Malaysia’s Anwar Ibrahim acquitted of sodomy charges
Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was acquitted on Monday in a stunning conclusion to a two-year sodomy trial that he had condemned as a conspiracy to cripple his resurgent political alliance.
“Thank God, justice has been served,” Anwar told reporters after being cleared of sexual misconduct with a young male aide, and pledged to topple the government in national polls expected to be held this year.
“In the coming election, voice of the people will be heard and this corrupt government will be toppled from its pedestals of power,” he added in a Twitter posting.
The unexpected decision set off pandemonium at the Kuala Lumpur High Court where Anwar — a former deputy premier who was sacked and convicted on separate sodomy charges in 1998 — was mobbed by his family and opposition politicians.
Thousands of supporters who had gathered outside under heavy security since before dawn, many in Muslim skullcaps or Anwar masks, erupted into cheers and punched their fists in the air.
In impromptu rallies near the courthouse, they shouted the opposition’s battle cry of “Reformasi!” (reform), while scores headed to a nearby mosque to give thanks.
In his brief verdict, Judge Mohamad Zabidin Diah said that he could not rely on controversial DNA evidence submitted by the prosecution in the case lodged by Anwar’s aide Mohamad Saiful Bukhari Azlan.
“The court is always reluctant to convict on sexual offences without corroborative evidence. Therefore, the accused is acquitted and discharged,” he said.
The verdict in the long-running trial defied the expectations of many political observers and even Anwar himself, who had said the government of Prime Minister Najib Razak was intent on eliminating him as a political threat.
Information Minister Rais Yatim said: “Malaysia has an independent judiciary and this verdict proves that the government does not hold sway over judges’ decisions.
“The current wave of bold democratic reforms introduced by Prime Minister Najib Razak will help extend this transparency to all areas of Malaysian life,” he said in a statement.
Najib faces a deadline of early next year to hold new polls in the ethnically diverse and resource-rich nation, in which he hopes to reverse unprecedented gains made by the opposition in landmark 2008 elections.
But with his name cleared, Anwar can now campaign freely at the helm of his opposition alliance — which brings together his multi-racial Keadilan, a conservative Islamic party, and a liberal Chinese-based party.
The surprise verdict throws the electoral landscape wide open, said Ibrahim Suffian, head of Malaysia’s leading polling firm Merdeka Center.
The outcome “vindicates Anwar and significantly removes doubts about his personal conduct, which has been a concern especially among conservative Muslim voters,” Ibrahim said.
But he added that Najib can now also plausibly claim that his recent pledge to end Malaysia’s authoritarian ways — which the opposition has called an empty election ploy — is sincere.
Tensions spiked briefly outside the court as two people were injured in at least three small blasts, with police blaming firecrackers for the explosions that damaged a motorcycle and shattered the window of a van.
Police had given rare consent for the courthouse rally, but were concerned over the prospects of trouble given the massive crowds that took to the streets after Anwar’s 1990s downfall.
Ahead of Monday’s verdict, hundreds of police officers and other security forces guarded the streets around the court, which was cordoned off, and a water cannon truck was on standby.
“All of a sudden he is free. I feel very excited. Finally he got justice,” said jubilant hotel worker Shima Sharif, 46, as news of the acquittal electrified the crowds.
The charismatic Anwar had been groomed to succeed then prime minister Mahathir Mohamad until a bitter row between them forced Anwar out in 1998, and he was jailed on sodomy and graft charges widely seen as politically motivated.
He was freed in 2004 after the sodomy charge was overturned and assumed the helm of the opposition, which seized control of five states and a third of parliamentary seats in the 2008 polls.
The new charges emerged shortly after, sparking accusations they were concocted by the government to stall the opposition revival which threatened its half-century grip on power.
Sodomy is illegal in Muslim-majority Malaysia and punishable by up to 20 years in jail.
“The case against Anwar was politically motivated and plagued with irregularities,” Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement after the verdict.
He called on Najib to repeal colonial-era laws against consensual homosexual acts as part of his liberalising drive.
But there was no word on the fate of three Turkish sailors captured with them.
“The liberation of the Georgian sailors hijacked by Somali pirates has ended successfully,” Georgias Maritime Transport Agency said in a statement.
