post where Rodriguez rolled it back for Xavi who slotted it into the corner from close range at Bilbao’s San Mames stadium. Rodriguez scored the winner nine minutes later when he stepped past Athletic Bilbao midfielder Markel Susaeta and hammered a shot inside the near post from 25 yards. Barcelona, who have won the Spanish Supercup seven times, will host the return leg on August 23. The tournament is contested each year between the league champions and the winners of the King’s Cup but as Barcelona won both competitions they are facing beaten Cup finalists Athletic. Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola was
without a number of players with attacking midfielder Andres Iniesta and striker Lionel Messi still struggling with thigh injuries. New signing Zlatan Ibrahimovic is recovering from a left hand injury. The Swedish striker, who joined Barcelona from Inter Milan, is expected to make his debut in next Wednesday’s friendly against Manchester City. Athletic, who are seeking to win their first major trophy since 1984, had no injury problems. Players and spectators observed a minute’s silence before the start of the match in honour of Espanyol captain and defender Daniel Jarque, who died earlier this month week of heart failure while on a pre-season tour of Italy. Barcelona became the first Spanish side to win the treble — the league, King’s Cup and the Champions League — last season.
14
Sport
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
International
News
International
European papers hail Bolt triumph
Ahmadinejad to name three women ministers
Agence France Presse
Agence France-Presse
PARIS - Usain Bolt’s stunning 100 metres world record run in Berlin was hailed by European papers on Monday as one of the finest sporting exploits of all time. The Jamaican clocked 9.58 seconds in the final at the World Championships Sunday evening slicing a huge 0.11 seconds of the mark he set in last August’s Beijing Olympics and he made it clear immediately afterwards that he aims to go even faster. “Stunning!” was L’Equipe’s simple front page headline over a huge picture of Bolt savouring his historic performance. “It was an electrifying final to the 100m with Tyson Gay (9.71) and Asafa Powell (9.84) battling it out and showing all their incredible talent,” the French sports daily wrote. “But there was nothing they could do against the extra-terrestrial Usain Bolt. With his 9.58 the Jamaican has opened up improbable horizons.” The same theme of otherworldliness was used by The Times in London which head-
lined: “Thunderous Bolt enters a galaxy off limits to mortals.” “And now we finally have the answer. Still electrifying, still like a man from another planet. But now we know how fast the man can really go,” their correspondent in Berlin wrote Spain’s Marca hailed “a record from the 22nd century”, while the Berliner Kurier, in a reference back to the 1936 Olympics gushed: “Somehere on a cloud high up there Jesse Owens applauded and said ‘superb race Usain.’” “The sprint world is in a state of shock,” wrote Le Soir in Brussels, while Italian sports daily La Gazzetta Dello Sport, under a headline of “Bim Bum Bolt”, carried a picture of Bolt striking his chest and saying ‘I am the number one” “Who can deny it?” the paper continued. “He set a world record of 9.58, a time that previously had just been a mirage.”
AFP PHOTO / DDP/ HENNING KAISER
German Chancellor Angela Merkel (of the conservative CDU party) speaks during the federal conference of the “Frauen Union” (Women Union) in Duisburg, western Germany, as part of her election tour on August 16, 2009. With only six weeks until elections and trailing in the polls, Germany’s Social Democrats launched a series of personal attacks on Chancellor Angela Merkel today in a bid to win back ground.
AP Photo/Gero Breloer
Jamaica’s Usain Bolt poses beside the indicating board after setting a new Men’s 100m World Record in the Men’s final at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin on Sunday, Aug. 16, 2009.
Jankovic downs Safina to capture Cincy title
China coach feels heat after Asia crown loss
CINCINNATI - Serbia’s Jelena Jankovic boosted her US Open hopes with a brisk 64, 6-2 victory over world number one Dinara Safina on Sunday in the final of the two million-dollar WTA Cincinnati Open. “My smile is back and I’m having fun playing the matches,” said Jankovic, who started the year atop the world rankings but has seen her status slip with a series of lackluster results. “This is what I missed. I missed this for maybe seven months this year.” Jankovic bounced back from a tough semi-final victory on Saturday night to claim her second title of 2009, after a victory in a claycourt tournament in Marbella in April. “When I woke up this morning I felt really sore, especially after going to sleep at 2 am,” said Jankovic, who needed almost three hours to overcome Elena Dementieva in the semis - a match in which Jankovic trailed 62 in the third-set tiebreaker. But she showed no sign of weariness as she had just nine unforced errors in pocketing the first set over struggling Safina. “I was just a little bit off today, I would say,” Safina said. “I was feeling very confident stepping into the court, and then I was just totally off.” Jankovic got a scare in the second set when she landed awkwardly on her left leg. She received treatment on her thigh and didn’t seem to be slowed as she finished off a victory that was especially sweet in light of her struggles this season. Jankovic claimed the world number one spot last August, but couldn’t break through for a Grand Slam victory. Hoping to improve her fortunes in the majors she changed her training regime,
TIANJIN - China’s national basketball coach Guo Shiqiang came under pressure from the nation’s rabid fans and sporting press Monday after Iran thrashed his team 70-52 in the Asian Championship final. Iran used a blistering attack to crush the home court favourites on Sunday night, with Memphis Grizzlies centre Hamed Ehadadi dominating a Yao Ming-less China with 19 points and 17 rebounds. “China’s fans, used to dominating Asia in basketball, will never tolerate this kind of insult and humiliation,” said a report on the sports section of leading Internet portal Sina.com. “If Guo Shiqiang is able to continue as head coach of the national team, then one can only say that the future (at next year’s World Basketball Championships) will be more difficult.” More than 75 percent of nearly 330,000 people polled by Sina.com said they were “very disappointed” with the result, with six out of 10 directly blaming Guo for the loss. It was the first time China lost the Asian Basketball Championship final in 15 tries, and the most lopsided defeat the team had ever suffered in the regional tournament, the leading Titan Sports Weekly said. Iran dominated the hosts on both ends of the court, jumping out to a 21-10 first quarter lead and never looking back. “As head coach, I take full responsibility for the loss,” said Guo, 34, a former point guard for China who is the youngest-ever national coach. “We were not well prepared mentally, while the players had too much pressure on them,” he told a post-game press conference. Guo, who was appointed in May, succeeded American Del Harris and Lithuanian Jonas Kazlauskas who guided China to repeated Asian Championship titles as well as top eight Olympic
Agence France Presse
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
putting on 15 pounds in a bid to beef up her game. Instead, she just felt slow. After falling to teenager Melanie Oudin in the third round at Wimbledon, Jankovic took time off to regroup, and also help her ailing mother - usually her companion on tour - get through surgery. On Sunday her time away appeared to have been well-spent. “I’m happy that I’m back,” said the 24year-old, who will move from fifth to fourth in the rankings on Monday. “I’m back in this (leading) group of players.”
Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images/AFP
Jelena Jankovic of Serbia poses with the trophy after defeating Dinara Safina of Russia in the finals of the Western & Southern Financial Group Women’s Open on August 16, 2009 at the Lindner Family Tennis Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Agence France Presse
Merkel targeted as German election campaign gets personal Agence France-Presse
BERLIN - With only six weeks until elections and trailing in the polls, Germany’s Social Democrats launched a series of personal attacks on Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday in a bid to win back ground.
AP Photo/Ng Han Guan
Iran’s Hamed Hadadi, center, blocks an attempt to score by China’s Yi Jianlian, left, as Oshin Sahakian watch from right during the final of the 25th FIBA Asia Basketball Championship held in Tianjin, China, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2009. finishes in Athens and Beijing. “We peaked for a short period at the Beijing Olympic Games following the strenuous efforts of two foreign coaches,” the Tianjin Daily News said in a commentary. “But instead of seeking to prolong this peak, we have asked a young coach to start all over again. It is hard to say if this is a fair way to treat Guo Shiqiang.”
Turning up the heat in what so far has been a lacklustre campaign, Merkel’s challenger for Germany’s top job questioned her honesty while the Social Democratic party chief accused her of putting her career ahead of her country. “She has again promised tax cuts that will not come,” said Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who hopes to unseat Merkel in the September 27 poll. “The CDU (Merkel’s conservative party) is not telling the voters before the election what they intend to do after the election,” he told ARD television. “I have a different idea of what honesty is,” said Steinmeier, who is also foreign minister and vice-chancellor in Germany’s unwieldy grand coalition. Social Democratic Party (SPD) chief Franz Muentefering meanwhile accused her of being indifferent to the plight of millions of jobless people in Germany. “She does not care about the large number of unemployed people in Germany,” Muentefering told the mass circulation Bild am Sonntag. “Right from the beginning, Mrs Merkel has looked at a policy with the thought: what can I do to stay chancellor? She has not first asked the question: what is good and necessary for
our country,” he said. Muentefering also dismissed as “ignorant” accusations from the CDU and their preferred coalition partners the pro-business Free Democrats that the SPD had no plan for creating jobs. The sharper tone from senior SPD politicians came as new opinion polls suggested they could be heading for an electoral battering. A survey by the Emnid polling institute, for Bild am Sonntag newspaper, showed only nine percent of people believed Steinmeier would be chancellor after the election. In contrast, a stunning 83 percent expected Merkel to secure a second term. However, in Germany’s complex coalition-based politics, voters plump not for individuals, but for their favourite party, which then enter into a tortuous process of haggling over coalitions and ministerial posts. And for the past few weeks, opinion polls have consistently shown the SPD trailing the CDU by a doubledigit margin, suggesting Merkel could scrape together enough votes to jettison the SPD and form a government with the Free Democrats. Steinmeier’s campaign seemed cursed from the outset. First, an SPD minister became embroiled in a scandal when it emerged
she had taken her official car on holiday and that the vehicle was stolen. Then, Steinmeier’s much-heralded “Germany plan” — with its central plank of four million jobs by 2020 — was met with howls of derision from analysts and commentators who compared it to communist East Germany’s five-year plans. In contrast, Merkel, only just back from holiday, received a boost to her re-election bid on Friday with news that Germany had unexpectedly emerged from its deepest recession in over 60 years. She has herself stayed away from personal attacks, exuding an air of calm, which is improving her image in the voters’ eyes, said Rudolf Korte, a political scientist. “In the midst of an economic crisis, people want security and calm,” he told ARD television. She has positioned herself as “the moderator in the grand coalition”, he added, making her difficult to attack. Nevertheless, this did not stop some of her allies rushing to her defence. Roland Koch, a senior CDU politician, told the Hamburger Abendblatt local daily: “To make the absurd claim that she does not care about the unemployed is obscene.”
TEHRAN - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday he plans to appoint at least three women ministers to his new cabinet to be formally revealed next week, a first in the Islamic republic. Ahmadinejad, a hardliner whose re-election in June set off the worst crisis in the 30year history of the Islamic republic, said he would submit his new lineup to the 290member parliament on Wednesday. He will propose Fatemeh Ajorlou for the welfare and social security ministry and Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi for the health ministry, he said in a television interview. “At least one other woman will be presented,” he added. Ahmadinejad also announced his choice for the powerful intelligence portfolio, after sacking the previous holder in a row over another controversial appointment, and said he will keep the same industry and economy ministers. The main criteria for joining his new team are “morality and commitment, efficiency as well as convergence and spirit of cooperation,” he said, adding that there would also be younger people in the cabinet. The 52-year-old was sworn in on August 5 for a second four-year term although the declaration of his victory triggered massive street protests by opposition demonstrators who believe the result was rigged. In his inauguration speech, Ahmadinejad said he will continue to resist “oppressive powers,” pledging to campaign for social justice and root out corruption. But in the election aftermath, Ahmadinejad also found himself at loggerheads with powerful elements within his own conservative support base over his tardiness in dismissing his nominee as first vice president despite orders from supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He had come under fire during his first tenure for frequently reshuffling the cabinet, sacking 10 ministers and two central bank chiefs and retaining inexperienced ministers. It may not be smooth sailing for his new government line-up either. The nomination of Ajorlou is likely to stir controversy because of her involvement in the case of Abbas Palizdar, an Ahmadinejad supporter who was jailed for accusing several senior clerics, including
former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and their children of corruption. Ajorlou and some other MPs were interrogated last year by prosecutors over their alleged help to Palizdar, who was reportedly on a parliamentary team which conducted a probe into the judiciary. According to press reports, Ajorlou and another lawmaker were sentenced to two years in jail for disclosing classified documents, although there is no official confirmation about the case. The other woman nominee, Vahid Dastjerdi, is an academic and former MP. In the previous administration Ahmadinejad had two women in his cabinet but not in a ministerial capacity — Fatemeh Vaez Javadi, a vice president heading the Environmental Organisation, and Zohreh Tabibzadeh Nouri, vice president for women and family affairs. Ahmadinejad said he will name Heydar Moslehi, a former representative of Khamenei in the volunteer Basij militia and a strong supporter of the president, as intelligence minister. He will also retain Ali Akbar Mehrabian at the industry ministry and Shamseddin Hosseini as economy minister. Mehrabian, who is aged under 40, faced difficulties securing parliament’s vote of confidence due to his young age and lack of experience when he was first appointed in an October 2007 reshuffle. A number of ministers who left or were ousted from the cabinet during Ahmadinejad’s first four years complained that the president was not open to different ideas and criticism. Many of his cabinet changes were interpreted as a way for Ahmadinejad to increase his influence over ministries by getting rid of people who disagreed with his policies. Ahmadinejad’s decision to appoint woman ministers has angered some hardliners and staunch supporters including Fatemeh Rajabi, the wife of his government spokesman, who slammed such a move as “apocalyptic”. “In the apocalypse women will conquer the government and anything they wish for,” she wrote in an open letter to the president on August 8 carried on several websites. “One cannot accept that Ahmadinejad’s cabinet take a first step towards implementing the evil aims of feminists and seculars by appointing women ministers,” Rajabi said. “You do not have a shortage of competent men.”
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Tuesday, August 18, 2009
International
Yemeni troops hit Shiite rebels hard: minister Agence France-Presse
SANAA - Yemen’s defence minister said on Sunday that the army has hit northern Shiite rebels hard as clashes intensified in the restive region of Saada and its surroundings on the sixth day of an offensive. “The elements of rebellion and terrorism in Saada... have been hit hard today by the army... They have incurred heavy losses and have been paralysed,” Mohammad Nasser Ahmed Ali said in an address to a military academy. Government forces “have captured some of the rebels who will be brought to justice,” he said without specifying the number of captive Zaidi rebels, also known as Huthis. Warplanes have also been used in the offensive which on Sunday targeted Huthi strongholds in the mountainous region. A rebel leader and eight others were killed in fierce clashes during the day in the Harf Sufyan area of Amran province, south of Saada,
local sources said. Government forces have been trying since Thursday to open the road linking Saada to the capital Sanaa after rebels blocked it at Harf Sufyan, the defence ministry website quoted Amran mayor Sheikh Kahlan Abu Shawarib as saying. At least two soldiers and 16 rebels were reported killed on Friday. The rebels have accused government forces of killing dozens of civilians in bombardments and of using white phosphorous, banned under international law for use against non-combatants because it causes severe burns. The government says it does not have phosphorous weapons in its arsenal. On Thursday, the government offered terms for ending the offensive. These included the rebels evacuating all government offices they have occupied, handing over ammunition and equipment and freeing their prisoners.
Mass rally on last Afghan campaign day Agence France-Presse
KABUL - A sea of Afghans waving flags and championing presidential hopeful Abdullah Abdullah staged a spectacular rally on the last day of campaigning Monday for key elections overshadowed by Taliban threats. Afghanistan’s 17 million voters go to polls Thursday to elect a president for the second time in history and 420 councillors in 34 provinces in a massive operation clouded by insecurity and logistical headaches. President Hamid Karzai, who has ruled since the late 2001 US-led invasion overthrew the Taliban regime, is tipped to win but a strong campaign from former foreign minister Abdullah has raised the chance of a run-off. Thousands of people poured into a Kabul stadium — a once notorious
Taliban execution ground — wearing blue baseball hats, carrying pictures of Abdullah and chanting his name over and over again. In a vote stunt rare for Afghanistan, a helicopter circled overhead, dropping hundreds of papers marked with Abdullah’s photo, election sign and number as marked on the ballot paper to help even the illiterate majority vote. “Hey compatriots, wake up, it is time for a big change,” said the papers written in the three most common Afghan languages, Dari, Pashtu and Uzbeki. “Our favourite candidate, Abdullah Abdullah,” and “our good future, Abdullah Abdullah,” shouted the crowd in between the former minister’s speech studded with rhetoric denouncing election favourite Karzai.
AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit
Thaksin Shinawatra supporters carrying boxes of petition march through nearby streets to the Grand Palace in Bangkok, Thailand, on Monday, Aug. 17, 2009. At least 20,000 Thaksin supporters gathered to seek a royal pardon for the deposed prime minister.
Tens of thousands seek Thai royal pardon for Thaksin Agence France-Presse
BANGKOK - More than 30,000 “Red Shirt” supporters of Thaksin Shinawatra handed in a petition Monday seeking a royal pardon for the fugitive former premier, further underscoring Thailand’s deep political rifts. Organisers say they have collected at least five million signatures in support of Thaksin, who was toppled in a military coup in 2006 and fled the kingdom last August to escape a two-year jail term for corruption. “I would like to say thank you to my fellow Thais, who have a good attitude towards me and to Thailand,” Thaksin said in a speech broadcast live by video from an
AP Photo/Saurabh Das
undisclosed location to the cheering crowd in downtown Bangkok. “We are here today to inform our father, the King of every Thai, that we want to see unity and reconciliation,” said Thaksin, wearing the trademark red shirt favoured by his backers. Billionaire tycoon Thaksin, 60, then turned to a portrait of Thailand’s widely revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej and the royal
family and sang a traditional royal song. In their latest mass show of support for Thaksin, the protest group submitted their petition to the royal offices in Bangkok’s Grand Palace in the afternoon. The petition was packed in 10 boxes wrapped in red cloth. “The petition has been submitted to seek royal assistance to stop the people’s suffering,” said protest leader Nattawut Saikur. Police Major General Vichai Sangkapai confirmed that 30,000 people had joined the rally so far and that 1,500 uniformed officers had been deployed to secure the rally site.
North Korea to lift border restrictions Restart tours from South Korea SEOUL - North Korea said Monday it would restart family reunions and a stalled tourism programme for South Koreans, in a rare conciliatory gesture after months of bitter hostility. South Korea cautiously welcomed the announcement, but said the two governments must hold talks before the trips — a major earner for its sanctions-hit neighbour — can resume. In a sign of continuing friction, the hardline communist state also warned of “a merciless and prompt annihilating strike” involving nuclear weapons if a US-South Ko-
rean military exercise starting Monday infringes its sovereignty. The tourism agreement was disclosed a day after a meeting in the North between leader Kim Jong-Il and Hyun Jung-Eun, chairwoman of the South’s giant Hyundai Group which operates joint tourism and business ventures. The North also agreed to lift limitations on border crossings by South Koreans which hampered operations at a Seoul-funded industrial estate. Hyun travelled to the North last week and won the release of an employee detained since March for allegedly criticising Pyongyang’s regime. Analysts said that cash consider-
ations aside, the North realises it must ease tensions with Seoul if it wants to improve ties with Washington. The North reportedly indicated it wants better US ties when former president Bill Clinton visited Pyongyang this month and held talks with Kim. He won a pardon for two American journalists. Cross-border relations have soured since a conservative South Korean government took office in February 2008 and scrapped a “sunshine” aid and engagement policy. International tensions have risen following nuclear and missile tests by the North and a US-led drive to enforce tougher United Nations sanctions.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Women’s mags skirt culture clash in Arab market PARIS, Aug 17, 2009 (AFP) - France-based women’s mags Elle and Marie-Claire are continuing a push into the Arab market but say having to adapt content to local sensitivities without contradicting their own ideals is not easy.
