Thesun 2009-02-23 Page05 Rudd We Will Rise Again

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| MONDAY FEBRUARY 23 2009

news without borders Video of airport temper tantrum a worldwide hit kong’s airport, one of the world’s busiest, in the whole of January. The clip could be on its way to become one of the most viewed 100 clips of all time on YouTube. The video was recorded on Feb 4 when the woman and two male travelling companions arrived at 5.05pm the boarding gate for flight CX782 to San Francisco – the time of the plane’s scheduled departure. When the smartly-dressed woman discovers their baggage has been offloaded, she first tries to barge her way past a security guard to get to the air bridge, then throws herself screaming onto the floor in front of the boarding gate. Some of the 15,000 comments posted at the clip were sympathetic, wondering if she was

“on her way to visit a dying sister” and the flight could have “been a matter of life and death.” But most others condemned her behaviour. “I’d like to see her reaction when she finds out this video made her world famous,” one viewer comments while another remarks: “I feel bad for her kids who have to deal with 4 million people and counting laughing at their mum.” The woman and her travelling companions were put on a flight to San Francisco that left only a few hours later once she had recovered from her outburst. Despite the huge viewer figures for the clip, the identity of the woman yesterday remained a mystery. Believed to be from mainland China, she is thought to be lying low in San Francisco until the fuss dies down. – dpa

EPAPIX

HONGKONG: It must rank as one of the most public temper tantrums of all time. By yesterday morning, nearly 4.5 million people worldwide had gone online to see a video of a middle-aged woman have an emotional meltdown after missing a flight out of Hongkong. The video clip of the unidentified passenger screaming and throwing herself to the ground after arriving at the departure gate at Hongkong International Airport too late to board a San Francisco-bound flight has clocked up new viewers at the rate of more than 600,000 a day. By yesterday morning, a little over a week after the video was first uploaded onto YouTube, the total number of viewers exceeded by half a million the number that passed through Hong-

Rudd embraces an unidentified woman at the National Mourning Day service for bushfire victims at the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne yesterday.

sembled and across the nation today is with you.” Rudd pledged that Australia would fly flags at half mast every Feb 7 to remember the victims of the “Black Saturday” bushfires. Victoria state Premier John Brumby told the memorial service that many were still picking up the pieces after the firestorms killed at least 209 people and destroyed 1,800 homes, “tearing at the very heart of communities.” “Monstrous fires... swept across our state, fires that turned day into night, that consumed all before them in an inferno of wind and smoke and flames,” he said. “These fires have united all in grief.” Mourners wore small silver bells to remember the dead and yellow ribbons as a symbol of their determination to rebuild communities razed in the infernos. Volunteer firefighters in orange overalls

attended the service, which was televised nationally and beamed to bushfire-devastated towns on giant screens. To the slow drone of an Aboriginal didgeridoo, they remembered each village and hamlet razed in the fires, some of then virtually wiped off the map. Princess Anne praised the reaction of communities to the fires. “Individuals and towns have responded with resilience, ingenuity, courage and selflessness to situations that were changing at terrifying speed,” she said. “People from around Australia and across the world watched in horror, but with admiration at their response.” Governor-General Quentin Bryce said the service, attended by many residents who had made the trip from the scorched landscape about 50km north of Melbourne, was also about making a commitment to rebuilding devastated communities. – AFP

Sri Lanka says major disaster averted in Colombo COLOMBO: Sri Lanka stepped up air defences on Saturday, a day after it said it averted a major disaster in Colombo by knocking out two Tamil Tiger aircraft packed with explosives before they reached their targets. Police and military officials said authorities expected more suicide missions from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as they steadily lose territory to advancing government forces. “They could try more desperate attacks like this,” a military official here said. “But we have placed the air defence systems on full alert and we can meet the threat.” The Tigers are believed to have had five Czech-built Zlin-143 air-

craft smuggled into the island in pieces and re-assembled. It is not known how many they have left after the government launched its all-out offensive. Military officials said another 17 Tiger rebels were killed in ground battles in the island’s north on Friday, before the group launched a kamikaze-style air raid over the capital. Meanwhile, the defence ministry said Tamil Tiger rebels gunned down 10 civilians, including two children, at a village in the east of the island on Saturday. It was the worst attack against a village in the multi-ethnic region in recent years, officials said, adding that troop reinforcements had been rushed to the area.