“The sailors are under armed guard on a ship controlled by the Georgian government,” it said.
Armed raiders boarded the Malta-flagged cargo ship in the piracy-plagued area off the Gulf of Aden in September 2010 and seized the crew of 15 Georgians and three Turks.
The Georgian statement said that government efforts had achieved the seamen’s release but did not specify whether the Turkish sailors had been freed or not.
The pirates had been demanding $9 million (7.1 million euros) to release the ship but the Georgian statement did not say whether any ransom had been paid, or how the sailors had been freed.
The pirates released photographs to the Somalia Report website in October showing the emaciated Georgian sailors surrounded by masked men holding Kalashnikov rifles, but the statement said that the seamen’s health was “satisfactory”.
The ship, which had been on its final voyage to India to be scrapped, had no insurance and its Greek owner had gone into liquidation, leaving the sailors effectively stranded.
Georgia’s foreign ministry said last year that officials were “doing everything possible to free its citizens”, but declined to give details about the government’s efforts “in order not to endanger their lives”.
After Georgia became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991, its once-powerful cargo fleet was sold off and hundreds of seamen were left jobless.
Many of them signed contracts that did little to protect their rights or safety, according to union officials.
Twelve other Georgians working on a fuel tanker were also hijacked by pirates off the coast of Nigeria in October 2011, although they were released after several days in captivity.
Piracy off the coast of Somalia, on a crucial maritime route leading to the Suez Canal, surged in 2007 and reached record levels in 2010 according to a report last year by the International Maritime Bureau.
The report said that pirates had taken more than 600 hostages worldwide, killing eight people and injured more than 40 others, although coordinated international anti-piracy efforts managed to thwart a significant number of attacks off Somalia, it said.
According to Ecoterra International, an environmental and human rights organisation that monitors regional maritime activity, pirates currently hold at least 43 ships and more than 400 seamen.
In a sign of wider concern about Somali piracy, the European Union is considering expanding its anti-pirate operation off the Horn of Africa, German officials said in December.
World number four Andy Murray laid down a marker for the Australian Open with a 65-minute demolition of Alexandr Dolgopolov in the final of the Brisbane International on Sunday.
Murray, runner-up at Melbourne Park for the past two years as he chases his first Grand Slam, showed no mercy against the number 15 from Ukraine as he cruised to the title 6-1, 6-3 in the Pat Rafter Arena.
With former great Ivan Lendl watching on for just the second time since being appointed Murray’s surprise new coach, the Scotsman’s emphatic performance got their high-profile partnership off to the perfect start.
The top seed was lethal in all departments as he dominated Dolgopolov, a player who pushed him to four close sets in the Australian Open quarter-finals last year but who took a slight groin injury into the final.
“I served pretty well again, it got close in the second set but I stayed focused,” Murray said, with the first Grand Slam of the year barely a week away.
“He started going for his shots and hit quite a few winners but I didn’t let it get to me.”
Murray broke Dolgopolov twice in the first set and did not lose a point on his first three service games to claim the opener in just 26 minutes.
He went on a run of nine consecutive games from 2-1 in the first to 4-0 in the second before the Ukrainian finally stemmed the flow by holding serve for only the second time in the match.
That signalled a slight rally from Dolgopolov, who then got a service game back and fought to make it 4-3.
But Murray held his next serve then broke Dolgopolov to love to clinch the Roy Emerson Trophy and his 22nd title on the ATP tour.
“Even though it got back to 4-3, I had game points at 4-1 and game points at 4-2 and was creating a lot of opportunities,” he said.
Murray had started the week slowly and struggled to win his first two matches, against Mikhail Kukushkin and Gilles Muller.
But he hit top gear from then on, easily accounting for Marcos Baghdatis in the quarter-finals and Bernard Tomic in the semis before his impressive display against Dolgopolov.
“I played much better the last three matches for sure,” Murray said. “I could easily have lost the second round against Muller but I managed to fight my way through and play three very good matches.
“I felt like I was moving well right at the end of the week and hopefully the next few days before Melbourne go well.”