Agence France-Presse
Supporters of presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah, seen in poster at right, attend a campaign rally in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Aug. 17, 2009. Afghans will head to the polls on Aug. 20 to elect a new president.
Life Style
International
Marie-Claire has editions in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates and last week launched a monthly in Saudi Arabia, where competitor Elle magazine is already present, as well as in Dubai and Lebanon. But the just-released 35,000 copies of the Saudi edition of Marie-Claire ran into immediate, if minor problems. A story on Saudi women’s football, in which players are clad in trousers, long sleeves and headscarves, was allowed in full in Jeddah but not Riyadh. “Our problem is reconciling local culture with the Marie-Claire concept, which is no piece of cake,” said Laurence Hembert Wermus, who heads international development for the magazine, a touch less glam than rival Elle. “Given the economic context, there’s no point in launching new magazines in France, but publishers can develop editions internationally, and the Middle East is definitely a growth mar-
ket,” said Sophie Renaud, who runs the media consultancy Carat France. “At home, developing internationally shows readers that the publication is dynamic, that it has ideas and convictions, that it’s striving towards change for women,” Renaud told AFP. Yet in many of these new markets, it remains impossible to run photographs of naked women or stories on a gamut of sexual practices. Last April, the French-language Africa newsweekly Jeune Afrique was banned in the UAE because of a cover picture showing a naked woman’s back to illustrate a feature story on “Moslems and Sex”. ‘In Arabia it’s even stricter’
So for magazines such as these which over the decades have backed feminist causes, taking root in the Arab world without negating their ideals remains a tricky exercise. “We are very careful not to provoke uselessly, we don’t want to be banned.
AFP PHOTO/EBRAHIM ADAWI
Arabic editions of France-based magazines Elle and Marie-Claire magazines are displayed at a shop in the Gulf emirate of Abu Dhabi on August 13, 2009. Women’s mags Elle and Marie-Claire, are continuing a push into the Arab market but say having to adapt content to local sensitivities without contradicting their own ideals is no piece of cake.
It would neither help social progress nor the status of women,” said Jean de Boisdeffre, who heads the international media arm of Elle owner-company, Lagardere Active. The magazine, for example, refrained from running a story on French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s controversial call to ban the burqa. “It would’ve been provocative and could’ve prompted readers to link the magazine with French policy,” he said. Publication of pictures varies from country to country, said Marie Claire’s international editorial manager Florence Duluard. “In the Emirates we avoid pictures on the fashion pages of girls in very mini skirts or necklines that plunge to their navels. In Arabia it’s even stricter — no necklines and no knees.” Both magazines have hired local journalists to provide content with a brief to highlight local designers and issues as well as the big-name fashion labels so popular in the Middle East. “They know how to broach a subject,” said Elle’s de Boisdeffre, who added that 80 percent of the magazine was formulated in the region. “And we have enough fashion stories produced elsewhere to be able to choose garments that will please the tastes of all readers,” he added. Next month’s Saudi edition of Marie-Claire, distributed largely via partner Al Wataniya’s subscriber base, is to run a story on women photographers in the kingdom. “We do talk about problems in couples or women who are depressed,” added its editorial manager Florence Duluard, “But we never tackle these issues head-on, we take them on sideways, like asking ‘How to take a positive approach to the couple?’ instead of stating that a woman has problems because her husband doesn’t satisfy her.” “We recently published a feature on hammams that enabled us to evoke a whole series of issues — relations between men and women, between parents and children, and sexuality,” said de Boisdeffre.
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AFP PHOTO/RAMZI HAIDAR
Lebanese people attend a party at the Riviera beach resort in downtown Beirut on August 12, 2009. From nudist beach parties and wild bashes hosted by the likes of Paris Hilton, to gay clubs, gambling and showgirls, Beirut is rapidly earning a reputation as the sin city of the Middle East.
Sleepless in Beirut, sin city of the Middle East Agence France Presse
BEIRUT - From nudist beach parties and wild bashes hosted by the likes of Paris Hilton, to gay clubs, gambling and showgirls, Beirut is rapidly earning a reputation as the sin city of the Middle East. Clubbers don’t bat an eye in popping 1,000 dollars for a bottle of champagne to guarantee attention at a trendy nightspot, where less is more as far as women’s wear is concerned, and fireworks displays regularly light up the skies. Lebanon has seen it all: a bloody 1975-1990 civil war, military occupation, high-profile assassinations, and unending political instability. Four years ago, Beirut’s seaside Riviera Hotel saw an assassination attempt targeting a leading anti-Syrian minister. Today it is keeping the neighbourhood awake as partygoers drink and dance the night away. “We have clubs in Cairo,” said 26-year-old Wafiq, as he swayed to the beat on a hot August night holding a glass of whiskey and puffing on a Cuban cigar. “But nothing beats this,” said the Egyptian, a financial consultant. “I
need to come here to unwind.” A record one million-plus tourists visited Lebanon last month (July) alone, according to the tourism ministry, which is expecting more than two million tourists by the end of 2009, a figure roughly equivalent to half the country’s population. Many of those flocking to Beirut are Lebanese expatriates, but Arab nationals have also arrived en masse to take advantage of Lebanon’s glamorous nightlife and glitzy shows like “Hot Legs” at the Casino du Liban, featuring “striptease-style dances”, according to the casino’s website. While Lebanon often flirts with the borderline of civil war — sectarian strife in May 2008 resulted in the deaths of more than 100 people — any sign of a political detente is quickly followed by a boom in tourism. Sami, 30, flew in from Germany for a brief reprieve this summer, which he says turned out to be more exhausting than he had anticipated. Nursing sunburn, he described how he had negotiated his way past scowling bouncers into Sky Bar, dubbed the hottest club in Beirut, before stopping at a 24-hour eatery for breakfast at 3:00 am and hitting the beach a few hours later.
Ex-champ’s life a cautionary tale for Philippines boxers Agence France Presse
GENERAL SANTOS - Ageing brawler Rolando Navarrete attacks the heavy bag swinging above the dirt floor of his crumbling home, each crunching blow evoking the old times when he was the boxing-mad Philippines’ most famous son. Stuck on the unpainted wall is a calendar given to him by six-time world champion Manny Pacquiao, the other, much younger local icon who now holds the prized tag as the planet’s “best pound-for-pound” fighter. “Manny has become a much better fighter than I was. He has discipline,” said Navarrete in a heavily
slurred voice. In his time he was at least as big as Pacquiao, as shown by fading framed pictures on the wall of the older champ in all his former glory. But those days are long gone and Navarrete now sells fish that he says earns him 800 pesos (about 16 dollars) a day. A three-year stint in a US prison for rape, a series of failed relationships with women who bore him a total of seven children, various police complaints for wife battery and drugs, and an assortment of ugly scars from scraps outside the ring are all he has left to show after a dizzying fall from grace. The sculpted, V-shaped torso and
bulging biceps with the distinct bluerose tattoos are all admirably intact and the 52-year-old’s left fist, though it has perhaps lost some speed, still packs the same destructive power as the best in Pacquiao’s arsenal. In a country that has produced a remarkable crop of more than two dozen world champions, Navarrete rode his explosive fists to fight his way out of poverty and soon after he turned 18, he was the bantamweight champion of the Philippines. He knocked out Uganda-born Cornelius Boza-Edwards in five rounds in Viareggio, Italy to win the World Boxing Council junior lightweight crown in 1981 and later
starred in one of two local films made about his life. But a rock star-lifestyle in Hawaii, where he lived it up and partied once he reached the top of his sport saw him crash and burn out. Navarrete kept the world title for exactly nine months, successfully defending it in Manila against South Korean challenger Choi Chung-Il before losing it to the Mexican Rafael “Bazooka” Limon in Las Vegas. Boxing experts consider all three world title bouts he fought as among the best contests ever seen in the 130pound (59-kilogram) class. He later spent three years in US jail for a rape he would not discuss, and he
lost his last three bouts before calling it a day in 1991, his win-loss-draw record standing at 54-15-3 with 30 knockouts in a memorable prizefighting career spanning 18 years. The beautiful house, the sportscar, the trophy girlfriends, and his money are now distant memories. These days it is Pacquiao, the former street urchin who lives in a palatial home in this southern city, who is the star. His finger it seems is in every pie, the tens of millions of dollars in prize money helping fuel a construction boom in shopping malls, cockfighting arenas, boxing gyms, and even a planned 400-hectare (988-acre) Manny Pacquiao Economic Zone.
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Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Entertainment
International
News
International
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
In death, as in life, Jackson surrounded by wackiness
Russian pilot dies after fighters collide near Moscow
Agence France Presse
Agence France-Presse
LOS ANGELES - Michael Jackson’s outlandish life is being overshadowed in his death by events so preposterous they seem to come from a fiction writer’s overactive imagination. They include a petition to award him a Nobel peace prize; a growing list of people who claim to be the real parents of Jackson’s children; a lawsuit from an alleged ex-wife; and a sect that believes the “King of Pop” lives on, albeit on another planet. Jackson died in Los Angeles on June 25 at age 50 from an apparent cardiac arrest. His son Prince Michael, 12; his daughter Paris, 11, and seven-year-old son Prince Michael II — known as “Blanket” — are the immediate heirs to the late singer’s music empire. Their legal guardian is Katherine Jackson, the children’s paternal grandmother. According to a case filed recently in Los Angeles, a woman named Claire Elisabeth Fields Cruise claims to be the children’s sole biological mother. Documents filed by Fields Cruise, and posted on celebrity website TMZ.com, also claim Prince
Michael I was fathered by a man who lives in France, while Paris Jackson’s father was Fields Cruise’s “unofficial college sweetheart.” Fields Cruise told a judge she gave birth to the children without being pregnant with them. “There is technology that is in existence,” she told reporters after she filed the case,”to remove the conceived children from her body and insert them into the bodies of the surrogates who gave birth to them.” Fields Cruise also claimed that Jackson “always knew” he was the biological father of Connor Cruise, the 14 year-old black child that actors Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman adopted in 1995, when they were still married. One day before Fields Cruise filed her case, British ex-child star Mark Lester said that he might be Paris Jackson’s father.
Bollywood star criticizes ‘parallel universe’ US Agence France Presse
NEW DELHI - Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan criticised the US for believing it lived in a “parallel universe” in comments broadcast Monday following a row with immigration officials at a New York airport. Khan has said he was singled out for questioning by US immigration officials due to his Muslim name — sparking outrage among his millions of Indian fans, as well as senior politicians and the Indian press. “America needs to understand Shah Rukh Khan one small thing... that there are about 190-195 smaller countries and that makes the whole world,” Khan told Indian television channel CNN-IBN from Houston in comments broadcast on Monday. “It’s not an isolated, parallel universe existence for this country. There is a whole world which makes all the good and bad that is happening,” said the actor, who is one of the biggest names in Bollywood. “So if we are scared of violence and terrorism, all of us are responsible for it. It’s not that the world is and America is not.” Khan said he understood US security concerns after the September 11, 2001 attacks and that he loved the country, but his comments fanned the flames of a bitter dispute over his treatment at Newark Liberty International Airport. The Indian civil aviation minister vowed to take the matter up with the US government, while Indian newspapers slammed the discrimination allegedly inflicted on one of the Hindu-majority country’s most loved actors. US officials have said that Khan, 43, was subject only to routine procedures at the airport on Friday and was questioned for little more than an hour but the actor said he was left “angry and humiliated” by his treatment. Some critics have also accused Khan of publicity seeking. He recently finished filming “My Name is Khan” in the United States, a movie due out next year that features the contentious subject of racial profiling. The US embassy in New Delhi attempted to end the controversy at the weekend by describing Khan as a “global icon” who was a welcome guest in the United States.
AP Photo
People gather around the burnt debris after a fire broke out at a wedding tent on Saturday night Aug. 15, 2009 in Kuwait City, Kuwait. The fire at a wedding tent in Kuwait that killed 41 women and children consumed the the structure in a blazing inferno lasting just three minutes, the fire department chief said Sunday.
AP Photo/ Courtesy of John Branca
This handout photo of shows attorney John Branca, left, and Michael Jackson at Branca’s December 1987 wedding in Beverly Hills.
Alien thriller ‘District 9’ lands at box office top spot Agence France Presse
LOS ANGELES - “District 9,” an alien thriller set in an apartheid society divided between humans and space creatures, landed at the top of the North American box office on Sunday, initial weekend figures showed. The film, which touches on themes of racism and corporate greed, earned 37 million dollars in its first week of release, according to box office tracker Exhibitor Relations. It tells the story of a race of extraterrestrial refugees who are granted asylum in South Africa but have to fight off attempts by a nefarious corporation seeking to harness their powerful alien technology. In second place, down from the top spot was “G.I. Joe: The Rise of
the Cobra.” The action movie based on the popular toy franchise pulled in 22.5 million dollars over the weekend. New release “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” starring Rachel McAdams as the wife of a man with a genetic anomaly that means he moves back and forward through time involuntarily, earned the number three spot, with box office receipts of 19.2 million dollars. Falling two places to number four was “Julie and Julia,” a movie that tells the story of famed cook Julia Child, and Julie Powell, a woman who tries to cook a recipe a day from Child’s most famous cookbook for one year. In its second week in theaters, the feature starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams, earned 12.4 million dollars.
Also falling two spots was “GForce,” an action-comedy about a crack squad of guinea pig spies, which fell to number five, earning 6.9 million dollars. At number six was “The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard,” a comedy starring Jeremy Piven and Ed Helms as employees of a struggling car dealership, which pulled in 5.4 million in its first week in theaters. In its fifth week of release, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” the sixth installment of the franchise, fell three spots to number seven, earning 5.2 million dollars. The feature, which sets the stage for the final confrontation between the boy wizard and his arch-nemesis Lord Voldemort, has taken in 283.9 million dollars since its release.
Madonna in Italy for 51st birthday bash Agence France Presse
ROME - Pop diva Madonna arrived Sunday in the Italian Riviera resort of Portofino for a star-studded 51st birthday celebration, the ANSA news agency reported. The American singer booked an entire floor of the town’s Splendido Hotel for her stay, ANSA said. Meanwhile a flotilla of yachts was noted heading for the nearby Gulf of Tigullio near the villa of top Italian fashion designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, who are expected to host Madonna’s birthday party, the report said. The singer made waves on Saturday when her “Sticky and Sweet”
tour concert in Poland coincided with the Feast of the Assumption, a high point of the Catholic calendar marking the traditional belief that Mary, the mother of Jesus also known as the Madonna, was taken up into heaven.
Ex-wife ‘confesses’ to deadly Kuwait wedding blaze Agence France-Presse
KUWAIT CITY - The ex-wife of the groom at a Kuwait wedding party that turned into tragedy when a fierce fire engulfed a tent, killing 43 women and children, has confessed to starting the blaze, local newspapers reported on Monday. Al-Qabas newspaper said the 23year-old woman had told police she used petrol to torch the packed wedding tent to avenge her ex-husband’s “bad treatment” of her before their divorce. “‘Spurned’ woman unleashed fury,” was the headline in the English-language Kuwait Times newspaper, which said the bride escaped injured but that her mother and sister were killed. Quoting unnamed security sources, Al-Qabas said the woman’s Asian maid told police she saw her pouring petrol around the large women-only tent in the town of Jahra before the blaze started on Saturday night. There was no official confirmation of the reports. A total of 43 women and children have now perished and 90 other people were injured in the in-
ferno, which destroyed the packed tent in just minutes in the deadliest civilian disaster in the modern history of the Gulf state. Last year, two women died and several others wounded in a similar incident in Jahra which lies 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of the capital and has a population of around 500,000, the overwhelming majority of whom are tribespeople. Most wedding parties in the conservative Muslim Gulf state are segregated in line with local tradition. Mansuri said on Sunday that most of the bodies were charred beyond recognition and that forensic officials were working to identify the victims. Sixteen of the dead were buried on Sunday while forensics officials were still busy trying to establish the identites of the other victims. At least seven of the dead are children.
Of the 90 wounded, about five remain in critical condition with severe burns. Medical officials have said that specialised medical teams from Germany and Britain will arrive on Monday to treat the injured. The government of the oil-rich state has formed a high-level committee to investigate the incident amid sharp criticism by lawmakers that authorities were too slow in the rescue operations. A number of MPs have demanded a probe into why authorities failed to apply strict safety and security rules for wedding tents. The interior ministry has advised citizens against setting up tents in residential areas because that would obstruct rescue operations. Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad alSabah expressed deep sympathy with the families of the victims and said he will not accept greetings on the occasion of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan expected to start this weekend. Several MPs have called on the government to declare a state of national mourning.
MOSCOW - One pilot died and another broke his spine after two fighter jets collided during aerobatics practice near Moscow ahead of the annual air show, officials said Sunday. Two of the three crew members on board the two Sukhoi Su-27 fighters managed to eject from the planes before they collided in the accident, which is expected to cast a shadow over the country’s annual air show. “The pilots have ejected. Two of the pilots are in satisfactory condition, one pilot has died,” Russian air force spokesman Vladimir Drik said on Russian television. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has expressed condolences to the family of the dead pilot, Igor Tkachenko, a highlytrained professional and commander of the country’s celebrated Russian Knights aerobatic team, his office said. The pilots had been practising
aerobatics for a display at the Moscow air show, due to open Tuesday, that Moscow is keen to turn into a leading international commercial aviation event. The annual event, also designed to showcase Russia’s aerial military prowess, has in the past been attended by top military officers and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. One of the two Soviet-era fighters involved in the practices crashed on a residential building in the countryside near Moscow and five people on the ground were injured, some suffering burns, according to the Ria-Novosti news agency. One woman received severe burns covering 80 percent of her body, it added, while NTV television reported that two people had been rushed to intensive care. One of the two pilots who survived had broken his back in the accident, Ria-Novosti said. “He got caught up in the trees as a result of the fall. The pilot has been hospitalised,” the agency cited a police official as saying.
