Children have rights too … right?

Heidi Munan

COMMENT Oliver Twist should have lived to see this day. So should Jane Eyre, poor cousin Smike, Orphan Annie, and all the famous waifs of fiction. So should the millions of non-fiction children who grew up in poverty and neglect. Or didn’t live long enough to grow up.

Reuters:Taiwan ex-president, wife get life for corruption

 Taiwan ex-president, wife get life for corruption

A Taiwan court today sentenced former president Chen Shui-bian to life in jail for corruption at the climax of a trial that the pro-independence leader slammed as a political vendetta. 

Singapore jailed the Malay Muslim man who hit a Jew

SINGAPORE, Sept 11 — He had the words ‘ANTI JEWS’ tattooed on his face and Azmi Osman showed the hostility he felt in February this year when he punched a Jewish man on the arm without any apparent reason.

Yesterday, the unemployed man, 34, became the first to be convicted of a religiously motivated assault and of promoting enmity between different groups with the tattoo on the right side of his face.

Azmi, who has schizophrenia, pleaded guilty to the two charges and two others of armed robbery and causing hurt by using a dangerous weapon at an NTUC FairPrice outlet in Bedok on April 24. He was sentenced to three years’ jail and 12 strokes of the cane by Community Court judge Ng Peng Hong.

Paris Hilton’s wisdom immortalised in book of quotations

Paris Hilton’s wisdom immortalised in book of quotations

Picture source.          SYDNEY, Sept 11 — Words of wisdom from Paris Hilton are to be immortalised alongside remarks by some of the greatest thinkers of all time in the latest edition of the Oxford Book of Quotations — and she reckons it’s “so cool”.

Hilton, the socialite turned reality TV star and retailing phenomenon, is listed in the latest version of the 65-year-old dictionary, released this week, alongside the likes of Confucius, Oscar Wilde and Stephen Hawking. Her contribution? “Dress cute wherever you go, life is too short to blend in.”

Myanmar junta siphons gas revenue offshore without using for the country

BANGKOK, Sept 10 (Reuters) – Myanmar’s military has transferred billions of dollars from a gas project into two banks operating in Singapore, contributing to “high-level corruption”, a U.S.-based environmental group said on Thursday.

A report by non-profit Earth Rights International (ERI) said the junta had transferred $4.83 billion since 2000 from a gas pipeline, money that was kept off the national budget and stored in the banks operating in the city-state.

“Rather than contribute to Burma’s economic development, the billion dollar revenues from the project have instead contributed to high-level corruption,” the report said. The money, it said, came from the controversial Yadana gas project involving energy companies Chevron Corp of the United States, France’s Total and Thailand’s PTTEP .