Dolgopolov, who has been troubled by a slight groin injury he picked up in his semi-final against Gilles Simon, acknowledged he had been outplayed and apologised to the crowd for playing “boring tennis”.
“I couldn’t move very well on the right leg and it was tough to go right and push forward,” he said.
“I just tried to do my best and stay on the court because the stadium was full and you don’t want to pull out of something like that.
“But you also don’t want to get injured so it was a fine line to keep healthy and not get worse and stay out there and play some tennis.
“I did what I can and I’m happy with my week.”
Murray said he was aware his opponent was hurting.
“When someone steps on the court you’ve just got to play it like a normal match,” he said.
“My normal game style is to try and get in a lot of rallies and work my way into points. If I just stick to that it can work well if someone wants to play quick points.
“I noticed towards the end of the first set he was trying to win the points quickly.”
Murray now heads to Melbourne, where his only outing before the Australian Open will be an exhibition match at the Kooyong Classic.
Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was acquitted Monday in a surprise end to a politically-charged sodomy trial he has called a government bid to cripple his opposition ahead of upcoming polls.
The ruling by Judge Mohamad Zabidin Diah set off pandemonium in the Kuala Lumpur High Court, with Anwar mobbed by his wife, daughters and opposition politicians in joyous scenes.
Thousands of Anwar supporters who gathered outside under heavy security erupted into cheers and raised their fists in the air as news of the verdict filtered out.
In his brief verdict announcement, Zabidin said he could not rely on controversial DNA evidence submitted by the prosecution.
“The court is always reluctant to convict on sexual offences without corroborative evidence. Therefore, the accused is acquitted and discharged,” he said.
The verdict in the more than two-year trial defied the expectations of many political observers and even Anwar himself, who said the government of Prime Minister Najib Razak was intent on eliminating him as a political threat.
It was the second sodomy verdict in a dozen years for Anwar, a former deputy premier in the 1990s who was next in line to head the country’s long-ruling government until a spectacular downfall.
The charismatic Anwar had been groomed to succeed former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad until a bitter row between them saw Anwar ousted in 1998, beaten and jailed on sodomy and graft charges widely seen as politically motivated.
Once the sodomy charge was overturned in 2004 and he was released, the affair threw Anwar into the opposition, which he led to unprecedented gains against his former ruling party in 2008 general elections.
But the new sodomy charges emerged shortly after those polls — Anwar was accused of sodomising a former male aide — sparking accusations they were concocted by the ruling United Malays National Organisation to stall the opposition revival.
Sodomy is illegal in Muslim-majority Malaysia and punishable by 20 years in jail.
Chinese held after attack on Japan’s Seoul embassy
South Korean police detained a Chinese man accused of throwing petrol bombs at the Japanese embassy in Seoul on Sunday after claiming his grandmother was forced into wartime sex slavery.
The man also claimed responsibility for an arson attack last month on Japan’s controversial Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo, said police in Seoul, who are checking his family background and past trips to Japan.
In the latest incident, the 38-year-old lobbed four molotov cocktails at the Japanese embassy, leaving burn marks on part of the outer wall, police in the South Korean capital told AFP.
“He said his deceased maternal grandmother was a ‘comfort woman’ and he was angry at the Japanese government for its refusal to properly deal with the issue,” a police officer said.
The man was from the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou and entered South Korea last month via Japan on a tourist visa, police said.
Known as “comfort women”, historians say that about 200,000 women from Korea, China, the Philippines and other countries were drafted to work in Japanese army brothels.
Japan insists the issue was settled legally four decades ago but Tokyo is coming under new pressure from South Korea to compensate elderly victims before the last of them die.
The Yasukuni shrine is dedicated to 2.5 million Japanese killed in wars — including top World War II criminals — and is often seen as a symbol of the country’s wartime aggression.
Its main wooden gate was set on fire and suffered minor damage on December 26.
South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak arrives in China on Monday for talks with his counterpart Hu Jintao that will focus on the North Korean leadership transition following the death of Kim Jong-Il.
Both countries are closely watching North Korea after the death of its longtime leader Kim Jong-Il on December 17, amid fears a power struggle could destabilise the nuclear-armed country.