Carnival mood for Mumbai’s gay Pride march Agence France-Presse
MUMBAI - Thousands of people took to the streets of Mumbai on Sunday for the annual Pride parade, in celebratory mood after a landmark court ruling advocating an end to a ban on gay sex. Gays, lesbians, transvestites and transexuals plus their heterosexual supporters plied a circular route around the south of the city, walking and dancing to the beat of drummers and loud music, an AFP correspondent said. The march comes after judges at the Delhi High Court last month ruled that a ban on homosexual acts, in place since British colonial times in 1860, was discriminatory and violated an individual’s rights under the constitution. “Last year there was a sort of protest,” said Kumar Iyer, an openly gay make-up artist who was
dressed as his alter-ego, drag queen “Dolly”, in a large black wig, silver mini dress, pink fishnet stockings and high heels. “This year there’s no protest, there’s a celebration. The ball has started rolling and now it’s only going to get better,” he told AFP. Shobha Doshi said she was there to support her son, who lives with his boyfriend in the United States, and to raise awareness that gay people exist and should be accepted in society. “I feel very proud that he’s honest to himself and that he’s not doing anything wrong in being gay,” she told AFP, holding a banner saying “I Am Proud Of My Gay Son”. Despite the court case, there remains widespread opposition to homosexuality in socially conservative and family-orientated India, particularly from leaders of the Hindu, Muslim and Christian communities.
British pilot killed in Malaysia testing ‘flying taxi’ Agence France-Presse
US pop diva Madonna performs during her Sticky and Sweet Tour concert at Bemowo Airport in Warsaw on August 15, 2009. Her concert in Warsaw was held just hours she turmed 51, which angered some Catholics, because it fell on the Roman Catholic holiday, the heavenly assumption of the Virgin Mary.
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AFP PHOTO / STR
KUALA LUMPUR - A British pilot killed in a fiery crash in Malaysia was an aviation entrepreneur conducting a test flight of his Jetpod “flying taxi”, reports said Monday. Michael Robert Dacre, 53, died Sunday when the prototype aircraft crashed and burst into flames shortly after take-off from a land-
ing strip in the northern town of Taiping, Malaysian police said. The Star daily said Dacre was an inventor and the managing director of British-based Avcen Ltd. which planned to have the “Jetpod” eightseater flying taxi in production by 2010. It quoted witnesses as saying that the aircraft attempted to take off several times before soaring into the sky and then abruptly veering to the left
and crashing to the ground. The Jetpod was designed to have a cruising speed of 350 miles (550 kilometres) per hour, be quieter and quicker than a helicopter, and require just 125 meters to take off and 300 meters to land. In interviews when plans for the dual jet engine aircraft were unveiled, Dacre had said he hoped the Jetpod would transform inner-city transport.
AP Photo/Dhiraj Singh
An Indian gay rights supporter participates in the Pride parade, in Mumbai, India, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2009.
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Tuesday, August 18, 2009
News
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Saudi swine flu toll rises to 14 Agence France-Presse
RIYADH - Saudi health authorities Sunday announced three new swine flu deaths, taking the country’s toll to 14. The three included a Saudi woman of 28 and a Saudi girl of 11, both of whom died on Friday, and an Indian expatriate man who died Thursday, the health ministry said. The ministry said that the spread of the A(H1N1) flu virus remains relatively slow and that fatalities are low in the country. Official infection figures have not been updated for nearly two weeks but reports put them over 700. Saudi Arabia has been stepping up
surveillance and treatment activities with the approach of the holy month of Ramadan, when normally hundreds of thousands of foreign Muslims arrive in the country to undertake the umrah minor pilgrimage to Mecca. But hotels in the Mecca region are reporting large cancellations due to the fear of flu. Iran, Iraq and Egypt have all announced restrictions on who can travel for umrah, and the Saudi government has discouraged the elderly and children from coming. Meanwhile Saudi King Abdullah has ordered that all cases of swine flu be treated for free, whether for Saudis or foreigners.
Rescue effort for stranded climber in Pakistan called off Agence France-Presse
AFP PHOTO / ATTILA KISBENEDEK
President of the Hungarian Maltese Charity Service (HMCS) Father Imre Kozma gestures in the Saint Family Church of Budapest on July 31, 2009. Twenty years after East German refugees arrived en masse in Budapest in a bid to escape to the West, a parish priest who sheltered them remembers their fear. “They pitched their tents in public parks and parked their caravans in streets... they camped in front of the West German embassy,” Father Imre Kozma, then parish priest in the leafy Budapest suburb of Zugliget, told AFP.
Zugliget parish, a transit stop for East German refugees in 1989 Agence France-Presse
BUDAPEST - Twenty years after East German refugees arrived en masse in Budapest in a bid to escape to the West, a parish priest who sheltered them remembers their fear. “They pitched their tents in public parks and parked their caravans in streets... they camped in front of the West German embassy,” Father Imre Kozma, then parish priest in the leafy Budapest suburb of Zugliget, told AFP. On August 14, 1989, after a call for help from the West German embassy, Father Kozma, now 69, opened the first humanitarian camp for East German refugees waiting to flee to Austria, on the grounds of his church. “There was an atmosphere of utter insecurity among the refugees,” Kozma recalled. “They were afraid even of each other, not knowing who might be an agent of the Stasi (the infamous East German secret service).” Kozma’s bold move was not without risk but his motives and those of his 700-800 volunteers were purely humanitarian, he insisted.
“We knew nothing of the ongoing political negotiations... but I was encouraged by feeling that the Hungarian politicians were on our side,” Kozma said. Some 1,200 people at a time stayed in his camp, sleeping in large white tents and on the floor of the church. With new arrivals, two other camps opened up in the Buda hills, hosting 6,000-7,000 people in total. The surrounding area was dotted by Trabants, abandoned by their owners who had escaped westwards, Kozma remembered. Meanwhile, the East German consul set up a caravan in front of the Zugliget church to convince his compatriots to return home. But Kozma recalled: “The refugees just stared at the caravan.” The priest’s mission took on a political dimension when a few days after he had opened the camp, the West German embassy asked if it
could set up shop in the church to issue passports to those heading for the Austrian border. The embassy had closed temporarily on August 14, unable to handle the flood of visa applications from East Germans wishing to emigrate. “I called ¡German Chancellor¿ Helmut Kohl,” Kozma said. “He called me back a few hours later and told me: ‘I talked to Gorbachev, who said Hungarians are good people’,” implying that the Soviet leader would look the other way. On August 19, some 600 East Germans fled across to Austria during the now famous Paneuropean Picnic. Thousands more followed after Hungary threw open its border on September 11. This was the second time, after the 1956 anti-Soviet revolution, that Hungary shaped the history of the 20th century, Kozma noted.
MADRID - Rescuers on Sunday called off their attempt to reach an injured Spanish climber stranded on a Himalayan mountain in Pakistan for over a week due to bad weather and little chance of finding him alive. Oscar Perez, 33, broke his leg and a wrist in a fall on August 6 when he was some 6,300 metres (20,600 feet) up Latok II in the Himalayas in northern Pakistan and has not been heard from since. His climbing partner Alvaro Novellon, who was also injured, left him with food, a sleeping bag and a gas stove to melt snow for drinking water and to keep warm before heading down the mountain to sound the alarm. “He has spent ten days with little equipment and food, it is almost impossible that he could survive,” Lorenzo Ortas, the vice-president of Pena Guara, the Spanish climbing club which has been organising the rescue effort, told a news conference. The worsening weather conditions and the rough terrain were also putting the lives of the rescue team at risk, the club said in a statement. The rescue team, which included renowned American alpinist Fabrizio Zangrilli, had hoped to reach Perez on Monday and carry him down to an outcrop to be evacuated by a Pakistani military helicopter. “We have lost this battle. We did all we could. There is nothing we can do. The weather changed and that complicated everything,” a Spanish climber who was part of the rescue effort in
Chiding Obama... From page 1 His comments come amid growing tension over a plan by Colombia to give US forces access to seven of its military bases to accomodate counter-drug operations following the closure of a base in Ecuador. Chavez cast the move as a US attempt to encircle Venezuela, warning of a coming military escalation aimed at the country’s oil, access to the Amazon basin and plentiful water sources. “An aggression against Venezuela will be met not only by Venezuela;
Pakistan, Sebas Alvaro, told radio Cadena Ser. Several Pakistani military helicopters sent out to locate Perez over the past few days were forced to return unsuccessfully due to bad weather and the difficult terrain. The plight of the stranded climber has been on the front pages of Spanish newspapers over the past week and has dominated television newscasts. Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero on Thursday called his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani to request that the operation to rescue Perez be speeded up. Latok II is part of Pakistan’s Karakorum range, considered one of the most challenging in the world. Spain’s best known alpinist, Juan Oiarzabal, said there was a “slim chance” that Perez could still be saved if weather conditions improved, allowing for another rescue attempt to be launched, a view not shared by specialists. “As a mountainer I have to say that hope is the last to die. But it is a complicated situation. I don’t know up to what point he can be auto-sufficient, make water, prepare food, in order to survive,” the 53-year-old told cable news channel CNN+. Two Spanish climbers died recently in the Himalayas. Luis Maria Barbero, 47, disappeared in July on the slopes of Gasherbrum II which rises to a height of 8,035 metres. Veteran climber Inaki Ochoa de Olza, 40, died in May 2008 as a result of brain injury on the slopes of the 8,091-metres-high Annapurna. various countries would take up arms,” he said. “It is clear to me that a great anti-imperialistic movement would rise up on these lands, God help us.” “But we have to prepare for it. And one of the best ways to avoid it is to show the enemy that it would be so costly for them to attack Venezuela that they would repent,” he said. “We do not want war, we hate it. But we must prepare for it. We are number one on the list, Venezuela. We are the first target of the (United States). Using Colombia and the bases in Aruba and Curacao, they are surrounding us,” Chavez warned.
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BUSINESS Japan PM says stimulus steps helped end recession Agence France-Presse
TOKYO - Japan’s embattled Prime Minister Taro Aso, who faces elections this month, said Monday his policies helped the country out of recession after fresh data showed its first economic growth in over a year. Aso — who has for months trailed his opposition rival Yukio Hatoyama in polls ahead of the August 30 vote — also vowed to strengthen the economic rebound to ensure the Japanese people felt its benefits. “Since I became prime minister, I have done my best on economic measures,” Aso told a televised debate with five other party leaders. “As a result, we have seen some signs of a brighter future for the economy.” Hatoyama, head of the centre-left Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), fired back: “ Aso said Japan is seeing signs of economic recovery, but it is not what the people are actually feeling at all.” Earlier in the day, government data showed the world’s second-biggest economy grew 0.9 percent in the April-June quarter, meaning Japan had officially emerged from recession, following Germany and France last week.
At an annualized pace, the quarterly growth reached 3.7 percent. Aso’s government has launched a series of pump-priming packages to stimulate the economy and cushion the blow of unemployment, which hit 5.4 percent in June, close to its post-World War II high of 5.5 percent. Aso conceded that, despite the good growth data, “Our people are yet to really feel an economic recovery. “Economic recovery is my top priority,” he added. “I will make the Japanese economy recover at any price.” The opposition DPJ has enjoyed a strong lead in polls over Aso’s conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has maintained nearly unbroken rule for more than half a century. Japan plunged into recession in the second quarter of 2008 as the glo-
bal downturn crushed demand for its cars, electronics and other exports. While Japan’s recession is technically over, analysts warn that major risks remain, notably from rising unemployment and renewed deflation. In their election platforms, both parties have vowed to boost the economy, but while Aso’s LDP has focused on growing industries to create wealth, the DPJ has promised more spending on families to boost domestic demand. Hatoyama said his party would “speed up measures to directly stimulate household spending such as child-care allowances, income guarantees for farmers and toll-free highways travel. “It’s preferable for us to expand domestic demand by boosting consumer purchasing power, which will eventually result in economic expansion,” he said.
Graphic chart showing Japan’s GDP growth rate, which grew by 0.9 percent in the three months to June from the previous quarter, data showed Monday.
US recovery is in view, but economic struggles persist Agence France-Presse
WASHINGTON - The US economy appears poised to emerge from recession but will struggle for some time, held back by a weak job market and cautious consumers, analysts say. The world’s biggest economy is giving mixed signals as the manufacturing sector picks up and the housing market shows signs of steadying but retail sales remain sluggish. The latest data showed gross domestic product (GDP) — the broad measure of the economy’s activity — fell at an annualized rate of 1.0 percent in the second quarter, after a 6.4 percent plunge in the January-March period. Unemployment dipped in July to 9.4 percent, one-tenth point lower than the 26-year high hit in June as job losses narrowed to 247,000. But US retail sales unexpectedly dipped 0.1 percent in July with consumers pulling back despite rising auto sales stimulated by the government’s “Cash for Clunkers” trade-in incentives. A widely watched survey of consumer sentiment, a harbinger of spending
trends, showed Americans remain wary of the economic outlook. Sal Guatieri at BMO Capital Markets said consumer skittishness will mute any recovery. “It goes without saying that until savings, unemployment and foreclosures stop climbing, credit-constrained consumers will retain a bunker mentality. While the Great Recession may be history — thanks to inventory rebuilding, renewed export growth and pulled-forward demand — a not-so-great recovery is likely the offspring.” Nonetheless, many economists say the brutal recession that began in December 2007 is likely over, even if the data to bear that out will not be known for some months. “The economy has emerged from recession, in our view, and will likely experience a cyclical bounce in the second half of the year,” said Michelle Meyer, economist at Barclays Capital. “The debate has now shifted to the sustainability of the nascent recovery, with a focus on the labor market. The health of the labor market will be a function of the strength of the overall economic recovery.” Analysts say the recovery will
not take root until consumers regain confidence and begin to spend more, and that would not occur until the job market improves. Gary Thayer, senior economist at Wells Fargo Advisors, said the economy needs job growth, not merely a narrowing of losses, to sustain the recovery. “At some point job creation will exceed job cuts and payrolls will begin to expand again,” he said. Others say the economic landscape is shifting and that consumer spending — which accounts for around two-thirds of economic activity — will play a smaller role. “Businesses, not consumers, will lead the recovery,” said Joseph LaVorgna, economist at Deutsche Bank. The Federal Reserve said at the conclusion of its most recent monetary meeting that “economic activity is leveling out” but that the economy could remain weak for some time. With inflation tame, that will allow the central bank to keep stimulating the economy with ultra low rates and other programs. Morgan Stanley economists Richard Berner and David Greenlaw argue in a note to clients that recov-
ery is here even if it is uneven. They say the economy will pick up with the housing sector, which is
seeing improved demand, along with modest gains in incomes that will help fuel spending.
China exports likely to return to growth Agence France-Presse
BEIJING - China expects its exports, which have fallen yearon-year for nine straight months, to return to positive growth before the end of 2009, the government said Monday. “It’s possible the decline in China’s exports will narrow in the second half and even grow in some months given the low base effects in the second half of 2008 due to the financial crisis,” said commerce ministry spokesman Yao Jian. China’s exports have been shrinking since November as foreign demand has dropped amid the global crisis. Shipments abroad slumped by 22 percent year on year in the first
seven months of the year from the same period last year, customs figures showed. However, July exports of 105.4 billion dollars pointed to some recovery as it marked an increase of 10.4 percent from June, according to official data. Yao said the decline in labourintensive exports including toys, apparel and shoes were much smaller than the overall drop, and the market share of Chinese goods actually increased in places such as the United States, Japan and Brazil. “Chinese exporters’ competitiveness has remained strong mainly because our exports still focused on labour-intensive goods... which are not so easily affected by income changes in the international market,” Yao said.
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Business
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
International
International
Five more bank closures bring number of bank failures to 77 Agence France-Presse
WASHINGTON - US regulators have shut down five more regional banks, bringing the total number of US bank failures to 77 this year, the US government announced. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) said Colonial Bank of Montgomery became the largest US bank to fail this year after it was declared bankrupt and had the bulk of its assets taken
Dave Martin/Getty Images/AFP
over by rival BB&T. All of Alabama-based Colonial’s 346 branches will reopen Saturday “and operate as branches of BB&T,” the FDIC said. The list of closed banks also included
Employees lock the doors to a branch of the Colonial Bank on August 14, 2009 in Montgomery, Alabama. US regulators have shut down five more regional banks, bringing the total number of US bank failures to 77 this year, the US government announced. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) said Colonial Bank of Montgomery became the largest US bank to fail this year after it was declared bankrupt and had the bulk of its assets taken over by rival BB&T.
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the Community Bank of Nevada in Las Vegas that was closed by order of the Nevada Financial Institutions Division, which appointed the FDIC as receiver. As of the end of June, the bank had total assets of 1.52 billion dollars and total deposits of about 1.38 billion. Also shut down was the Community Bank of Arizona in Phoenix, which will be taken over by MidFirst Bank from Oklahoma City. The bank had total assets of 158.5 million dollars, most of which will be purchased by MidFirst Bank, the FDIC said. The Oklahoman bank will also assume all of the deposits of Union Bank of Gilbert, another Arizona institution shut down by regulators. The closed financial institutions also include the Dwelling House Savings and Loan Association of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
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New record in Indonesia for largest mass dive Agence France-Presse
JAKARTA - Almost 2,500 scuba divers set a new world record Monday for the largest mass dive, Guinness World Records said. A total of 2,486 divers were involved in the bid off the coast of North Sulawesi, Guinness adjudicator Lucia Sinigagliesi told AFP. “This event was amazing and well-organized and made possible because of the people who came and participated,” she said, after confirming that the group had broken the record for “Most People Scuba Diving Simultaneously.” The previous record was set in the Maldives in 2006, when 958 divers took part in a mass dive, Sinigagliesi said. The challenge was part of the Sail Bunaken 2009 maritime event being held as part of Indonesia’s efforts to establish the Sulawesi town of Manado as a world-class tourist spot, Navy spokesman Iskandar Sitompul said. To mark Indonesia’s 64th Independence Day, the participants unfurled the country’s flag underwater. “We’ve shown the world that as the world’s largest archipelago, we can manage our waters well and there’s a lot of tourism potential here,” he added. Divers attend a drill as part of the final preparations for a mass dive in Manado on August 15, 2009. About 2,400 divers including military personnel and civilians registered to participate in a mass dive aiming at breaking the Guinness World Record on August 16 to mark the 64th anniversary of Indonesian independence.
