Mid Day International News |
- Japan's oldest dies at 115
- US church bans interracial couples
- Rushdie dumps New York woman on Facebook
- Afghan woman's choice: Wed rapist or stay in jail
| Posted: Japan's oldest person died at the age of 115 yesterday at a care facility in Saga on the southern island of Kyushu.  Chiyono Hasegawa was born on November 20, 1896, the year when the first modern Olympic Games was held in Athens, Greece.  Old is gold: Chiyono Hasegawa, Japan's oldest died yesterday at a care facility. Meanwhile, the world's oldest living woman Besse George at 115 is still going strong. Pics/AFP Japan's oldest person is now a man, 114-year-old Jirouemon Kimura, who was born April 19, 1897. Kimura is recognised by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest living man. Besse Cooper of Monroe, Georgia, in the United States, is listed by Guinness as the world's oldest person, at 115. She was born August 26, 1896. 1896 The year in which Jirouemon Kimura was born was also the same year that the first X-ray machine was put on display
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| US church bans interracial couples Posted: A US church has been plunged into a racism row after it banned interracial couples from joining its congregation. Members at Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church, in Kentucky, have voted to prevent interracial couples from becoming members or taking part in any services other than funerals. The ban has opened a war of words between worshippers in the Pike County community and provoked accusations of discrimination. It was imposed after Stella Harville, the church secretary's daughter, attended a service with her black fiance Ticha Chikuni. Harville accompanied Chikuni on the piano as he sang the hymn I Surrender All at the service in June. Her father Dean Harville accused Melvin Thompson, the church's former pastor who crafted the resolution, of racism. "Thompson told me that Stella and her boyfriend were not allowed to sing in the church any more," said Harville. "If he's not racist, what is this?" He added that the ban was a "black eye to the church, a black eye to our community and a black eye to God". "The way I look at it, it's a slap in God's face to say something like this," he said. The resolution said that anyone is welcome to attend services, but interracial couples could not be "received as members, nor will they be used in worship services and other church functions -- with the exception being funerals". The move "was not intended to judge the salvation of anyone, but is intended to promote greater unity among the church body and the community we serve," Thompson's motion said.Thompson said, "I am not racist. I will tell you that," he said. 1967 The year in which the US made it legal for interracial couples to marry
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| Rushdie dumps New York woman on Facebook Posted: Devorah Rose, a socialite, launches an attack against the author on Twitter accusing him of being unchivalrous' At the age of 64, he could be forgiven for hoping for a quiet life. But literary ladies' man Salman Rushdie has found himself at the centre of a very public row with a young American socialite. The four-times married author has become embroiled in a dispute with New York girl Devorah Rose, who claims he unceremoniously dumped her and says she has Facebook messages that prove that he is 'unchivalrous'.  Rushdie's love fatwa: Devorah Rose was upset after Salman Rushdie claimed that they were not a couple. The Satanic Verses author is believed to have met Devorah Rose, the editor of the glossy Social Life magazine, at a party in the Hamptons and later to have joined her at a number of intimate dinners in Manhattan. But his insistence that there is no romantic relationship between the two of them, led to a scathing response from Rose, who would only give her age as in her 20s.  Devorah Rose She posted a message on Twitter reading "Never let someone paint you in a negative light" and linking it to an apparent series of Facebook messages over the summer where Salman asked if she would like to go for a drink. He later sent her a Facebook message in August, appearing to gently end a relationship. "I'm sorry to say that I don't feel able to pursue what we only just began," he wrote. I have to confess that I haven't really recovered from the recent collapse of a two-year relationship. I can't help seeing that our lives and worlds (and ages) are very different, and hard to reconcile. I think you're a dynamic, passionate, extraordinary person and I apologise for backing away so suddenly." But despite his regretful message, the pair appear to have met up since. After a rendezvous at the restaurant Indochine last week, Rose tweeted a picture of herself and a pleased-looking Sir Salman, imploring him to "come back to the states soon so that we can have a do-over". In prose that fell somewhat short of his acclaimed stories, he wrote: "You look so gorgeous and hottt!" But when the tweet prompted questions about the pair's relationship, Salman firmly denied any romantic link, saying he was "mortified" at the suggestion. Rose struck back immediately saying: "Rushdie's intentions, like his ridiculous retort, is the definition of unchivalrous behaviour. My tweet was friendly, his response was embarrassingly out of proportion, especially when he invited me to several dinners."
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| Afghan woman's choice: Wed rapist or stay in jail Posted: An Afghan woman jailed for adultery after she was raped by a relative is set to be freed -- but only after agreeing to marry the man who raped her. The case, which has highlighted the plight of Afghan women jailed for so-called moral crimes, was the subject of a documentary film funded by the European Union -- until diplomats censored it out of fear for the woman's welfare, and for their relations with the Afghan government.  Still oppressed: Human rights activists says Afghan women are still denied their rights and half the women in Afghan jails have been imprisoned for 'moral crimes'. Pic/AFP But the decision not to broadcast the film unintentionally caused a storm of publicity that resulted in Afghan President Hamid Karzai intervening in the case of the 19-year-old woman, named Gulnaz. Karzai, who is going to an international conference on Afghanistan in Bonn on Monday to seek financial support from foreign donors, ordered Gulnaz to be released on condition that she and her attacker agree to mediation. In a statement, the presidential palace said Gulnaz would be released after she agreed to become the second wife of her rapist -- a prospect that supporters say she had dreaded. In Afghan culture, marrying the father of a child born out of wedlock is seen as a way of "legitimising" the child, even in cases involving rape. Without an option The documentary's British director, Clementine Malpas, said Gulnaz's decision would have been made under duress. "She has told me that the rapist had destroyed her life because no one else would marry her after what happened to her," she said. "She feels like she has no other option than to marry him and it's the only way to bring peace between her and his family." The case is far from unique. Roughly half of the country's 600 adult female prison inmates have been imprisoned for similar "offences". Heather Barr, Human Rights Watch's Afghanistan researcher, who has spent the past month visiting female prisoners for an upcoming report on "moral crimes", welcomed the release of Gulnaz and said she hoped there was a review of all the cases of female prisoners. "There are hundreds of women in this situation and it is well overdue to look at the injustices done to them," she said.
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