Lee and Hu “will have an in-depth discussion on how to upgrade the strategic cooperative partnership between the two countries and work together for the sake of peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula”, Lee’s office said Monday.
China, North Korea’s closest ally and biggest economic partner, has thrown its support behind the new leader, Kim’s young son Jong-Un, as it seeks to maintain stability and prevent a flood of refugees spilling across its border.
The North has harshly criticised the South’s leaders since Jong-Un was declared “great successor” to his father, threatening unspecified retaliation against Seoul for perceived insults during official mourning for Kim.
The two leaders are also expected to announce that negotiations for a free trade agreement between their countries will begin in the first half of this year, the China Daily said, citing an unnamed commerce ministry official.
The growing number of Chinese boats caught fishing illegally in the Yellow Sea is also likely to be discussed after a Chinese fisherman was accused of fatally stabbing a South Korean coastguard during a raid last month.
The second death of a coastguard at the hands of Chinese fishermen in less than four years sparked widespread anger in the South.
Illegal fishing by Chinese vessels is common in South Korean waters, with at least 475 boats seized last year compared with 370 in 2010.
Lee will also meet Premier Wen Jiabao and National People’s Congress chairman Wu Bangguo during the three-day visit to Beijing.
His trip comes after Kurt Campbell, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, held talks in Beijing last week with Chinese foreign ministry officials that were focused on stability in the North.
Campbell said he urged China to stress the need for restraint to its North Korean allies.
The US also “stressed that North Korea should take steps to improve relations with the ROK (South Korea) and to abide by its international obligations and commitments”, Campbell said.
A Tibetan died after he and another man set themselves on fire in southwest China, state media said Sunday, taking the total number of such acts in the restive region to 14 in less than a year.
The incidents happened Friday near the Kirti monastery in Sichuan province’s Aba county — the scene of sporadic bouts of unrest since a young monk named Phuntsog set himself alight last March, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Rights groups say nine monks and two nuns have set themselves on fire over the past year in Sichuan to protest against the perceived religious repression of Tibetan Buddhists, of whom at least seven have died.
Another former monk had burnt himself in the Tibet Autonomous Region, where senior officials met Sunday “to strengthen the management of monasteries in the fight against the Dalai Lama group”, Xinhua reported.
The latest acts involved two former monks at Kirti, Xinhua said. An 18-year-old died in a hotel room while another man, aged 22, was being treated in hospital after they set themselves ablaze.
The London-based Free Tibet campaign group, citing eyewitness accounts, said the 22-year-old had called for the return of the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, as he set himself on fire.
The flames were extinguished and he was taken away to an undisclosed location, they said.
A woman at the local hospital declined to comment on the condition of the survivor. Calls to the county government and police went unanswered.
A spokesman for the local government told Xinhua the man in hospital had “confessed” that the two men “conspired” to set themselves on fire.
An investigation also found the pair had been involved in a number of thefts, including the “case of the Kirti monastery Buddha statue burglary”, Xinhua said.
Stephanie Brigden, head of Free Tibet, said it was a “damning indictment” on foreign governments that 14 people had set themselves on fire and “the international community has failed to respond”.
“We can only expect that such acts of protest will continue for as long as world leaders turn a blind eye to the desperate situation in Tibet,” she said in a statement.
The Dalai Lama has condemned self-immolation, which many Buddhists believe are contrary to their faith, but said recently Tibetans faced “cultural genocide” under hardline Chinese rule that he blamed for the protests.
Many Tibetans in China accuse the government of enacting religious repression and eroding their culture, as the country’s majority Han ethnic group increasingly moves into historically Tibetan areas.
But China rejects this, saying Tibetans enjoy religious freedom and pointing to huge ongoing investment, which it says has brought modernisation and a better standard of living.
Xinhua quoted Basang Toinzhub, a senior political adviser in Tibet, as saying Sunday it was “a top priority to maintain stability, enhance unity and promote harmony in Tibet because it concerns the stability of the nation”.
Indonesia jails wife of alleged Bali attacks mastermind
An Indonesian court on Wednesday sentenced the wife of the alleged mastermind of the 2002 Bali bombings to 27 months in jail for falsifying her identity.