Strong quake strikes Indonesia’s Ambon to host next sail Sumatra, seven hurt
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West Sumatra provincial health crisis centre chief Jasmarizal told AFP seven people were being treated in hospital for “light JAKARTA - Seven people were injured after a strong, 6.9-mag- injuries” in Padang city on the west coast of Sumatra. “Five people were injured when an escalator at a mall in north nitude quake struck Indonesia’s western Sumatra Sunday, an offiPadang collapsed. Two others were hurt when the fences of their cial said. The epicenter of the quake, which struck at 2:38 pm (0738 homes gave way. They had light injuries like abrasions on their GMT), was located 43 kilometres (29 miles) southeast of Siberut arms and legs,” he added. There were no reports of casualties or damage on Siberut Isisland off western Sumatra. land, Jasmarizal said. It was measured at a depth of 32 kilometres. “But the residents there had fled to the mountains for safety,” he added. The country’s geophysics agency’s technical chief Suharjono said no tsunami warning had been issued. “It was a sea quake but there’s no potential of tsunami. We’ll only issue a warning if the magnitude is greater than seven,” he added. Earlier, Suharjono said “people panicked in nearby cities, in Padang and Sibolga in Sumatra”. “Siberut is not as developed as big cities but at such magnitude, brick houses without strong foundation could collapse,” he added. Strong tremors could be felt for 10 minutes in Padang, south Padang city police official Andreas told AFP. “Everyone panicked and ran out of their houses. But the situation is calmer now and people have gone back into their homes,” he added. Police in the field were monitoring the situation but “so far, there’s no report of damage or casualty yet”, Andreas said. AFP PHOTO/Julian SIKUMBANG The quake was followed by a series of afterA man cleans the ruins from the a collapse wall in Padang on August 16, 2009 shocks, including a 5.9-magnitude tremor at 7:49 after a strong earthquake struck the area. Seven people were injured after a pm. strong, 6.9-magnitude quake struck Indonesia’s western Sumatra, an official Indonesia sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, said. Indonesia sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, where the meeting of conti- where the meeting of continental plates causes high nental plates causes high volcanic and seismic activity. volcanic and seismic activity. Agence France-Presse
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MANADO - Ambon may become the site of the next annual Sail Indonesia next year. “Next year there was a plan to organize it (Sail Indonesia) in Ambon. It was also suggested that the location would be in Banda Sea,” Minister of Marine and Fishery Affairs, Freddy Numberi said. The moving of the location of the event, he added, was aimed at improving the economy of other areas in the country. He said that the economic growth of North Sulawesi following the World Ocean Conference/ WOC) in May 2009, and the implementation of Sail Indonesia in Bunaken reached 8 percent. “Although most of the sightseers were domestic tourists, at this such an event could at least revive the economy,” Freddy added. Therefore, he hoped Ambon would draw a lesson from Sail Bunaken, to enable the local government concerned to cover the shortcomings of Sail Indonesia in Manado. At least he reminded that the local administration or private circles would not hesitate to make an investment or build the necessary facilities and infrastructure to support the annual event. Learning from the implementation of the WOC, Freddy said, the money that had been spent on the construction of facilities by the government or private circles may be regained by almost twofold.
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International
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Bali Today
Balinese Culture
Corby granted another remission on RI’s Independence anniversary Antara
DENPASAR - Australia’s Schapelle Leigh Corby (29) who got 20-year prison sentence in 2005 for smuggling marijuana, had been granted a four-month remission on the occasion of the 64th anniversary of Indonesian independence on Monday, a penitentiary official said. “This is the third remission for her after getting the second last year on a similar occasion,” head of the Kerobokan prison in Badung district, Siswanto BC.IP, SH said here on Monday (Aug.17). Despite the third remission, Corby did not join the other prison inmates in a ceremony celebrating the Indonesian independence anniversary led by Bali deputy governor Puspayoga. The deputy governor on the occasion presented symbolically the remissions to 639 inmates from nine prisons in Bali, including six foreign inmates serving their time at Kerobokan jail. On the occasion of the 62nd Indonesian independence anniversary on August 17, 2007, Corby was not granted a remis-
sion for violating a prison regulation banning inmates from keeping and using cell phones. Corby — one of 20 foreign inmates at the Kerobokan prison — then confessed of having violated the ruling and asked for an apology. Corby was brought to court after she confessed bringing a surfing board from Australia containing 4.2 kg of marijuana through the Ngurah Rai international airport in Denpasar, Bali, on October 8, 2004. At that moment, Corby, who arrived by Australia Airlines AQ 7829, was intensively searched and examined after port security personnel found the drugs. Corby, who was sentenced to 20 years in jail, had intensive medical treatment at the Denpasar Sanglah hospital several times.
DENPASAR – Hindus in Bali celebrated “Tumpek Landep” on Saturday, August 15 th 2009. The “Tumpek Landep” is the special day to give offering to the objects made from metals such as iron, copper, etc. The offerings were also presented to the equipments and assets throughout the house including swords and holy weapons. The assets received offerings were engines, motorcycles, computers, and television. The ceremony was done in every house and it was to ask for safety towards the Gods and His manifestation as the God of Weapons. I Ketut Sumadi, the head of Tourism Tour Guide Study Program in Indonesian Art Institute (IHDN) Denpasar, said that the “Tumpek Landep” is also a ceremony for Betara Siwa who act as the destroyer and return everything to its origin. “Tumpek Landep” falls every 201 days. The farmers usually give offerings to their tools such as trac-
tors etc. The tools and vehicles also filled with ornaments mane from coconut leaves called “ceniga”, “sampian gangtung”, and “tamiang”. The offerings and ornaments are the symbol of the gratitude of the
Australians Schapelle Corby (L) and Renee Lawrence (R) are pictured during a ceremony inside Kerobokan prison in Denpasar on Bali island on April 22, 2008. Two Australian drug traffickers serving 20 years in jail on the resort island of Bali received sentence cuts on August 17, 2009 as part of Indonesia’s Independence Day celebrations, an official said.
Antara
DENPASAR – 639 convicts in nine prisons throughout Bali received remission on Indonesian Independence Day on August 17th 2009. Bali’s Vice Governor, AAN Puspayoga, symbolically gave the remission to the prisoners in Kerobokan Prison, Badung. The remissions were varied
Antara
GIANYAR - Dominic Brain, a 12year-old boy from Kuta in Badung district, has had his name entered into the Guinness Book of World Records after proving his ability to recollect a 76-digit figure in only 60 minutes. The son of Gidion Hindartho showed his extraordinary ability in a record-breaking test organized by Guinness World Records Asia at the Bali Zoo Park in Gianyar on Saturday. Alex Iskandar Liew, a representative of Guinness World Records Asia, said on the occasion, Dominic’s feat was particularly unique because of his young age. AFP PHOTO/Sonny TUMBELAKA
Hindus towards the God that give the knowledge and ability to the human to create tools to help the people. The sophisticated technology must be use to the good of mankind according to the concept of “Tri Hita Karana” which promotes the
639 prisoners in Bali received remission started from one up to six months. 47 prisoners can be released after their punishment was done. Syamsuri, the head of Bali Prisons and Human Rights Department, said that the total number of convicts in Bali were 1,603 people. The prisoners qualified to received remission is the one who already carried out at least 6 months of their punishment, well behave, never con-
ducted any felonies in the prison. In Denpasar Prison, 298 prisoners received remission and 23 of them directly freed from the prisoners. Denpasar Prisons has 786 prisoners from the capacity of 323 prisoners. The overload must be handled immediately before more problems emerge. The released prisoners also received presents from the Vice Governor.
Bali boy’s memory feat enters Guinness world records
Hindus in Bali celebrated “Tumpek Landep” Antara
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
harmonic relationship between human with others, human with the environment, and with God. With the ceremony, the Hindus hope that the tools and equipments can work properly and can be use to help our life without harming the environment.
On Saturday, August 15, 2009 Balinese Hindus celebrated Tumpek Landep. Hindus in Bali celebrated “Tumpek Landep” on Saturday, August 15th 2009. The “Tumpek Landep” is the special day to give offering to the objects made from metals such as iron, copper, etc. Bali Post/Edi
Bali sends art team to Thailand Antara
DENPASAR - Bali has sent a 25-member art team to Thailand for a one-week visit, until August 23, 2009. The art team consisting of lecturers, students and officials of the Denpasar-based Indonesian Art Institute (ISI) would hold art performances to celebrate Indonesia’s Independence Anniversary and sign a cooperation agreement with the University of Thailand, ISI Rector Prof. dr I Wayan Rai, said. The visit was also aimed at reciprocate three visits by lecturers and officials of the University of Thailand to the Denpasar-based ISI, he said.
“Remembering that many digits in a row in such a short time is not an easy thing to do, and for a boy of his age to be able to accomplish it, that is exceptionally extraordinary,” Liew said. In the days ahead, he said, there would no doubt be other people who would try to equal or break Dominic’s record “but they will definitely have to go through a long learning process first.” Meanwhile, Dominic’s father, Gidion Hindartho, said, before taking the test, his son had indeed been training the capacity of his memory but without setting a certain achievement target. He said he had coached Dominic in
training his brain by a method which everybody could learn. “School children in second or third grade can actually easily remember figures of up to 100 digits if they are trained by the right method,” he said. Dominic himself said he had trained his memory over the past two months, three times daily. He said he would continue training to be able to remember up to 104 digits or face challengers who were expected to emerge soon. Previously, Dominic broke an Indonesian Museum of Records (Muri) record by recollecting 52 playing cards in 100 seconds and 100 figures in 12 minutes.
Egg in Balinese Sauce: It’s Common and Special Sense
Though egg specialty is a commonplace to everybody, it can mean special to Balinese people. In every occasion like social and customary activities, the pebat or ‘kitchen division’ always prepares two kinds of servings. One is intended for those who consume porkbased dishes and another for those who do not. In the latter, fried-boiled egg becomes the basic side dish together with chicken or fish-based dishes. Ingredients: 4 boiled chicken eggs (peel out its shell) Ground spices: 2 large chilies, 2 small chilies, 4 cloves shallot, 3 cloves garlic, 2 candlenuts, 1 cm turmeric, 1 cm kencur, 1 cm ginger, 1 tsp sugar, 2 tbsp palm oil, ½ cup of water, ½ tsp salt Method: · Fry the boiled eggs until they turn brownish. Attempt to make them cooked evenly. · Afterwards, stir-fry the ground spices until smelling fragrant. Give some water and let it boil. Put those eggs into the spices in the frying pan. Add salt and sugar and then mix them thoroughly. · Take out and it is ready to serve. (BTN/punia)
Enjoy Tantalizing Jack Fruit’s Seed Jackfruit is a versatile fruit. Balinese people take advantage its small, young and ripe fruit. Meanwhile, its young fruit is utilized to make several Balinese delicacies. Lawar, for instance, has been so famous across the island. It is made from minced meat served with chopped boiled young jackfruit and complete spices. What is more? The seeds of ripe jackfruit can also offer another delicacy. Simply boil and slice them thinly. Then, fry and serve with simple sauces. Ingredients: 200gr jackfruit’s seed (boiled and peeled out) Spices: 5 cloves shallot, 3 cloves garlic, 1 slice turmeric, 1 slice kencur, 2 candlenut, 1 tsp sugar, ½ tsp salt, palm oil Method: · Slice thinly the boiled jackfruit’s seed. Then, fry them until rather crispy and take out. · All spices are ground finely and stir-fry until fragrant. Add some salt and sugar. Put the sliced jackfruit’s seeds that have been fried into the spices. Stir them well and take out. Serve immediately, while it is still warm. (BTN/punia)
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International
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Bali Today
Balinese Culture
Corby granted another remission on RI’s Independence anniversary Antara
DENPASAR - Australia’s Schapelle Leigh Corby (29) who got 20-year prison sentence in 2005 for smuggling marijuana, had been granted a four-month remission on the occasion of the 64th anniversary of Indonesian independence on Monday, a penitentiary official said. “This is the third remission for her after getting the second last year on a similar occasion,” head of the Kerobokan prison in Badung district, Siswanto BC.IP, SH said here on Monday (Aug.17). Despite the third remission, Corby did not join the other prison inmates in a ceremony celebrating the Indonesian independence anniversary led by Bali deputy governor Puspayoga. The deputy governor on the occasion presented symbolically the remissions to 639 inmates from nine prisons in Bali, including six foreign inmates serving their time at Kerobokan jail. On the occasion of the 62nd Indonesian independence anniversary on August 17, 2007, Corby was not granted a remis-
sion for violating a prison regulation banning inmates from keeping and using cell phones. Corby — one of 20 foreign inmates at the Kerobokan prison — then confessed of having violated the ruling and asked for an apology. Corby was brought to court after she confessed bringing a surfing board from Australia containing 4.2 kg of marijuana through the Ngurah Rai international airport in Denpasar, Bali, on October 8, 2004. At that moment, Corby, who arrived by Australia Airlines AQ 7829, was intensively searched and examined after port security personnel found the drugs. Corby, who was sentenced to 20 years in jail, had intensive medical treatment at the Denpasar Sanglah hospital several times.
DENPASAR – Hindus in Bali celebrated “Tumpek Landep” on Saturday, August 15 th 2009. The “Tumpek Landep” is the special day to give offering to the objects made from metals such as iron, copper, etc. The offerings were also presented to the equipments and assets throughout the house including swords and holy weapons. The assets received offerings were engines, motorcycles, computers, and television. The ceremony was done in every house and it was to ask for safety towards the Gods and His manifestation as the God of Weapons. I Ketut Sumadi, the head of Tourism Tour Guide Study Program in Indonesian Art Institute (IHDN) Denpasar, said that the “Tumpek Landep” is also a ceremony for Betara Siwa who act as the destroyer and return everything to its origin. “Tumpek Landep” falls every 201 days. The farmers usually give offerings to their tools such as trac-
tors etc. The tools and vehicles also filled with ornaments mane from coconut leaves called “ceniga”, “sampian gangtung”, and “tamiang”. The offerings and ornaments are the symbol of the gratitude of the
Australians Schapelle Corby (L) and Renee Lawrence (R) are pictured during a ceremony inside Kerobokan prison in Denpasar on Bali island on April 22, 2008. Two Australian drug traffickers serving 20 years in jail on the resort island of Bali received sentence cuts on August 17, 2009 as part of Indonesia’s Independence Day celebrations, an official said.
Antara
DENPASAR – 639 convicts in nine prisons throughout Bali received remission on Indonesian Independence Day on August 17th 2009. Bali’s Vice Governor, AAN Puspayoga, symbolically gave the remission to the prisoners in Kerobokan Prison, Badung. The remissions were varied
Antara
GIANYAR - Dominic Brain, a 12year-old boy from Kuta in Badung district, has had his name entered into the Guinness Book of World Records after proving his ability to recollect a 76-digit figure in only 60 minutes. The son of Gidion Hindartho showed his extraordinary ability in a record-breaking test organized by Guinness World Records Asia at the Bali Zoo Park in Gianyar on Saturday. Alex Iskandar Liew, a representative of Guinness World Records Asia, said on the occasion, Dominic’s feat was particularly unique because of his young age. AFP PHOTO/Sonny TUMBELAKA
Hindus towards the God that give the knowledge and ability to the human to create tools to help the people. The sophisticated technology must be use to the good of mankind according to the concept of “Tri Hita Karana” which promotes the
639 prisoners in Bali received remission started from one up to six months. 47 prisoners can be released after their punishment was done. Syamsuri, the head of Bali Prisons and Human Rights Department, said that the total number of convicts in Bali were 1,603 people. The prisoners qualified to received remission is the one who already carried out at least 6 months of their punishment, well behave, never con-
ducted any felonies in the prison. In Denpasar Prison, 298 prisoners received remission and 23 of them directly freed from the prisoners. Denpasar Prisons has 786 prisoners from the capacity of 323 prisoners. The overload must be handled immediately before more problems emerge. The released prisoners also received presents from the Vice Governor.
Bali boy’s memory feat enters Guinness world records
Hindus in Bali celebrated “Tumpek Landep” Antara
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
harmonic relationship between human with others, human with the environment, and with God. With the ceremony, the Hindus hope that the tools and equipments can work properly and can be use to help our life without harming the environment.
On Saturday, August 15, 2009 Balinese Hindus celebrated Tumpek Landep. Hindus in Bali celebrated “Tumpek Landep” on Saturday, August 15th 2009. The “Tumpek Landep” is the special day to give offering to the objects made from metals such as iron, copper, etc. Bali Post/Edi
Bali sends art team to Thailand Antara
DENPASAR - Bali has sent a 25-member art team to Thailand for a one-week visit, until August 23, 2009. The art team consisting of lecturers, students and officials of the Denpasar-based Indonesian Art Institute (ISI) would hold art performances to celebrate Indonesia’s Independence Anniversary and sign a cooperation agreement with the University of Thailand, ISI Rector Prof. dr I Wayan Rai, said. The visit was also aimed at reciprocate three visits by lecturers and officials of the University of Thailand to the Denpasar-based ISI, he said.
“Remembering that many digits in a row in such a short time is not an easy thing to do, and for a boy of his age to be able to accomplish it, that is exceptionally extraordinary,” Liew said. In the days ahead, he said, there would no doubt be other people who would try to equal or break Dominic’s record “but they will definitely have to go through a long learning process first.” Meanwhile, Dominic’s father, Gidion Hindartho, said, before taking the test, his son had indeed been training the capacity of his memory but without setting a certain achievement target. He said he had coached Dominic in
training his brain by a method which everybody could learn. “School children in second or third grade can actually easily remember figures of up to 100 digits if they are trained by the right method,” he said. Dominic himself said he had trained his memory over the past two months, three times daily. He said he would continue training to be able to remember up to 104 digits or face challengers who were expected to emerge soon. Previously, Dominic broke an Indonesian Museum of Records (Muri) record by recollecting 52 playing cards in 100 seconds and 100 figures in 12 minutes.
Egg in Balinese Sauce: It’s Common and Special Sense
Though egg specialty is a commonplace to everybody, it can mean special to Balinese people. In every occasion like social and customary activities, the pebat or ‘kitchen division’ always prepares two kinds of servings. One is intended for those who consume porkbased dishes and another for those who do not. In the latter, fried-boiled egg becomes the basic side dish together with chicken or fish-based dishes. Ingredients: 4 boiled chicken eggs (peel out its shell) Ground spices: 2 large chilies, 2 small chilies, 4 cloves shallot, 3 cloves garlic, 2 candlenuts, 1 cm turmeric, 1 cm kencur, 1 cm ginger, 1 tsp sugar, 2 tbsp palm oil, ½ cup of water, ½ tsp salt Method: · Fry the boiled eggs until they turn brownish. Attempt to make them cooked evenly. · Afterwards, stir-fry the ground spices until smelling fragrant. Give some water and let it boil. Put those eggs into the spices in the frying pan. Add salt and sugar and then mix them thoroughly. · Take out and it is ready to serve. (BTN/punia)
Enjoy Tantalizing Jack Fruit’s Seed Jackfruit is a versatile fruit. Balinese people take advantage its small, young and ripe fruit. Meanwhile, its young fruit is utilized to make several Balinese delicacies. Lawar, for instance, has been so famous across the island. It is made from minced meat served with chopped boiled young jackfruit and complete spices. What is more? The seeds of ripe jackfruit can also offer another delicacy. Simply boil and slice them thinly. Then, fry and serve with simple sauces. Ingredients: 200gr jackfruit’s seed (boiled and peeled out) Spices: 5 cloves shallot, 3 cloves garlic, 1 slice turmeric, 1 slice kencur, 2 candlenut, 1 tsp sugar, ½ tsp salt, palm oil Method: · Slice thinly the boiled jackfruit’s seed. Then, fry them until rather crispy and take out. · All spices are ground finely and stir-fry until fragrant. Add some salt and sugar. Put the sliced jackfruit’s seeds that have been fried into the spices. Stir them well and take out. Serve immediately, while it is still warm. (BTN/punia)
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10
Business
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
International
International
Five more bank closures bring number of bank failures to 77 Agence France-Presse
WASHINGTON - US regulators have shut down five more regional banks, bringing the total number of US bank failures to 77 this year, the US government announced. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) said Colonial Bank of Montgomery became the largest US bank to fail this year after it was declared bankrupt and had the bulk of its assets taken
Dave Martin/Getty Images/AFP
over by rival BB&T. All of Alabama-based Colonial’s 346 branches will reopen Saturday “and operate as branches of BB&T,” the FDIC said. The list of closed banks also included
Employees lock the doors to a branch of the Colonial Bank on August 14, 2009 in Montgomery, Alabama. US regulators have shut down five more regional banks, bringing the total number of US bank failures to 77 this year, the US government announced. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) said Colonial Bank of Montgomery became the largest US bank to fail this year after it was declared bankrupt and had the bulk of its assets taken over by rival BB&T.