The authorities say Tiger rebels who are cornered in the northeast of the island could resort to more desperate attacks as they face imminent defeat. In Friday night’s air assault, the wounded included tax department staff and bystanders hit by falling debris after a Tiger plane ploughed into a uilding housing the Inland Revenue in Colombo. The identity of two people killed by the crash and the explosion that followed has not been released, but one of them was believed to be a child. Shortly after the attack, firemen and air force units recovered parts of the aircraft from the tax building. A second Tiger plane was shot down by ground-based gunners

Dying British reality TV star weds as cameras roll LONDON: Terminally ill reality television star Jade Goody married her ex-convict lover yesterday in a hurriedly arranged ceremony that dominated the media in celebrity-obsessed Britain. Goody wed 21-year-old Jack Tweed away from the public gaze at a country hotel northeast of London. Photo and film rights were sold for a reported £1 million (RM5 million). The 27-year-old Goody was unknown before she appeared on the TV programme Big Brother in 2002. She ignited a media firestorm by making racist comments about Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty when they appeared on a celebrity edition of Big Brother in 2007. Last year she announced on television she had cervical cancer. The rights money earned from the wedding will be set aside for her two boys from a previous relationship. – Reuters

Singapore youth held over terror hoax SINGAPORE: A teenager has been arrested over a hoax mobile phone message that warned of a possible terror attack in a popular shopping area, police said yesterday. The 19-year-old man, whose identity was not released, was arrested on Saturday after police received several calls from the public about the circulation of the SMS hoax, the police statement said. The police said investigations were continuing but would not reveal any further details of the alleged crime. If convicted for causing undue public alarm or fear, the teenager would face a maximum jail term of one year, a fine of up to S$5,000 (RM12,000) or both. – AFP

11-year-old boy charged with killing father’s girlfriend

Rudd: We’ll rise again MELBOURNE: Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday vowed the country would rise from the “ashes of despair” as the nation paused to remember more than 200 people killed by wildfires. Rudd – along with Britain’s Princess Anne – joined mourners in Melbourne’s 15,000-capacity Rod Laver Arena to honour those killed in the Feb 7 disaster in rural Victoria state. “We rise together in hope from the ashes of despair,” Rudd told the ceremony as the Southern Cross constellation was beamed onto the closed stadium roof. Rudd expressed sympathy for those who had experienced “unspeakable suffering” due to the bushfires but said the rest of Australia was there to support them. “No words can provide solace for grief so personal. But simply know this – you who suffer are not alone,” he said. “This great Australian family here as-

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near the international airport. A search of the wreckage found the pilot had no night vision equipment to fly in pitch darkness and had been using a pocket torch and a hand-held global positioning device. The rebels said the targets were air force facilities in the capital and that the two pilots – from the rebels’ elite “Black Air Tiger” suicide squad – both died. In neighbouring India, air defence systems were on alert for possible intrusion by rebel aircraft. The guerillas have now lost over 98% of the territory they once controlled and are confined to an area of less than 100 sq km along a coastal jungle stretch in the island’s northeast. – AFP

WASHINGTON: Pennsylvania state police on Saturday arrested an 11-year-old boy and charged him with two murders after he killed his father’s girlfriend and her unborn child, a Pittsburgh newspaper reported. Police said they believed the suspect aimed a shotgun at the back of the 26-year-old woman’s head as she slept on Friday morning, then caught the school bus along with her seven-year-old daughter and went to school. He was charged as an adult in the two homicides – the killing of the woman and a homicide involving an unborn child. The baby was expected to be born in March and died of oxygen deprivation, officials said. The killing took place in New Castle, in western Pennsylvania, 80 kilometres northwest of Pittsburgh. – dpa

Former Taiwan leader in prison hunger strike TAIPEI: Former Taiwan president Chen Shui-bian has launched a hunger strike in prison, where he is being held on charges of corruption during his time in office, officials said yesterday. Chen has refused everything but water since Friday in protest what he says is political persecution by the pro-China government that succeeded him when his maximum two terms in office ran out last year. “Chen drank some water this morning, but he skipped breakfast and refused a doctor’s offer for a check-up,” Li Ta-chu, deputy chief of the detention centre where he is being held, said. An aide to the ex-leader, Chiang Chih-ming, said Saturday that Chen was determined to voice his wrath at the government of President Ma Ying-jeou “even if it means death”. – AFP

Couple killed, husband beheaded in Thai south YALA: A married couple were shot dead by separatist rebels in Thailand’s far south yesterday, who then beheaded the husband and left his corpse in a rubber plantation, police said. The Thai man and wife, both in their late 30s, were on their way to tap rubber in Yala province at dawn yesterday when they were ambushed by the militants. When security forces arrived to investigate, insurgents used a mobile phone signal to detonate explosives at the scene, injuring one policeman, officers in the province said. It was the third decapitation in the insurgency-hit far south in three days after militants beheaded two soldiers on Friday. – AFP