Philippine national Ruqayyah Husein Luceno was arrested in Pakistan early last year with her husband Umar Patek in the town where Osama bin Laden was subsequently killed by US special forces.
The defendant was “found guilty legally and convincingly” of falsifying her identity in order to acquire her Indonesian passport, chief judge Suharjono told East Jakarta district court.
“She falsified her birth place from Mindanao in the Philippines to an Indonesian address. She also used a fake name,” the judge said as anti-terror police forces guarded the courtroom. Some stood behind Luceno’s chair.
With the passport, Patek and the defendant managed to fly from Jakarta to Pakistan, where they stayed for five months before the arrest in January 2011.
The sentence, which can be appealed, was lighter than the four years sought by prosecutors in a previous hearing. There was no mention of any terror charges in the indictment.
Wearing a black Muslim burqa, or veil, Luceno remained calm and silent during the hearing.
Police have said Patek will be charged with premeditated murder over the deaths of the 202 people, mostly Western tourists, who were killed in the 2002 Bali bombings. It was not clear when his trial would begin.
In a re-enactment in October, Patek demonstrated to police how he built the explosives at a boarding house on the resort island, and along with accomplices loaded them onto a vehicle.
Patek has also confessed to carrying out a series of church bombings in Indonesia on Christmas eve 2000, police said.
Born in 1970, Patek is a suspected member of the Al-Qaeda-linked Southeast Asian terror network Jemaah Islamiyah (JI).
While on the run Patek was one of Asia’s most wanted terror suspects and had a $1 million bounty on his head under the US rewards for justice programme.
“The euro is not in crisis, the currency has solidly maintained its exchange rate with the dollar,” Monti said on RAI 3 public television, adding that Italy’s “banking system is not under threat”.
“The problem we are facing is that some EU countries have a public debt crisis,” he said. “Our crisis is a systemic crisis.”
Monti, a former European commissioner who took office as Italy’s prime minister and finance minister in November, said Italian commercial banks “are not under threat”.
His comments came as Italy’s top bank UniCredit on Wednesday set a low price for the share issue to raise the 7.5 billion euros ($9.8 billion) it needs to meet new capital requirements, sending its share price plunging.
Unicredit said it would sell shares in the capital increase beginning on Monday at 1.943 euros each, which represents a 43 percent discount from their theoretical fair value based on the increase in the number of shares and Tuesday’s market price.
Referring to plans for a tax on financial transactions, Monti said the government headed by his predecessor Silvio Berlusconi had voiced its opposition at the EU level.
“I however have expressed the Italian government’s openness on that issue,” he said Sunday.
“We are prepared to work on it but never, and I mean never, if it was to apply only to Italy. By contrast, at a time when it is in our interest to cooperate closely with Germany and France, why not,” he said.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Friday that France should not wait for other European countries to get on board with the so-called Tobin tax, named after Nobel Prize-winning economist James Tobin.
Monti, who had already said on Friday he thought such a decision needed EU-wide backing, said his openness to the idea “has nothing to do with the fact that I was a student of Professor Tobin.”
Britain, which fears for the future of the City of London financial district, has said it would block any move to introduce an EU-wide Tobin tax.
Sarkozy is to hold talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Monday to harmonise their stance ahead of a January 30 European summit on the union’s debt crisis.
SINGAPORE: Some 120 top international scientists including Nobel Laureates, Prof Ada Yonath and Prof Kurt Wuthrich are now in Singapore to discuss cross—disciplinary science.
They are here for the 2nd Molecular Materials Meeting (M3) @ Singapore 2012 organised by A*STAR’s Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE).
Molecular materials science cuts across fields like chemistry, materials science, physics, biology, medicine and engineering.
For example, by combining chemistry and physics know—how, molecular materials research is used to examine the structure, alignment of molecules and crystallinity of common materials, and alters them to produce new materials with unique properties.
The speakers will cover research topics on Materials Synthesis, Assembly & Device Fabrication, Energy & Sustainable Materials, Optical & Electronic Materials, and Materials for Imaging & Sensing.
The meeting is on from January 9—11 at Level 4, Matrix Building at Biopolis, Singapore.