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the Community Bank of Nevada in Las Vegas that was closed by order of the Nevada Financial Institutions Division, which appointed the FDIC as receiver. As of the end of June, the bank had total assets of 1.52 billion dollars and total deposits of about 1.38 billion. Also shut down was the Community Bank of Arizona in Phoenix, which will be taken over by MidFirst Bank from Oklahoma City. The bank had total assets of 158.5 million dollars, most of which will be purchased by MidFirst Bank, the FDIC said. The Oklahoman bank will also assume all of the deposits of Union Bank of Gilbert, another Arizona institution shut down by regulators. The closed financial institutions also include the Dwelling House Savings and Loan Association of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
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New record in Indonesia for largest mass dive Agence France-Presse
JAKARTA - Almost 2,500 scuba divers set a new world record Monday for the largest mass dive, Guinness World Records said. A total of 2,486 divers were involved in the bid off the coast of North Sulawesi, Guinness adjudicator Lucia Sinigagliesi told AFP. “This event was amazing and well-organized and made possible because of the people who came and participated,” she said, after confirming that the group had broken the record for “Most People Scuba Diving Simultaneously.” The previous record was set in the Maldives in 2006, when 958 divers took part in a mass dive, Sinigagliesi said. The challenge was part of the Sail Bunaken 2009 maritime event being held as part of Indonesia’s efforts to establish the Sulawesi town of Manado as a world-class tourist spot, Navy spokesman Iskandar Sitompul said. To mark Indonesia’s 64th Independence Day, the participants unfurled the country’s flag underwater. “We’ve shown the world that as the world’s largest archipelago, we can manage our waters well and there’s a lot of tourism potential here,” he added. Divers attend a drill as part of the final preparations for a mass dive in Manado on August 15, 2009. About 2,400 divers including military personnel and civilians registered to participate in a mass dive aiming at breaking the Guinness World Record on August 16 to mark the 64th anniversary of Indonesian independence.
Strong quake strikes Indonesia’s Ambon to host next sail Sumatra, seven hurt
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West Sumatra provincial health crisis centre chief Jasmarizal told AFP seven people were being treated in hospital for “light JAKARTA - Seven people were injured after a strong, 6.9-mag- injuries” in Padang city on the west coast of Sumatra. “Five people were injured when an escalator at a mall in north nitude quake struck Indonesia’s western Sumatra Sunday, an offiPadang collapsed. Two others were hurt when the fences of their cial said. The epicenter of the quake, which struck at 2:38 pm (0738 homes gave way. They had light injuries like abrasions on their GMT), was located 43 kilometres (29 miles) southeast of Siberut arms and legs,” he added. There were no reports of casualties or damage on Siberut Isisland off western Sumatra. land, Jasmarizal said. It was measured at a depth of 32 kilometres. “But the residents there had fled to the mountains for safety,” he added. The country’s geophysics agency’s technical chief Suharjono said no tsunami warning had been issued. “It was a sea quake but there’s no potential of tsunami. We’ll only issue a warning if the magnitude is greater than seven,” he added. Earlier, Suharjono said “people panicked in nearby cities, in Padang and Sibolga in Sumatra”. “Siberut is not as developed as big cities but at such magnitude, brick houses without strong foundation could collapse,” he added. Strong tremors could be felt for 10 minutes in Padang, south Padang city police official Andreas told AFP. “Everyone panicked and ran out of their houses. But the situation is calmer now and people have gone back into their homes,” he added. Police in the field were monitoring the situation but “so far, there’s no report of damage or casualty yet”, Andreas said. AFP PHOTO/Julian SIKUMBANG The quake was followed by a series of afterA man cleans the ruins from the a collapse wall in Padang on August 16, 2009 shocks, including a 5.9-magnitude tremor at 7:49 after a strong earthquake struck the area. Seven people were injured after a pm. strong, 6.9-magnitude quake struck Indonesia’s western Sumatra, an official Indonesia sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, said. Indonesia sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, where the meeting of conti- where the meeting of continental plates causes high nental plates causes high volcanic and seismic activity. volcanic and seismic activity. Agence France-Presse
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MANADO - Ambon may become the site of the next annual Sail Indonesia next year. “Next year there was a plan to organize it (Sail Indonesia) in Ambon. It was also suggested that the location would be in Banda Sea,” Minister of Marine and Fishery Affairs, Freddy Numberi said. The moving of the location of the event, he added, was aimed at improving the economy of other areas in the country. He said that the economic growth of North Sulawesi following the World Ocean Conference/ WOC) in May 2009, and the implementation of Sail Indonesia in Bunaken reached 8 percent. “Although most of the sightseers were domestic tourists, at this such an event could at least revive the economy,” Freddy added. Therefore, he hoped Ambon would draw a lesson from Sail Bunaken, to enable the local government concerned to cover the shortcomings of Sail Indonesia in Manado. At least he reminded that the local administration or private circles would not hesitate to make an investment or build the necessary facilities and infrastructure to support the annual event. Learning from the implementation of the WOC, Freddy said, the money that had been spent on the construction of facilities by the government or private circles may be regained by almost twofold.
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Tuesday, August 18, 2009
News
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Saudi swine flu toll rises to 14 Agence France-Presse
RIYADH - Saudi health authorities Sunday announced three new swine flu deaths, taking the country’s toll to 14. The three included a Saudi woman of 28 and a Saudi girl of 11, both of whom died on Friday, and an Indian expatriate man who died Thursday, the health ministry said. The ministry said that the spread of the A(H1N1) flu virus remains relatively slow and that fatalities are low in the country. Official infection figures have not been updated for nearly two weeks but reports put them over 700. Saudi Arabia has been stepping up
surveillance and treatment activities with the approach of the holy month of Ramadan, when normally hundreds of thousands of foreign Muslims arrive in the country to undertake the umrah minor pilgrimage to Mecca. But hotels in the Mecca region are reporting large cancellations due to the fear of flu. Iran, Iraq and Egypt have all announced restrictions on who can travel for umrah, and the Saudi government has discouraged the elderly and children from coming. Meanwhile Saudi King Abdullah has ordered that all cases of swine flu be treated for free, whether for Saudis or foreigners.
Rescue effort for stranded climber in Pakistan called off Agence France-Presse
AFP PHOTO / ATTILA KISBENEDEK
President of the Hungarian Maltese Charity Service (HMCS) Father Imre Kozma gestures in the Saint Family Church of Budapest on July 31, 2009. Twenty years after East German refugees arrived en masse in Budapest in a bid to escape to the West, a parish priest who sheltered them remembers their fear. “They pitched their tents in public parks and parked their caravans in streets... they camped in front of the West German embassy,” Father Imre Kozma, then parish priest in the leafy Budapest suburb of Zugliget, told AFP.
Zugliget parish, a transit stop for East German refugees in 1989 Agence France-Presse
BUDAPEST - Twenty years after East German refugees arrived en masse in Budapest in a bid to escape to the West, a parish priest who sheltered them remembers their fear. “They pitched their tents in public parks and parked their caravans in streets... they camped in front of the West German embassy,” Father Imre Kozma, then parish priest in the leafy Budapest suburb of Zugliget, told AFP. On August 14, 1989, after a call for help from the West German embassy, Father Kozma, now 69, opened the first humanitarian camp for East German refugees waiting to flee to Austria, on the grounds of his church. “There was an atmosphere of utter insecurity among the refugees,” Kozma recalled. “They were afraid even of each other, not knowing who might be an agent of the Stasi (the infamous East German secret service).” Kozma’s bold move was not without risk but his motives and those of his 700-800 volunteers were purely humanitarian, he insisted.
“We knew nothing of the ongoing political negotiations... but I was encouraged by feeling that the Hungarian politicians were on our side,” Kozma said. Some 1,200 people at a time stayed in his camp, sleeping in large white tents and on the floor of the church. With new arrivals, two other camps opened up in the Buda hills, hosting 6,000-7,000 people in total. The surrounding area was dotted by Trabants, abandoned by their owners who had escaped westwards, Kozma remembered. Meanwhile, the East German consul set up a caravan in front of the Zugliget church to convince his compatriots to return home. But Kozma recalled: “The refugees just stared at the caravan.” The priest’s mission took on a political dimension when a few days after he had opened the camp, the West German embassy asked if it
could set up shop in the church to issue passports to those heading for the Austrian border. The embassy had closed temporarily on August 14, unable to handle the flood of visa applications from East Germans wishing to emigrate. “I called ¡German Chancellor¿ Helmut Kohl,” Kozma said. “He called me back a few hours later and told me: ‘I talked to Gorbachev, who said Hungarians are good people’,” implying that the Soviet leader would look the other way. On August 19, some 600 East Germans fled across to Austria during the now famous Paneuropean Picnic. Thousands more followed after Hungary threw open its border on September 11. This was the second time, after the 1956 anti-Soviet revolution, that Hungary shaped the history of the 20th century, Kozma noted.
MADRID - Rescuers on Sunday called off their attempt to reach an injured Spanish climber stranded on a Himalayan mountain in Pakistan for over a week due to bad weather and little chance of finding him alive. Oscar Perez, 33, broke his leg and a wrist in a fall on August 6 when he was some 6,300 metres (20,600 feet) up Latok II in the Himalayas in northern Pakistan and has not been heard from since. His climbing partner Alvaro Novellon, who was also injured, left him with food, a sleeping bag and a gas stove to melt snow for drinking water and to keep warm before heading down the mountain to sound the alarm. “He has spent ten days with little equipment and food, it is almost impossible that he could survive,” Lorenzo Ortas, the vice-president of Pena Guara, the Spanish climbing club which has been organising the rescue effort, told a news conference. The worsening weather conditions and the rough terrain were also putting the lives of the rescue team at risk, the club said in a statement. The rescue team, which included renowned American alpinist Fabrizio Zangrilli, had hoped to reach Perez on Monday and carry him down to an outcrop to be evacuated by a Pakistani military helicopter. “We have lost this battle. We did all we could. There is nothing we can do. The weather changed and that complicated everything,” a Spanish climber who was part of the rescue effort in
Chiding Obama... From page 1 His comments come amid growing tension over a plan by Colombia to give US forces access to seven of its military bases to accomodate counter-drug operations following the closure of a base in Ecuador. Chavez cast the move as a US attempt to encircle Venezuela, warning of a coming military escalation aimed at the country’s oil, access to the Amazon basin and plentiful water sources. “An aggression against Venezuela will be met not only by Venezuela;
Pakistan, Sebas Alvaro, told radio Cadena Ser. Several Pakistani military helicopters sent out to locate Perez over the past few days were forced to return unsuccessfully due to bad weather and the difficult terrain. The plight of the stranded climber has been on the front pages of Spanish newspapers over the past week and has dominated television newscasts. Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero on Thursday called his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani to request that the operation to rescue Perez be speeded up. Latok II is part of Pakistan’s Karakorum range, considered one of the most challenging in the world. Spain’s best known alpinist, Juan Oiarzabal, said there was a “slim chance” that Perez could still be saved if weather conditions improved, allowing for another rescue attempt to be launched, a view not shared by specialists. “As a mountainer I have to say that hope is the last to die. But it is a complicated situation. I don’t know up to what point he can be auto-sufficient, make water, prepare food, in order to survive,” the 53-year-old told cable news channel CNN+. Two Spanish climbers died recently in the Himalayas. Luis Maria Barbero, 47, disappeared in July on the slopes of Gasherbrum II which rises to a height of 8,035 metres. Veteran climber Inaki Ochoa de Olza, 40, died in May 2008 as a result of brain injury on the slopes of the 8,091-metres-high Annapurna. various countries would take up arms,” he said. “It is clear to me that a great anti-imperialistic movement would rise up on these lands, God help us.” “But we have to prepare for it. And one of the best ways to avoid it is to show the enemy that it would be so costly for them to attack Venezuela that they would repent,” he said. “We do not want war, we hate it. But we must prepare for it. We are number one on the list, Venezuela. We are the first target of the (United States). Using Colombia and the bases in Aruba and Curacao, they are surrounding us,” Chavez warned.
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BUSINESS Japan PM says stimulus steps helped end recession Agence France-Presse
TOKYO - Japan’s embattled Prime Minister Taro Aso, who faces elections this month, said Monday his policies helped the country out of recession after fresh data showed its first economic growth in over a year. Aso — who has for months trailed his opposition rival Yukio Hatoyama in polls ahead of the August 30 vote — also vowed to strengthen the economic rebound to ensure the Japanese people felt its benefits. “Since I became prime minister, I have done my best on economic measures,” Aso told a televised debate with five other party leaders. “As a result, we have seen some signs of a brighter future for the economy.” Hatoyama, head of the centre-left Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), fired back: “ Aso said Japan is seeing signs of economic recovery, but it is not what the people are actually feeling at all.” Earlier in the day, government data showed the world’s second-biggest economy grew 0.9 percent in the April-June quarter, meaning Japan had officially emerged from recession, following Germany and France last week.
At an annualized pace, the quarterly growth reached 3.7 percent. Aso’s government has launched a series of pump-priming packages to stimulate the economy and cushion the blow of unemployment, which hit 5.4 percent in June, close to its post-World War II high of 5.5 percent. Aso conceded that, despite the good growth data, “Our people are yet to really feel an economic recovery. “Economic recovery is my top priority,” he added. “I will make the Japanese economy recover at any price.” The opposition DPJ has enjoyed a strong lead in polls over Aso’s conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has maintained nearly unbroken rule for more than half a century. Japan plunged into recession in the second quarter of 2008 as the glo-
bal downturn crushed demand for its cars, electronics and other exports. While Japan’s recession is technically over, analysts warn that major risks remain, notably from rising unemployment and renewed deflation. In their election platforms, both parties have vowed to boost the economy, but while Aso’s LDP has focused on growing industries to create wealth, the DPJ has promised more spending on families to boost domestic demand. Hatoyama said his party would “speed up measures to directly stimulate household spending such as child-care allowances, income guarantees for farmers and toll-free highways travel. “It’s preferable for us to expand domestic demand by boosting consumer purchasing power, which will eventually result in economic expansion,” he said.
Graphic chart showing Japan’s GDP growth rate, which grew by 0.9 percent in the three months to June from the previous quarter, data showed Monday.
US recovery is in view, but economic struggles persist Agence France-Presse
WASHINGTON - The US economy appears poised to emerge from recession but will struggle for some time, held back by a weak job market and cautious consumers, analysts say. The world’s biggest economy is giving mixed signals as the manufacturing sector picks up and the housing market shows signs of steadying but retail sales remain sluggish. The latest data showed gross domestic product (GDP) — the broad measure of the economy’s activity — fell at an annualized rate of 1.0 percent in the second quarter, after a 6.4 percent plunge in the January-March period. Unemployment dipped in July to 9.4 percent, one-tenth point lower than the 26-year high hit in June as job losses narrowed to 247,000. But US retail sales unexpectedly dipped 0.1 percent in July with consumers pulling back despite rising auto sales stimulated by the government’s “Cash for Clunkers” trade-in incentives. A widely watched survey of consumer sentiment, a harbinger of spending
trends, showed Americans remain wary of the economic outlook. Sal Guatieri at BMO Capital Markets said consumer skittishness will mute any recovery. “It goes without saying that until savings, unemployment and foreclosures stop climbing, credit-constrained consumers will retain a bunker mentality. While the Great Recession may be history — thanks to inventory rebuilding, renewed export growth and pulled-forward demand — a not-so-great recovery is likely the offspring.” Nonetheless, many economists say the brutal recession that began in December 2007 is likely over, even if the data to bear that out will not be known for some months. “The economy has emerged from recession, in our view, and will likely experience a cyclical bounce in the second half of the year,” said Michelle Meyer, economist at Barclays Capital. “The debate has now shifted to the sustainability of the nascent recovery, with a focus on the labor market. The health of the labor market will be a function of the strength of the overall economic recovery.” Analysts say the recovery will
not take root until consumers regain confidence and begin to spend more, and that would not occur until the job market improves. Gary Thayer, senior economist at Wells Fargo Advisors, said the economy needs job growth, not merely a narrowing of losses, to sustain the recovery. “At some point job creation will exceed job cuts and payrolls will begin to expand again,” he said. Others say the economic landscape is shifting and that consumer spending — which accounts for around two-thirds of economic activity — will play a smaller role. “Businesses, not consumers, will lead the recovery,” said Joseph LaVorgna, economist at Deutsche Bank. The Federal Reserve said at the conclusion of its most recent monetary meeting that “economic activity is leveling out” but that the economy could remain weak for some time. With inflation tame, that will allow the central bank to keep stimulating the economy with ultra low rates and other programs. Morgan Stanley economists Richard Berner and David Greenlaw argue in a note to clients that recov-
ery is here even if it is uneven. They say the economy will pick up with the housing sector, which is
seeing improved demand, along with modest gains in incomes that will help fuel spending.
China exports likely to return to growth Agence France-Presse
BEIJING - China expects its exports, which have fallen yearon-year for nine straight months, to return to positive growth before the end of 2009, the government said Monday. “It’s possible the decline in China’s exports will narrow in the second half and even grow in some months given the low base effects in the second half of 2008 due to the financial crisis,” said commerce ministry spokesman Yao Jian. China’s exports have been shrinking since November as foreign demand has dropped amid the global crisis. Shipments abroad slumped by 22 percent year on year in the first
seven months of the year from the same period last year, customs figures showed. However, July exports of 105.4 billion dollars pointed to some recovery as it marked an increase of 10.4 percent from June, according to official data. Yao said the decline in labourintensive exports including toys, apparel and shoes were much smaller than the overall drop, and the market share of Chinese goods actually increased in places such as the United States, Japan and Brazil. “Chinese exporters’ competitiveness has remained strong mainly because our exports still focused on labour-intensive goods... which are not so easily affected by income changes in the international market,” Yao said.
