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KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s government-friendly media
has changed its tone after shocking election gains by the
opposition, aiming to win back readers alienated by biased coverage,
industry sources said Wednesday. Malaysia’s mainstream newspapers
and television networks, many of them partly government-owned, were
awash with flattering coverage of the ruling coalition ahead of
Saturday’s polls. But after the government lost its two-thirds
parliamentary majority for the first time in four decades,
opposition figures are now being splashed on front pages.
--AFP
MOSCOW: Russian President
Vladimir Putin on Tuesday came up with a novel—and old—solution
to corrupt officials, news agencies reported: chop off their hands.
“It would be good to cut off the hand, as they used to in the
Middle Ages,” Putin was quoted as saying by ITAR-TASS and other
national news agencies during a meeting with parliamentary leaders.
The radical idea followed a complaint at the meeting by Communist
Party leader Gennady Zyuganov that “just to build 100 apartments
you have to run around for 24 hours looking for permits and greasing
hands.”
--AFP
LAHORE, Pakistan: Mourners
offered funeral prayers Wednesday for 27 people killed in two
suicide blasts in Pakistan, which have piled pressure on the
incoming government to tackle Islamic militancy. Security was tight
for the traditional Muslim service in the country’s cultural
capital as grim-faced police officers raised their hands to the sky
in memory of their colleagues. No one has claimed responsibility,
but Pakistani authorities said that al-Qaeda and Taliban militants
were likely behind Tuesday’s attacks.
--AFP
HAVANA: Cuba’s ex-leader Fidel
Castro has written a special prologue for the Chinese edition of 100
Hours With Fidel, one of the eight new editions scheduled for the
work, Cuban official newspaper Granma said on Tuesday.
French-Spanish writer Ignacio Ramonet wrote the book after a series
of interviews with Fidel between 2003 and 2005. In the prologue,
Fidel says “it fills me with satisfaction to think of the
legendary Chinese people, with their culture of many millennia,
having the ideas of this book within their reach.”
--Xinhua
WASHINGTON: A US envoy will hold
talks with his North Korean counterpart in Geneva Thursday in a new
push for a full declaration from Pyongyang on all its nuclear
programs, an official said Tuesday. Nuclear negotiator Christopher
Hill will meet North Korea’s Kim Kye Gwan in a bid to move forward
the six-party process involving the US, the two Koreas, Japan, China
and Russia, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
McCormack told reporters that Hill chose the Swiss city because it
was a “mutually agreeable location.”
--AFP
CANBERRA: At least 50 people
succumbed to a record heat wave on Wednesday in Adelaide in south
Australia, seeking hospital treatment for a range of heat-related
conditions. South Australian Health Minister John Hill said that
most of those seeking help were elderly people who required
treatment for dehydration, according to the local weather bureau.
The weather bureau said that the mercury rose to 37.5 degrees at
noon, completing the longest hot stretch since the start of official
temperature records in 1887 and beating the eight days over 35
recorded in 1934.
--Xinhua
NEW YORK: New York Governor Eliot
Spitzer came under mounting pressure to resign Tuesday, a day after
the Democratic crusader once known as the “Sheriff of Wall
Street” was linked to a prostitution ring. Republicans in the
state assembly gave Spitzer 48 hours to quit or face impeachment
proceedings, insisting that the governor, who could face federal
charges over the alleged transgression, was not fit for office.
Monday’s revelations came as a dramatic fall for Spitzer, known as
“Mr. Clean” for taking down organized crime and tackling Wall
Street corruption.
--AFP
WASHINGTON: US forces commander
in the Middle East Admiral William Fallon said Tuesday he is
stepping down because reports that he differed with President George
W. Bush over Iran had become “a distraction.” Defense Secretary
Robert Gates announced he had accepted Fallon’s resignation
“with reluctance and regret,” saying there was a
“misperception” that the admiral was at odds with the
administration over Iran. In a statement, Bush praised the admiral
for his more than 40 years of service.
--AFP
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