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Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Entertainment
International
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International
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
In death, as in life, Jackson surrounded by wackiness
Russian pilot dies after fighters collide near Moscow
Agence France Presse
Agence France-Presse
LOS ANGELES - Michael Jackson’s outlandish life is being overshadowed in his death by events so preposterous they seem to come from a fiction writer’s overactive imagination. They include a petition to award him a Nobel peace prize; a growing list of people who claim to be the real parents of Jackson’s children; a lawsuit from an alleged ex-wife; and a sect that believes the “King of Pop” lives on, albeit on another planet. Jackson died in Los Angeles on June 25 at age 50 from an apparent cardiac arrest. His son Prince Michael, 12; his daughter Paris, 11, and seven-year-old son Prince Michael II — known as “Blanket” — are the immediate heirs to the late singer’s music empire. Their legal guardian is Katherine Jackson, the children’s paternal grandmother. According to a case filed recently in Los Angeles, a woman named Claire Elisabeth Fields Cruise claims to be the children’s sole biological mother. Documents filed by Fields Cruise, and posted on celebrity website TMZ.com, also claim Prince
Michael I was fathered by a man who lives in France, while Paris Jackson’s father was Fields Cruise’s “unofficial college sweetheart.” Fields Cruise told a judge she gave birth to the children without being pregnant with them. “There is technology that is in existence,” she told reporters after she filed the case,”to remove the conceived children from her body and insert them into the bodies of the surrogates who gave birth to them.” Fields Cruise also claimed that Jackson “always knew” he was the biological father of Connor Cruise, the 14 year-old black child that actors Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman adopted in 1995, when they were still married. One day before Fields Cruise filed her case, British ex-child star Mark Lester said that he might be Paris Jackson’s father.
Bollywood star criticizes ‘parallel universe’ US Agence France Presse
NEW DELHI - Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan criticised the US for believing it lived in a “parallel universe” in comments broadcast Monday following a row with immigration officials at a New York airport. Khan has said he was singled out for questioning by US immigration officials due to his Muslim name — sparking outrage among his millions of Indian fans, as well as senior politicians and the Indian press. “America needs to understand Shah Rukh Khan one small thing... that there are about 190-195 smaller countries and that makes the whole world,” Khan told Indian television channel CNN-IBN from Houston in comments broadcast on Monday. “It’s not an isolated, parallel universe existence for this country. There is a whole world which makes all the good and bad that is happening,” said the actor, who is one of the biggest names in Bollywood. “So if we are scared of violence and terrorism, all of us are responsible for it. It’s not that the world is and America is not.” Khan said he understood US security concerns after the September 11, 2001 attacks and that he loved the country, but his comments fanned the flames of a bitter dispute over his treatment at Newark Liberty International Airport. The Indian civil aviation minister vowed to take the matter up with the US government, while Indian newspapers slammed the discrimination allegedly inflicted on one of the Hindu-majority country’s most loved actors. US officials have said that Khan, 43, was subject only to routine procedures at the airport on Friday and was questioned for little more than an hour but the actor said he was left “angry and humiliated” by his treatment. Some critics have also accused Khan of publicity seeking. He recently finished filming “My Name is Khan” in the United States, a movie due out next year that features the contentious subject of racial profiling. The US embassy in New Delhi attempted to end the controversy at the weekend by describing Khan as a “global icon” who was a welcome guest in the United States.
AP Photo
People gather around the burnt debris after a fire broke out at a wedding tent on Saturday night Aug. 15, 2009 in Kuwait City, Kuwait. The fire at a wedding tent in Kuwait that killed 41 women and children consumed the the structure in a blazing inferno lasting just three minutes, the fire department chief said Sunday.
AP Photo/ Courtesy of John Branca
This handout photo of shows attorney John Branca, left, and Michael Jackson at Branca’s December 1987 wedding in Beverly Hills.
Alien thriller ‘District 9’ lands at box office top spot Agence France Presse
LOS ANGELES - “District 9,” an alien thriller set in an apartheid society divided between humans and space creatures, landed at the top of the North American box office on Sunday, initial weekend figures showed. The film, which touches on themes of racism and corporate greed, earned 37 million dollars in its first week of release, according to box office tracker Exhibitor Relations. It tells the story of a race of extraterrestrial refugees who are granted asylum in South Africa but have to fight off attempts by a nefarious corporation seeking to harness their powerful alien technology. In second place, down from the top spot was “G.I. Joe: The Rise of
the Cobra.” The action movie based on the popular toy franchise pulled in 22.5 million dollars over the weekend. New release “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” starring Rachel McAdams as the wife of a man with a genetic anomaly that means he moves back and forward through time involuntarily, earned the number three spot, with box office receipts of 19.2 million dollars. Falling two places to number four was “Julie and Julia,” a movie that tells the story of famed cook Julia Child, and Julie Powell, a woman who tries to cook a recipe a day from Child’s most famous cookbook for one year. In its second week in theaters, the feature starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams, earned 12.4 million dollars.
Also falling two spots was “GForce,” an action-comedy about a crack squad of guinea pig spies, which fell to number five, earning 6.9 million dollars. At number six was “The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard,” a comedy starring Jeremy Piven and Ed Helms as employees of a struggling car dealership, which pulled in 5.4 million in its first week in theaters. In its fifth week of release, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” the sixth installment of the franchise, fell three spots to number seven, earning 5.2 million dollars. The feature, which sets the stage for the final confrontation between the boy wizard and his arch-nemesis Lord Voldemort, has taken in 283.9 million dollars since its release.
Madonna in Italy for 51st birthday bash Agence France Presse
ROME - Pop diva Madonna arrived Sunday in the Italian Riviera resort of Portofino for a star-studded 51st birthday celebration, the ANSA news agency reported. The American singer booked an entire floor of the town’s Splendido Hotel for her stay, ANSA said. Meanwhile a flotilla of yachts was noted heading for the nearby Gulf of Tigullio near the villa of top Italian fashion designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, who are expected to host Madonna’s birthday party, the report said. The singer made waves on Saturday when her “Sticky and Sweet”
tour concert in Poland coincided with the Feast of the Assumption, a high point of the Catholic calendar marking the traditional belief that Mary, the mother of Jesus also known as the Madonna, was taken up into heaven.
Ex-wife ‘confesses’ to deadly Kuwait wedding blaze Agence France-Presse
KUWAIT CITY - The ex-wife of the groom at a Kuwait wedding party that turned into tragedy when a fierce fire engulfed a tent, killing 43 women and children, has confessed to starting the blaze, local newspapers reported on Monday. Al-Qabas newspaper said the 23year-old woman had told police she used petrol to torch the packed wedding tent to avenge her ex-husband’s “bad treatment” of her before their divorce. “‘Spurned’ woman unleashed fury,” was the headline in the English-language Kuwait Times newspaper, which said the bride escaped injured but that her mother and sister were killed. Quoting unnamed security sources, Al-Qabas said the woman’s Asian maid told police she saw her pouring petrol around the large women-only tent in the town of Jahra before the blaze started on Saturday night. There was no official confirmation of the reports. A total of 43 women and children have now perished and 90 other people were injured in the in-
ferno, which destroyed the packed tent in just minutes in the deadliest civilian disaster in the modern history of the Gulf state. Last year, two women died and several others wounded in a similar incident in Jahra which lies 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of the capital and has a population of around 500,000, the overwhelming majority of whom are tribespeople. Most wedding parties in the conservative Muslim Gulf state are segregated in line with local tradition. Mansuri said on Sunday that most of the bodies were charred beyond recognition and that forensic officials were working to identify the victims. Sixteen of the dead were buried on Sunday while forensics officials were still busy trying to establish the identites of the other victims. At least seven of the dead are children.
Of the 90 wounded, about five remain in critical condition with severe burns. Medical officials have said that specialised medical teams from Germany and Britain will arrive on Monday to treat the injured. The government of the oil-rich state has formed a high-level committee to investigate the incident amid sharp criticism by lawmakers that authorities were too slow in the rescue operations. A number of MPs have demanded a probe into why authorities failed to apply strict safety and security rules for wedding tents. The interior ministry has advised citizens against setting up tents in residential areas because that would obstruct rescue operations. Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad alSabah expressed deep sympathy with the families of the victims and said he will not accept greetings on the occasion of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan expected to start this weekend. Several MPs have called on the government to declare a state of national mourning.
MOSCOW - One pilot died and another broke his spine after two fighter jets collided during aerobatics practice near Moscow ahead of the annual air show, officials said Sunday. Two of the three crew members on board the two Sukhoi Su-27 fighters managed to eject from the planes before they collided in the accident, which is expected to cast a shadow over the country’s annual air show. “The pilots have ejected. Two of the pilots are in satisfactory condition, one pilot has died,” Russian air force spokesman Vladimir Drik said on Russian television. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has expressed condolences to the family of the dead pilot, Igor Tkachenko, a highlytrained professional and commander of the country’s celebrated Russian Knights aerobatic team, his office said. The pilots had been practising
aerobatics for a display at the Moscow air show, due to open Tuesday, that Moscow is keen to turn into a leading international commercial aviation event. The annual event, also designed to showcase Russia’s aerial military prowess, has in the past been attended by top military officers and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. One of the two Soviet-era fighters involved in the practices crashed on a residential building in the countryside near Moscow and five people on the ground were injured, some suffering burns, according to the Ria-Novosti news agency. One woman received severe burns covering 80 percent of her body, it added, while NTV television reported that two people had been rushed to intensive care. One of the two pilots who survived had broken his back in the accident, Ria-Novosti said. “He got caught up in the trees as a result of the fall. The pilot has been hospitalised,” the agency cited a police official as saying.
Carnival mood for Mumbai’s gay Pride march Agence France-Presse
MUMBAI - Thousands of people took to the streets of Mumbai on Sunday for the annual Pride parade, in celebratory mood after a landmark court ruling advocating an end to a ban on gay sex. Gays, lesbians, transvestites and transexuals plus their heterosexual supporters plied a circular route around the south of the city, walking and dancing to the beat of drummers and loud music, an AFP correspondent said. The march comes after judges at the Delhi High Court last month ruled that a ban on homosexual acts, in place since British colonial times in 1860, was discriminatory and violated an individual’s rights under the constitution. “Last year there was a sort of protest,” said Kumar Iyer, an openly gay make-up artist who was
dressed as his alter-ego, drag queen “Dolly”, in a large black wig, silver mini dress, pink fishnet stockings and high heels. “This year there’s no protest, there’s a celebration. The ball has started rolling and now it’s only going to get better,” he told AFP. Shobha Doshi said she was there to support her son, who lives with his boyfriend in the United States, and to raise awareness that gay people exist and should be accepted in society. “I feel very proud that he’s honest to himself and that he’s not doing anything wrong in being gay,” she told AFP, holding a banner saying “I Am Proud Of My Gay Son”. Despite the court case, there remains widespread opposition to homosexuality in socially conservative and family-orientated India, particularly from leaders of the Hindu, Muslim and Christian communities.
British pilot killed in Malaysia testing ‘flying taxi’ Agence France-Presse
US pop diva Madonna performs during her Sticky and Sweet Tour concert at Bemowo Airport in Warsaw on August 15, 2009. Her concert in Warsaw was held just hours she turmed 51, which angered some Catholics, because it fell on the Roman Catholic holiday, the heavenly assumption of the Virgin Mary.
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AFP PHOTO / STR
KUALA LUMPUR - A British pilot killed in a fiery crash in Malaysia was an aviation entrepreneur conducting a test flight of his Jetpod “flying taxi”, reports said Monday. Michael Robert Dacre, 53, died Sunday when the prototype aircraft crashed and burst into flames shortly after take-off from a land-
ing strip in the northern town of Taiping, Malaysian police said. The Star daily said Dacre was an inventor and the managing director of British-based Avcen Ltd. which planned to have the “Jetpod” eightseater flying taxi in production by 2010. It quoted witnesses as saying that the aircraft attempted to take off several times before soaring into the sky and then abruptly veering to the left
and crashing to the ground. The Jetpod was designed to have a cruising speed of 350 miles (550 kilometres) per hour, be quieter and quicker than a helicopter, and require just 125 meters to take off and 300 meters to land. In interviews when plans for the dual jet engine aircraft were unveiled, Dacre had said he hoped the Jetpod would transform inner-city transport.
AP Photo/Dhiraj Singh
An Indian gay rights supporter participates in the Pride parade, in Mumbai, India, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2009.
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News
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
International
Yemeni troops hit Shiite rebels hard: minister Agence France-Presse
SANAA - Yemen’s defence minister said on Sunday that the army has hit northern Shiite rebels hard as clashes intensified in the restive region of Saada and its surroundings on the sixth day of an offensive. “The elements of rebellion and terrorism in Saada... have been hit hard today by the army... They have incurred heavy losses and have been paralysed,” Mohammad Nasser Ahmed Ali said in an address to a military academy. Government forces “have captured some of the rebels who will be brought to justice,” he said without specifying the number of captive Zaidi rebels, also known as Huthis. Warplanes have also been used in the offensive which on Sunday targeted Huthi strongholds in the mountainous region. A rebel leader and eight others were killed in fierce clashes during the day in the Harf Sufyan area of Amran province, south of Saada,
local sources said. Government forces have been trying since Thursday to open the road linking Saada to the capital Sanaa after rebels blocked it at Harf Sufyan, the defence ministry website quoted Amran mayor Sheikh Kahlan Abu Shawarib as saying. At least two soldiers and 16 rebels were reported killed on Friday. The rebels have accused government forces of killing dozens of civilians in bombardments and of using white phosphorous, banned under international law for use against non-combatants because it causes severe burns. The government says it does not have phosphorous weapons in its arsenal. On Thursday, the government offered terms for ending the offensive. These included the rebels evacuating all government offices they have occupied, handing over ammunition and equipment and freeing their prisoners.
Mass rally on last Afghan campaign day Agence France-Presse
KABUL - A sea of Afghans waving flags and championing presidential hopeful Abdullah Abdullah staged a spectacular rally on the last day of campaigning Monday for key elections overshadowed by Taliban threats. Afghanistan’s 17 million voters go to polls Thursday to elect a president for the second time in history and 420 councillors in 34 provinces in a massive operation clouded by insecurity and logistical headaches. President Hamid Karzai, who has ruled since the late 2001 US-led invasion overthrew the Taliban regime, is tipped to win but a strong campaign from former foreign minister Abdullah has raised the chance of a run-off. Thousands of people poured into a Kabul stadium — a once notorious
Taliban execution ground — wearing blue baseball hats, carrying pictures of Abdullah and chanting his name over and over again. In a vote stunt rare for Afghanistan, a helicopter circled overhead, dropping hundreds of papers marked with Abdullah’s photo, election sign and number as marked on the ballot paper to help even the illiterate majority vote. “Hey compatriots, wake up, it is time for a big change,” said the papers written in the three most common Afghan languages, Dari, Pashtu and Uzbeki. “Our favourite candidate, Abdullah Abdullah,” and “our good future, Abdullah Abdullah,” shouted the crowd in between the former minister’s speech studded with rhetoric denouncing election favourite Karzai.
AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit
Thaksin Shinawatra supporters carrying boxes of petition march through nearby streets to the Grand Palace in Bangkok, Thailand, on Monday, Aug. 17, 2009. At least 20,000 Thaksin supporters gathered to seek a royal pardon for the deposed prime minister.
Tens of thousands seek Thai royal pardon for Thaksin Agence France-Presse
BANGKOK - More than 30,000 “Red Shirt” supporters of Thaksin Shinawatra handed in a petition Monday seeking a royal pardon for the fugitive former premier, further underscoring Thailand’s deep political rifts. Organisers say they have collected at least five million signatures in support of Thaksin, who was toppled in a military coup in 2006 and fled the kingdom last August to escape a two-year jail term for corruption. “I would like to say thank you to my fellow Thais, who have a good attitude towards me and to Thailand,” Thaksin said in a speech broadcast live by video from an
AP Photo/Saurabh Das
undisclosed location to the cheering crowd in downtown Bangkok. “We are here today to inform our father, the King of every Thai, that we want to see unity and reconciliation,” said Thaksin, wearing the trademark red shirt favoured by his backers. Billionaire tycoon Thaksin, 60, then turned to a portrait of Thailand’s widely revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej and the royal
family and sang a traditional royal song. In their latest mass show of support for Thaksin, the protest group submitted their petition to the royal offices in Bangkok’s Grand Palace in the afternoon. The petition was packed in 10 boxes wrapped in red cloth. “The petition has been submitted to seek royal assistance to stop the people’s suffering,” said protest leader Nattawut Saikur. Police Major General Vichai Sangkapai confirmed that 30,000 people had joined the rally so far and that 1,500 uniformed officers had been deployed to secure the rally site.
North Korea to lift border restrictions Restart tours from South Korea SEOUL - North Korea said Monday it would restart family reunions and a stalled tourism programme for South Koreans, in a rare conciliatory gesture after months of bitter hostility. South Korea cautiously welcomed the announcement, but said the two governments must hold talks before the trips — a major earner for its sanctions-hit neighbour — can resume. In a sign of continuing friction, the hardline communist state also warned of “a merciless and prompt annihilating strike” involving nuclear weapons if a US-South Ko-
rean military exercise starting Monday infringes its sovereignty. The tourism agreement was disclosed a day after a meeting in the North between leader Kim Jong-Il and Hyun Jung-Eun, chairwoman of the South’s giant Hyundai Group which operates joint tourism and business ventures. The North also agreed to lift limitations on border crossings by South Koreans which hampered operations at a Seoul-funded industrial estate. Hyun travelled to the North last week and won the release of an employee detained since March for allegedly criticising Pyongyang’s regime. Analysts said that cash consider-
ations aside, the North realises it must ease tensions with Seoul if it wants to improve ties with Washington. The North reportedly indicated it wants better US ties when former president Bill Clinton visited Pyongyang this month and held talks with Kim. He won a pardon for two American journalists. Cross-border relations have soured since a conservative South Korean government took office in February 2008 and scrapped a “sunshine” aid and engagement policy. International tensions have risen following nuclear and missile tests by the North and a US-led drive to enforce tougher United Nations sanctions.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Women’s mags skirt culture clash in Arab market PARIS, Aug 17, 2009 (AFP) - France-based women’s mags Elle and Marie-Claire are continuing a push into the Arab market but say having to adapt content to local sensitivities without contradicting their own ideals is not easy.
Agence France-Presse
Supporters of presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah, seen in poster at right, attend a campaign rally in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Aug. 17, 2009. Afghans will head to the polls on Aug. 20 to elect a new president.
Life Style
International
Marie-Claire has editions in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates and last week launched a monthly in Saudi Arabia, where competitor Elle magazine is already present, as well as in Dubai and Lebanon. But the just-released 35,000 copies of the Saudi edition of Marie-Claire ran into immediate, if minor problems. A story on Saudi women’s football, in which players are clad in trousers, long sleeves and headscarves, was allowed in full in Jeddah but not Riyadh. “Our problem is reconciling local culture with the Marie-Claire concept, which is no piece of cake,” said Laurence Hembert Wermus, who heads international development for the magazine, a touch less glam than rival Elle. “Given the economic context, there’s no point in launching new magazines in France, but publishers can develop editions internationally, and the Middle East is definitely a growth mar-
ket,” said Sophie Renaud, who runs the media consultancy Carat France. “At home, developing internationally shows readers that the publication is dynamic, that it has ideas and convictions, that it’s striving towards change for women,” Renaud told AFP. Yet in many of these new markets, it remains impossible to run photographs of naked women or stories on a gamut of sexual practices. Last April, the French-language Africa newsweekly Jeune Afrique was banned in the UAE because of a cover picture showing a naked woman’s back to illustrate a feature story on “Moslems and Sex”. ‘In Arabia it’s even stricter’
So for magazines such as these which over the decades have backed feminist causes, taking root in the Arab world without negating their ideals remains a tricky exercise. “We are very careful not to provoke uselessly, we don’t want to be banned.
AFP PHOTO/EBRAHIM ADAWI
Arabic editions of France-based magazines Elle and Marie-Claire magazines are displayed at a shop in the Gulf emirate of Abu Dhabi on August 13, 2009. Women’s mags Elle and Marie-Claire, are continuing a push into the Arab market but say having to adapt content to local sensitivities without contradicting their own ideals is no piece of cake.
It would neither help social progress nor the status of women,” said Jean de Boisdeffre, who heads the international media arm of Elle owner-company, Lagardere Active. The magazine, for example, refrained from running a story on French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s controversial call to ban the burqa. “It would’ve been provocative and could’ve prompted readers to link the magazine with French policy,” he said. Publication of pictures varies from country to country, said Marie Claire’s international editorial manager Florence Duluard. “In the Emirates we avoid pictures on the fashion pages of girls in very mini skirts or necklines that plunge to their navels. In Arabia it’s even stricter — no necklines and no knees.” Both magazines have hired local journalists to provide content with a brief to highlight local designers and issues as well as the big-name fashion labels so popular in the Middle East. “They know how to broach a subject,” said Elle’s de Boisdeffre, who added that 80 percent of the magazine was formulated in the region. “And we have enough fashion stories produced elsewhere to be able to choose garments that will please the tastes of all readers,” he added. Next month’s Saudi edition of Marie-Claire, distributed largely via partner Al Wataniya’s subscriber base, is to run a story on women photographers in the kingdom. “We do talk about problems in couples or women who are depressed,” added its editorial manager Florence Duluard, “But we never tackle these issues head-on, we take them on sideways, like asking ‘How to take a positive approach to the couple?’ instead of stating that a woman has problems because her husband doesn’t satisfy her.” “We recently published a feature on hammams that enabled us to evoke a whole series of issues — relations between men and women, between parents and children, and sexuality,” said de Boisdeffre.
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AFP PHOTO/RAMZI HAIDAR
Lebanese people attend a party at the Riviera beach resort in downtown Beirut on August 12, 2009. From nudist beach parties and wild bashes hosted by the likes of Paris Hilton, to gay clubs, gambling and showgirls, Beirut is rapidly earning a reputation as the sin city of the Middle East.
Sleepless in Beirut, sin city of the Middle East Agence France Presse
BEIRUT - From nudist beach parties and wild bashes hosted by the likes of Paris Hilton, to gay clubs, gambling and showgirls, Beirut is rapidly earning a reputation as the sin city of the Middle East. Clubbers don’t bat an eye in popping 1,000 dollars for a bottle of champagne to guarantee attention at a trendy nightspot, where less is more as far as women’s wear is concerned, and fireworks displays regularly light up the skies. Lebanon has seen it all: a bloody 1975-1990 civil war, military occupation, high-profile assassinations, and unending political instability. Four years ago, Beirut’s seaside Riviera Hotel saw an assassination attempt targeting a leading anti-Syrian minister. Today it is keeping the neighbourhood awake as partygoers drink and dance the night away. “We have clubs in Cairo,” said 26-year-old Wafiq, as he swayed to the beat on a hot August night holding a glass of whiskey and puffing on a Cuban cigar. “But nothing beats this,” said the Egyptian, a financial consultant. “I
need to come here to unwind.” A record one million-plus tourists visited Lebanon last month (July) alone, according to the tourism ministry, which is expecting more than two million tourists by the end of 2009, a figure roughly equivalent to half the country’s population. Many of those flocking to Beirut are Lebanese expatriates, but Arab nationals have also arrived en masse to take advantage of Lebanon’s glamorous nightlife and glitzy shows like “Hot Legs” at the Casino du Liban, featuring “striptease-style dances”, according to the casino’s website. While Lebanon often flirts with the borderline of civil war — sectarian strife in May 2008 resulted in the deaths of more than 100 people — any sign of a political detente is quickly followed by a boom in tourism. Sami, 30, flew in from Germany for a brief reprieve this summer, which he says turned out to be more exhausting than he had anticipated. Nursing sunburn, he described how he had negotiated his way past scowling bouncers into Sky Bar, dubbed the hottest club in Beirut, before stopping at a 24-hour eatery for breakfast at 3:00 am and hitting the beach a few hours later.
Ex-champ’s life a cautionary tale for Philippines boxers Agence France Presse
GENERAL SANTOS - Ageing brawler Rolando Navarrete attacks the heavy bag swinging above the dirt floor of his crumbling home, each crunching blow evoking the old times when he was the boxing-mad Philippines’ most famous son. Stuck on the unpainted wall is a calendar given to him by six-time world champion Manny Pacquiao, the other, much younger local icon who now holds the prized tag as the planet’s “best pound-for-pound” fighter. “Manny has become a much better fighter than I was. He has discipline,” said Navarrete in a heavily
slurred voice. In his time he was at least as big as Pacquiao, as shown by fading framed pictures on the wall of the older champ in all his former glory. But those days are long gone and Navarrete now sells fish that he says earns him 800 pesos (about 16 dollars) a day. A three-year stint in a US prison for rape, a series of failed relationships with women who bore him a total of seven children, various police complaints for wife battery and drugs, and an assortment of ugly scars from scraps outside the ring are all he has left to show after a dizzying fall from grace. The sculpted, V-shaped torso and
bulging biceps with the distinct bluerose tattoos are all admirably intact and the 52-year-old’s left fist, though it has perhaps lost some speed, still packs the same destructive power as the best in Pacquiao’s arsenal. In a country that has produced a remarkable crop of more than two dozen world champions, Navarrete rode his explosive fists to fight his way out of poverty and soon after he turned 18, he was the bantamweight champion of the Philippines. He knocked out Uganda-born Cornelius Boza-Edwards in five rounds in Viareggio, Italy to win the World Boxing Council junior lightweight crown in 1981 and later
starred in one of two local films made about his life. But a rock star-lifestyle in Hawaii, where he lived it up and partied once he reached the top of his sport saw him crash and burn out. Navarrete kept the world title for exactly nine months, successfully defending it in Manila against South Korean challenger Choi Chung-Il before losing it to the Mexican Rafael “Bazooka” Limon in Las Vegas. Boxing experts consider all three world title bouts he fought as among the best contests ever seen in the 130pound (59-kilogram) class. He later spent three years in US jail for a rape he would not discuss, and he
lost his last three bouts before calling it a day in 1991, his win-loss-draw record standing at 54-15-3 with 30 knockouts in a memorable prizefighting career spanning 18 years. The beautiful house, the sportscar, the trophy girlfriends, and his money are now distant memories. These days it is Pacquiao, the former street urchin who lives in a palatial home in this southern city, who is the star. His finger it seems is in every pie, the tens of millions of dollars in prize money helping fuel a construction boom in shopping malls, cockfighting arenas, boxing gyms, and even a planned 400-hectare (988-acre) Manny Pacquiao Economic Zone.
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Sport
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
International
News
International
European papers hail Bolt triumph
Ahmadinejad to name three women ministers
Agence France Presse
Agence France-Presse
PARIS - Usain Bolt’s stunning 100 metres world record run in Berlin was hailed by European papers on Monday as one of the finest sporting exploits of all time. The Jamaican clocked 9.58 seconds in the final at the World Championships Sunday evening slicing a huge 0.11 seconds of the mark he set in last August’s Beijing Olympics and he made it clear immediately afterwards that he aims to go even faster. “Stunning!” was L’Equipe’s simple front page headline over a huge picture of Bolt savouring his historic performance. “It was an electrifying final to the 100m with Tyson Gay (9.71) and Asafa Powell (9.84) battling it out and showing all their incredible talent,” the French sports daily wrote. “But there was nothing they could do against the extra-terrestrial Usain Bolt. With his 9.58 the Jamaican has opened up improbable horizons.” The same theme of otherworldliness was used by The Times in London which head-
lined: “Thunderous Bolt enters a galaxy off limits to mortals.” “And now we finally have the answer. Still electrifying, still like a man from another planet. But now we know how fast the man can really go,” their correspondent in Berlin wrote Spain’s Marca hailed “a record from the 22nd century”, while the Berliner Kurier, in a reference back to the 1936 Olympics gushed: “Somehere on a cloud high up there Jesse Owens applauded and said ‘superb race Usain.’” “The sprint world is in a state of shock,” wrote Le Soir in Brussels, while Italian sports daily La Gazzetta Dello Sport, under a headline of “Bim Bum Bolt”, carried a picture of Bolt striking his chest and saying ‘I am the number one” “Who can deny it?” the paper continued. “He set a world record of 9.58, a time that previously had just been a mirage.”
AFP PHOTO / DDP/ HENNING KAISER
German Chancellor Angela Merkel (of the conservative CDU party) speaks during the federal conference of the “Frauen Union” (Women Union) in Duisburg, western Germany, as part of her election tour on August 16, 2009. With only six weeks until elections and trailing in the polls, Germany’s Social Democrats launched a series of personal attacks on Chancellor Angela Merkel today in a bid to win back ground.
AP Photo/Gero Breloer
Jamaica’s Usain Bolt poses beside the indicating board after setting a new Men’s 100m World Record in the Men’s final at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin on Sunday, Aug. 16, 2009.
Jankovic downs Safina to capture Cincy title
China coach feels heat after Asia crown loss
CINCINNATI - Serbia’s Jelena Jankovic boosted her US Open hopes with a brisk 64, 6-2 victory over world number one Dinara Safina on Sunday in the final of the two million-dollar WTA Cincinnati Open. “My smile is back and I’m having fun playing the matches,” said Jankovic, who started the year atop the world rankings but has seen her status slip with a series of lackluster results. “This is what I missed. I missed this for maybe seven months this year.” Jankovic bounced back from a tough semi-final victory on Saturday night to claim her second title of 2009, after a victory in a claycourt tournament in Marbella in April. “When I woke up this morning I felt really sore, especially after going to sleep at 2 am,” said Jankovic, who needed almost three hours to overcome Elena Dementieva in the semis - a match in which Jankovic trailed 62 in the third-set tiebreaker. But she showed no sign of weariness as she had just nine unforced errors in pocketing the first set over struggling Safina. “I was just a little bit off today, I would say,” Safina said. “I was feeling very confident stepping into the court, and then I was just totally off.” Jankovic got a scare in the second set when she landed awkwardly on her left leg. She received treatment on her thigh and didn’t seem to be slowed as she finished off a victory that was especially sweet in light of her struggles this season. Jankovic claimed the world number one spot last August, but couldn’t break through for a Grand Slam victory. Hoping to improve her fortunes in the majors she changed her training regime,
TIANJIN - China’s national basketball coach Guo Shiqiang came under pressure from the nation’s rabid fans and sporting press Monday after Iran thrashed his team 70-52 in the Asian Championship final. Iran used a blistering attack to crush the home court favourites on Sunday night, with Memphis Grizzlies centre Hamed Ehadadi dominating a Yao Ming-less China with 19 points and 17 rebounds. “China’s fans, used to dominating Asia in basketball, will never tolerate this kind of insult and humiliation,” said a report on the sports section of leading Internet portal Sina.com. “If Guo Shiqiang is able to continue as head coach of the national team, then one can only say that the future (at next year’s World Basketball Championships) will be more difficult.” More than 75 percent of nearly 330,000 people polled by Sina.com said they were “very disappointed” with the result, with six out of 10 directly blaming Guo for the loss. It was the first time China lost the Asian Basketball Championship final in 15 tries, and the most lopsided defeat the team had ever suffered in the regional tournament, the leading Titan Sports Weekly said. Iran dominated the hosts on both ends of the court, jumping out to a 21-10 first quarter lead and never looking back. “As head coach, I take full responsibility for the loss,” said Guo, 34, a former point guard for China who is the youngest-ever national coach. “We were not well prepared mentally, while the players had too much pressure on them,” he told a post-game press conference. Guo, who was appointed in May, succeeded American Del Harris and Lithuanian Jonas Kazlauskas who guided China to repeated Asian Championship titles as well as top eight Olympic
Agence France Presse
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
putting on 15 pounds in a bid to beef up her game. Instead, she just felt slow. After falling to teenager Melanie Oudin in the third round at Wimbledon, Jankovic took time off to regroup, and also help her ailing mother - usually her companion on tour - get through surgery. On Sunday her time away appeared to have been well-spent. “I’m happy that I’m back,” said the 24year-old, who will move from fifth to fourth in the rankings on Monday. “I’m back in this (leading) group of players.”
Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images/AFP
Jelena Jankovic of Serbia poses with the trophy after defeating Dinara Safina of Russia in the finals of the Western & Southern Financial Group Women’s Open on August 16, 2009 at the Lindner Family Tennis Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Agence France Presse
Merkel targeted as German election campaign gets personal Agence France-Presse
BERLIN - With only six weeks until elections and trailing in the polls, Germany’s Social Democrats launched a series of personal attacks on Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday in a bid to win back ground.
AP Photo/Ng Han Guan
Iran’s Hamed Hadadi, center, blocks an attempt to score by China’s Yi Jianlian, left, as Oshin Sahakian watch from right during the final of the 25th FIBA Asia Basketball Championship held in Tianjin, China, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2009. finishes in Athens and Beijing. “We peaked for a short period at the Beijing Olympic Games following the strenuous efforts of two foreign coaches,” the Tianjin Daily News said in a commentary. “But instead of seeking to prolong this peak, we have asked a young coach to start all over again. It is hard to say if this is a fair way to treat Guo Shiqiang.”
Turning up the heat in what so far has been a lacklustre campaign, Merkel’s challenger for Germany’s top job questioned her honesty while the Social Democratic party chief accused her of putting her career ahead of her country. “She has again promised tax cuts that will not come,” said Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who hopes to unseat Merkel in the September 27 poll. “The CDU (Merkel’s conservative party) is not telling the voters before the election what they intend to do after the election,” he told ARD television. “I have a different idea of what honesty is,” said Steinmeier, who is also foreign minister and vice-chancellor in Germany’s unwieldy grand coalition. Social Democratic Party (SPD) chief Franz Muentefering meanwhile accused her of being indifferent to the plight of millions of jobless people in Germany. “She does not care about the large number of unemployed people in Germany,” Muentefering told the mass circulation Bild am Sonntag. “Right from the beginning, Mrs Merkel has looked at a policy with the thought: what can I do to stay chancellor? She has not first asked the question: what is good and necessary for
our country,” he said. Muentefering also dismissed as “ignorant” accusations from the CDU and their preferred coalition partners the pro-business Free Democrats that the SPD had no plan for creating jobs. The sharper tone from senior SPD politicians came as new opinion polls suggested they could be heading for an electoral battering. A survey by the Emnid polling institute, for Bild am Sonntag newspaper, showed only nine percent of people believed Steinmeier would be chancellor after the election. In contrast, a stunning 83 percent expected Merkel to secure a second term. However, in Germany’s complex coalition-based politics, voters plump not for individuals, but for their favourite party, which then enter into a tortuous process of haggling over coalitions and ministerial posts. And for the past few weeks, opinion polls have consistently shown the SPD trailing the CDU by a doubledigit margin, suggesting Merkel could scrape together enough votes to jettison the SPD and form a government with the Free Democrats. Steinmeier’s campaign seemed cursed from the outset. First, an SPD minister became embroiled in a scandal when it emerged
she had taken her official car on holiday and that the vehicle was stolen. Then, Steinmeier’s much-heralded “Germany plan” — with its central plank of four million jobs by 2020 — was met with howls of derision from analysts and commentators who compared it to communist East Germany’s five-year plans. In contrast, Merkel, only just back from holiday, received a boost to her re-election bid on Friday with news that Germany had unexpectedly emerged from its deepest recession in over 60 years. She has herself stayed away from personal attacks, exuding an air of calm, which is improving her image in the voters’ eyes, said Rudolf Korte, a political scientist. “In the midst of an economic crisis, people want security and calm,” he told ARD television. She has positioned herself as “the moderator in the grand coalition”, he added, making her difficult to attack. Nevertheless, this did not stop some of her allies rushing to her defence. Roland Koch, a senior CDU politician, told the Hamburger Abendblatt local daily: “To make the absurd claim that she does not care about the unemployed is obscene.”
TEHRAN - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday he plans to appoint at least three women ministers to his new cabinet to be formally revealed next week, a first in the Islamic republic. Ahmadinejad, a hardliner whose re-election in June set off the worst crisis in the 30year history of the Islamic republic, said he would submit his new lineup to the 290member parliament on Wednesday. He will propose Fatemeh Ajorlou for the welfare and social security ministry and Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi for the health ministry, he said in a television interview. “At least one other woman will be presented,” he added. Ahmadinejad also announced his choice for the powerful intelligence portfolio, after sacking the previous holder in a row over another controversial appointment, and said he will keep the same industry and economy ministers. The main criteria for joining his new team are “morality and commitment, efficiency as well as convergence and spirit of cooperation,” he said, adding that there would also be younger people in the cabinet. The 52-year-old was sworn in on August 5 for a second four-year term although the declaration of his victory triggered massive street protests by opposition demonstrators who believe the result was rigged. In his inauguration speech, Ahmadinejad said he will continue to resist “oppressive powers,” pledging to campaign for social justice and root out corruption. But in the election aftermath, Ahmadinejad also found himself at loggerheads with powerful elements within his own conservative support base over his tardiness in dismissing his nominee as first vice president despite orders from supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He had come under fire during his first tenure for frequently reshuffling the cabinet, sacking 10 ministers and two central bank chiefs and retaining inexperienced ministers. It may not be smooth sailing for his new government line-up either. The nomination of Ajorlou is likely to stir controversy because of her involvement in the case of Abbas Palizdar, an Ahmadinejad supporter who was jailed for accusing several senior clerics, including
former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and their children of corruption. Ajorlou and some other MPs were interrogated last year by prosecutors over their alleged help to Palizdar, who was reportedly on a parliamentary team which conducted a probe into the judiciary. According to press reports, Ajorlou and another lawmaker were sentenced to two years in jail for disclosing classified documents, although there is no official confirmation about the case. The other woman nominee, Vahid Dastjerdi, is an academic and former MP. In the previous administration Ahmadinejad had two women in his cabinet but not in a ministerial capacity — Fatemeh Vaez Javadi, a vice president heading the Environmental Organisation, and Zohreh Tabibzadeh Nouri, vice president for women and family affairs. Ahmadinejad said he will name Heydar Moslehi, a former representative of Khamenei in the volunteer Basij militia and a strong supporter of the president, as intelligence minister. He will also retain Ali Akbar Mehrabian at the industry ministry and Shamseddin Hosseini as economy minister. Mehrabian, who is aged under 40, faced difficulties securing parliament’s vote of confidence due to his young age and lack of experience when he was first appointed in an October 2007 reshuffle. A number of ministers who left or were ousted from the cabinet during Ahmadinejad’s first four years complained that the president was not open to different ideas and criticism. Many of his cabinet changes were interpreted as a way for Ahmadinejad to increase his influence over ministries by getting rid of people who disagreed with his policies. Ahmadinejad’s decision to appoint woman ministers has angered some hardliners and staunch supporters including Fatemeh Rajabi, the wife of his government spokesman, who slammed such a move as “apocalyptic”. “In the apocalypse women will conquer the government and anything they wish for,” she wrote in an open letter to the president on August 8 carried on several websites. “One cannot accept that Ahmadinejad’s cabinet take a first step towards implementing the evil aims of feminists and seculars by appointing women ministers,” Rajabi said. “You do not have a shortage of competent men.”
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Tuesday, August 18, 2009
News WORLD NEWS
Obamas marvel at Grand Canyon Agence France-Presse
GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK - US president and city slicker Barack Obama plunged into the American wilderness Sunday, gazing out with his two young daughters at the awesome void of the Grand Canyon.
Hosni Mubarak CAIRO - When Egypt’s leader meets Tuesday with President Barack Obama in Washington, U.S. officials may find themselves caught up in the country’s No. 1 guessing game: How much longer can Hosni Mubarak go on? The 81-year-old president has looked weakened and pale in several appearances in recent months.
Gay killings BAGHDAD Militiamen are torturing and killing gay Iraqi men with impunity in a systematic campaign that has spread from Baghdad to several other cities, a prominent human rights group says.
Aboriginal rights CANBERRA - A United Nations indigenous rights expert says that Australian government policy to stamp out child abuse in Outback communities appears to discriminate against Aborigines. Source: ap
Topping off a weekend of hiking, fishing and white-water rafting in US national parks, the Obamas strolled along the top of the deep red rock gorge in Arizona which is one of America’s most famous natural landmarks. “The last time I was here is when I was 11 years old,” Obama told his wife Michelle and daughters Malia and Sasha. Asked by a guide whether the chasm still looked the same, he answered “it does,” prompting the First Lady to joke “he’s not that old!” Obama, known more as a basketball player and a gym rat than a backcountry man, and who once pounded gritty inner city Chicago streets as a community organizer, is retracing a childhood vacation from his native Hawaii. At Powell Point, which overlooks the south rim of the Grand Canyon, Obama and daughters asked park ranger Scott Kraynak questions about wildlife and the geological make-up of the gorge’s rocks. The Obamas have combined political and ceremonial duties with private sightseeing and dining in places like London, Paris and New York this year. Their mountain west tour included
a visit on Saturday to the “Old Faithful” geyser in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. “Oh, that’s pretty cool,” Obama was heard to say as Old Faithful, tucked in a natural amphitheater formed by Yellowstone’s towering mountains, spurted thousands of gallons of boiling water and steam into the air. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama, taking time out from selling his health care reform plan amid Washington’s corrosive political wars, “had a tremendous amount of fun at Yellowstone.” On Friday, the First Lady and her daughters braved driving rain and hail for the thrills and spills of a whitewater raft ride in Montana. “They had a blast,” said Gibbs. Obama meanwhile went fly fishing, a goal he often expressed on the campaign trail, but did not manage to land a trout. “Literally, we — every time we’d been to Montana... he said, ‘I’m going to come back here and learn how to fly fish,’” Gibbs said. “He was dying to do that, and finally got a chance to do that — though was a bit frustrated he didn’t get to hold one of the fish,” the
AFP PHOTO/Mandel NGAN US
President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and their daughters Sasha (3rd R) and Malia (L) tour Hopi Point with Park Ranger Scott Kraynak at Grand Canyon National Park August 16, 2009 in Arizona. spokesman said. Saturday, in Colorado, while Obama stepped up his defense of his health care plan, his wife and daughters went on a peach picking expedition, coming away with a sumptuous haul of fruits bigger than baseballs. Next weekend, the first family be-
gins a week-long stay on the wellheeled East Coast getaway destination of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Obama was due to return to Washington from Arizona on Monday after giving a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars service organization.
BANGKOK - An ailing American who was spared a seven-year prison sentence in Myanmar underwent medical testing in Bangkok on Monday, while the U.S. senator who secured his release called for a “new approach” in dealing with the military-ruled country. John Yettaw’s family in the United States said the 53-year-old was hospitalized in the Thai capital and not in good health after three months in a Myanmar prison, where he was held for sneaking into the home of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. “Our first priority is ensuring the health of Mr. Yettaw,” said Cynthia Brown, the U.S. Embassy spokeswoman in Bangkok, who declined to say where Yettaw was
receiving medical care or when he was expected to return home. Yettaw flew to Bangkok on Sunday with Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia, who held rare talks in Myanmar with the junta’s reclusive Senior Gen. Than Shwe and with Suu Kyi during a high-profile, three-day trip. Webb said he believes years of U.S. and EU sanctions have failed to move the Southeast Asian country toward democratic reforms or talks with Suu Kyi. “My view is that we don’t have any more sanctions to put on Myanmar and we need a new approach,” Webb told reporters after meeting with Thailand’s foreign minister. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has said the administration is reviewing its policy toward Myanmar since sanctions haven’t worked and serve to further
isolate its people. Webb told reporters in Bangkok he would discuss his conclusions and recommendations with Clinton and others on his return to Washington. He declined to speculate on what the Obama administration would do. Webb can rally support for changes to U.S. policy in Asia as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s East Asia and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee. Webb told reporters Sunday that Yettaw “is not a well man” and would be “undergoing thorough medical review” in Bangkok. Yettaw had been held at Insein Prison in Myanmar’s biggest city Yangon since his arrest in early May. Myanmar state television said Sunday night that Yettaw, from Falcon, Missouri, was freed on humanitarian grounds because of his health.
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Agence France Presse
MANCHESTER - Sir Alex Ferguson has challenged Wayne Rooney to beat last season’s scoring tally of 20 goals after the United striker’s finish was enough to earn Manchester United a 1-0 win over Birmingham City at Old Trafford on Sunday. Rooney’s 34th-minute finish was the difference as United shrugged of the absence of usual centre-backs Rio Ferdinand with a thigh complaint and Nemanja Vidic to a calf injury, to record an opening day win. Ferguson said: “He took his goal well. The header was a good one and his following up for the rebound was quick and he reacted the right way. “Hopefully that gets him on the road, after his goal last week, to a very significant total for us this season because it’s good if you can get two or three strikers that get you more than
Teams
P W D L Gf
Arsenal Man City Stoke West Ham Wigan Chelsea Tottenham Fulham Man Utd Sunderland Hull Liverpool Birmingham Bolton Portsmouth Aston Villa Blackburn Burnley Wolverhampton Everton
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
6 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Ga Po 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 2 2 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 6
3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
20 goals. “He’s capable of that and we’re not asking the impossible of the boy.” United, who will be looking to win their fourth consecutive title this season, got off to a positive start as they seemed intent on proving the club still has attacking potential without Cristiano Ronaldo following his transfer to Real Madrid in June. Dimitar Berbatov failed to make the most of a clear early chance inside the box as goalkeeper Joe Hart rushed out while Rooney also had a good opportunity from the rebound that was foiled by the committed Birmingham defence. Hart had to again be on top form soon after as a wonderful curling Rooney effort from 25 yards was destined for the top corner until Hart acrobatically leapt to punch over the bar. Birmingham, did try to break with the ball on occasion as James McFadden persevered down the left wing. But he rarely had a team-mate to choose from in the United box as the away side got most men behind the ball, a policy that worked until Rooney finally scored. He watched his header from a Nani cross cannon onto the base of the post but fortunately for him, the ball bobbled back to him and he easily tapped over the line. However, in a remarkable 60 seconds of play, Birmingham could then conceivably have been 2-1 up. Firstly, Cameron Jerome unleashed a terrific 20-yard shot which just went wide courtesy of a slight Paul Scholes deflection and from the
resulting corner, Patrice Evra was forced into a fine diving header off his own line to keep out Franck Queudrue’s effort. The half should have been concluded with a second goal for United but Darren Fletcher somehow missed from point-blank range after solid work from Evra down the right wing. After the interval Rooney saw a speculative 40-yard effort force Hart to go full stretch but the pace of the game was distinctly less intense than the first half. Lee Carsley saved Birmingham when he cleared a Berbatov effort of the line with 20 minutes to go before the visitors also had a golden chance with 12 minutes remaining. However, Christian Benitez could not beat Foster from close out as the United keeper made a stunning one handed save to divert the ball to safety. Rooney had the a last chance to cap off a brilliant performance with another header as the end approached but he steered Ryan Giggs’ cross wide. Birmingham manager Alex McLeish was satisfied with his side’s attempt and was impressed with how they did not shrink from the challenge of playing the champions at Old Trafford. He said: “We have to use that as a confidence booster, we can go into the next game with the evidence of a great performance. I was very encouraged by it. The players should take enormous credit from that because they have to play in that cauldron without being intimidated.”
AP Photo/Tim Hales
Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney, center, is tackled by Birmingham City’s Gregory Vignal, on ground, during their English Premier League soccer match at Old Trafford, Manchester, England, Sunday Aug. 16, 2009.
Barcelona beat Athletic Bilbao 2-1 in Supercup first leg
He reportedly suffers from diabetes, epilepsy and asthma and was hospitalized for a week during the trial after suffering seizures. Yettaw was apprehended May 6 as he swam away from Suu Kyi’s lakeside residence, where he had sheltered for two days after sneaking in uninvited. He was convicted last week of breaking the terms of Suu Kyi’s house arrest and related charges, and sentenced to seven years in prison with hard labor. Suu Kyi, who has been detained for 14 of the last 20 years, was herself sentenced to three years in prison with hard labor for violating her house arrest conditions through Yettaw’s visit, although that was reduced to 18 months under house arrest by order of junta chief, Senior Gen. Than Shwe.
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Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Sir Alex urges Rooney to focus on 20-plus vision
English Premier League table
American gets medical tests after Myanmar jailing Associated Press Writer
Sport
International
Agence France Presse
BILBAO - European champions Barcelona beat Athletic Bilbao 2-1 in the first leg of the Spanish Supercup on Sunday with second-half goals by Xavi and reserve forward Pedro Rodriguez. Athletic striker Oscar de Marcos opened the scoring in the 44th minute as he evaded both Gerard Pique and Daniel Alves before
AP Photo/Juan Manuel Serrano
Barcelona’s Xavi Hernandez from Spain, left, duels for the ball with Athletic Bilbao’s Pablo Orbaiz from Spain, during their Spanish Supercup soccer match at the San Mames stadium in Bilbao, Spain, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2009.
seeing his shot clip off Carles Puyol and fly over Barcelona keeper Victor Valdes into the corner of the net. Barcelona leveled in the 58th minute as Eric Abidal sent a cross to the far post where Rodriguez rolled it back for Xavi who slotted it into the corner from close range at Bilbao’s San Mames stadium. Rodriguez scored the winner nine minutes later when he stepped past Athletic Bilbao midfielder Markel Susaeta and hammered a shot inside the near post from 25 yards. Barcelona, who have won the Spanish Supercup seven times, will host the return leg on August 23. The tournament is contested each year between the league champions and the winners of the King’s Cup but as Barcelona won both competitions they are facing beaten Cup finalists Athletic. Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola was
without a number of players with attacking midfielder Andres Iniesta and striker Lionel Messi still struggling with thigh injuries. New signing Zlatan Ibrahimovic is recovering from a left hand injury. The Swedish striker, who joined Barcelona from Inter Milan, is expected to make his debut in next Wednesday’s friendly against Manchester City. Athletic, who are seeking to win their first major trophy since 1984, had no injury problems. Players and spectators observed a minute’s silence before the start of the match in honour of Espanyol captain and defender Daniel Jarque, who died earlier this month week of heart failure while on a pre-season tour of Italy. Barcelona became the first Spanish side to win the treble — the league, King’s Cup and the Champions League — last season.
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Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Zugliget parish, a transit stop for East German refugees in 1989
16 Pages Number 437 1st Year
PAGE 6
e-mail: info_ibp@balipost.co.id online: http://www.internationalbalipost.com. http://epaper.internationalbalipost.com. Price: Rp 3.000,-
Results at the Czech Motorcycle Grand Prix 1. Valentino Rossi (ITA/Yamaha), 118.866 km in 43:08.991, 2. Dani Pedrosa (ESP/Honda) +11.766, 3. Toni Elias (ESP/Honda) +20.756, 4. Andrea Dovizioso (ITA/Honda) +21.418, 5. Loris Capirossi (ITA/Suzuki) +21.538, 6. Nicky Hayden (USA/Ducati) +25.544, 7. Colin Edwards (USA/Yamaha) +25.676, 8. Alex de Angelis (RSM/Honda) +34.109, 9. James Toseland (GBR/Yamaha) +35.617, 10. Randy de Puniet (FRA/Honda) +39.824, 11. Chris Vermeulen (AUS/Suzuki) +40.776, 12. Niccolo Canepa (ITA/Ducati) +50.661, 13. Gabor Talmacsi (HUN/Honda) +59.188 DNF: Mika Kallio (FIN/Ducati), Marco Melandri (ITA/Kawasaki), Jorge Lorenzo (ESP/Yamaha), Michel Fabrizio (ITA/Ducati)
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Corby granted another remission on RI’s Independence anniversary PAGE 8
Overall MotoGP standings (11 of 18 races):
AP Photo/Eckehard Schulz
Spain’s Dani Pedrosa, left, Italy’s Valentino Rossi, center, and Spain’s Toni Elias, right, pose for photographs during the winners ceremony of the MotoGP race of the Czech Republic Motorcycle Grand Prix at the Brno circuit in Brno, Czech Republic, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2009. Rossi won ahead of Pedrosa on second place and Elias, who placed third.
Rossi wins Czech MotoGP Agence France Presse
BRNO - Italy’s Valentino Rossi on a Yamaha won the MotoGP race at the Czech Grand Prix meeting here on Sunday to extend his overall championship lead and move a big step closer to clinching a ninth world title. After a thrilling head-to-head duel with Spanish stablemate Jorge Lorenzo, Rossi profited from the latter’s fall five laps from the finish to extend his lead to 50 points going into the final seven races, starting with Indianapolis on August 30. Lorenzo had passed Rossi three laps earlier but his spectacular tumble - from which he emerged unscathed although he angrily threw his gloves down and kicked out at his machine handed Rossi a clear run through to the finish and a 102nd career victory. The 30-year-old Rossi, nicknamed The Doctor, is now closing in on Giacomo Agostini’s all-time mark of 122 race wins.
After crossing the line exuberantly on one wheel in 43min 08.991sec he leapt over the barrier to celebrate with his crew, warmly embracing them in turn. Afterwards, he had time to offer a word of sympathy to Lorenzo while insisting that he could not think of putting yet more title champagne on ice. “It’s really a shame for Jorge,” said the Italian, noting that, despite his handsome lead “there’s a long way to go. I have to stay focused.” Dani Pedrosa of Honda placed second 11.766ec adrift of Rossi while fellow Honda rider Toni Elias, who predicted a tough future despite his
first season podium as he is looking for a new team for 2010, completed the podium. Rossi, Lorenzo and Pedrosa shot out of the blocks and had put more than 2sec between themselves and the chasing pack led by Elias. Rossi, who had gone into the race on pole for the 56th time, was furiously jousting for the lead with Lorenzo with the Italian just in the ascendency as the Yamaha pair left the rest trailing with Pedrosa third at 2.6 sec and the gap then 9sec on Elias and company. The 14th lap saw Lorenzo make his all-or-bust move for the lead as he set the fastest lap time of 1:56.674, a time he then bettered by 0.004sec on lap 16 before nipping through the gap into the lead. But his 18th-lap fall brought his brave challenge to naught as Rossi stayed doggedly with him before his rival’s misfortune allowed him to breeze home in the knowledge that Pedrosa was trailing by a huge 14.772sec.
1. Valentino Rossi 2. Jorge Lorenzo 3. Casey Stoner 4. Dani Pedrosa 5. Colin Edwards 6. Andrea Dovizioso 7. Randy de Puniet 8. Marco Melandri 9. Loris Capirossi 10. Chris Vermeulen
(ITA/Yamaha) (ESP/Yamaha) (AUS/Ducati) (ESP/Honda) (USA/Yamaha) (ITA/Honda) (FRA/Honda) (ITA/Kawasaki) (ITA/Suzuki) (AUS/Suzuki)
212 pts, 162, 150, 135, 112, 107, 80, 79, 77, 72
In death, as in life, Jackson surrounded by wackiness PAGE 12
People of Tengger tribe perform a flag hoisting ceremony marking Indonesia’s 64th anniversary of independence at the caldera of Mount Bromo, a 7,641-foot (2,329-meter) active volcano, in Probolinggo, East Java, Indonesia, Monday, Aug. 17, 2009. Indonesia straddles the “Pacific Ring of Fire,” a system of fault lines stretching across the tropical archipelago, that give it more active volcanoes than any other country. AP Photo/Trisnadi
Chiding Obama, Chavez warns Venezuelans to prepare for war Agence France-Presse
CARACAS - President Hugo Chavez Sunday bridled at US plans to use military bases in Colombia, asserting that Venezuela was the top US target in the region and that Venezuelans should prepare for war.
WEATHER FORECAST CITY
TEMPERATURE OC
DENPASAR
21 - 30
JAKARTA
24 - 33
BANDUNG
20 - 30
YOGYAKARTA
25 - 32
SURABAYA
24 - 33
SUNNY
BRIGHT/CLOUDY
Speaking in his weekly live radio and television broadcast, Chavez also chided US President Barack Obama for accusing leftist Latin
leaders of “hipocrisy” for demanding that Washington intervene more forcefully to reinstate Honduras’ ousted President Manuel Zelaya.
Agence France-Presse
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Continued on page 6
Plane skids off runway in Bangladesh
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Obama “is lost in the clouds. I think he is entering a terrible labyrinth,” Chavez said. “Obama doesn’t understand. He needs to
study a bit more. He is a young man, full of good intentions.” “Obama, we are not asking you to intervene in Honduras. To the contrary, we are asking that the empire remove its hand from Honduras and that the empire remove its claws from Latin America,” he said.
AFP PHOTO/Munir uz ZAMAN
A Jet Airways Boeing 737-800 is seen skidded off the runway at the Zia International Airport in Dhaka on August 17, 2009.
DHAKA - An aircraft bound for Delhi skidded off the runway at Dhaka’s Zia International Airport Monday morning, disrupting flights in and out of the Bangladeshi capital, an official said. Airport chief Saeedul Hasan Khan told AFP that Jet Airways flight 271, carrying 121 passengers and 10 crew members, was preparing for takeoff to the Indian capital when it skidded around 3.5 metres (12 feet) off the runway.
“After line up before the engines were about to open up for taxi, the plane skidded off the runway,” he said, adding that there were no immediate reports of any injuries. “All flights have been shut down for the time being.” The incident happened at 10.40am (0340 GMT) local time. He said an investigation would be conducted to determine what caused the incident and the Boeing 737 aircraft would be removed later Monday.