Hardline India leader edges closer to prime ministerial run

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/343246/hardline-india-leader-edges-closer-to-prime-ministerial-run

Published: 31 Mar 2013 at 14.49

Controversial Indian politician Narendra Modi, tipped as the opposition’s prime ministerial candidate in the 2014 general election, was elevated to a key post in his party on Sunday.

India’s Gujarat state Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, pictured in Gandhinagar, some 30 km from Ahmedabad, on March 20, 2013. Controversial Indian politician, tipped as the opposition’s prime ministerial candidate in the 2014 general election, was elevated to a key post in his party on Sunday.

Leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appointed Modi as a member of the parliamentary board, a key decision-making body in the Hindu nationalist party which has been plagued by internal squabbles.

“Narendra Modi is a versatile leader and we are happy that he has been chosen to play a key role in the upcoming elections,” said Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, BJP vice president.

“Modi is very popular, people across the country admire his leadership skills.”

Last year Modi secured a fourth successive term as chief minister of the western state of Gujarat. Since then he has been widely seen as pushing to lead the party into the national polls.

But the 62-year-old remains a highly divisive figure nationally after being at the helm in Gujarat during bloody religious riots in 2002.

Some 2,000 people — mainly Muslims — were killed during the month-long unrest, according to rights groups.

One of Modi’s former ministers was jailed for life for instigating the killings but several investigations have cleared Modi of personal responsibility.

Political analysts said Modi’s elevation Sunday was a sign that he has won the support of his party and various Hindu organisations to lead the charge against the Congress-led ruling coalition in the general election.

The embattled Congress and the BJP are poised to go head-to-head in the polls but have yet to name their candidates for premier.

Observers have been predicting a showdown between Modi and Rahul Gandhi, the 42-year-old scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.

Gandhi — whose father, grandmother and great-grandfather have all served as prime minister — is widely expected to lead Congress into the polls after being elevated to the post of party vice-president earlier this year.

Philippines presses for payment over damaged reef

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/343247/philippines-presses-for-payment-over-damaged-reef

Published: 31 Mar 2013 at 14.49

The Philippines on Sunday welcomed the removal of a US minesweeper that had been stuck on a protected coral reef for 10 weeks, but stressed that compensation must be paid for the environmental damage.

This photo, released on March 30, 2013 by Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), shows a portion of the stern of the USS Guardian being lifted by a boat crane during its salvage operation at Tubbataha reef, off Palawan island, western Philippines.

Salvage crews contracted by the US Navy Saturday extracted the last remaining piece of the USS Guardian from the Tubbataha reef, a UNESCO World Heritage site in a remote area of the Sulu Sea.

“We maintain there must be accountability and we will enforce our existing laws,” said Herminio Coloma, a spokesman for President Benigno Aquino.

“We will adopt needed measures to prevent a repetition (of the incident),” he said.

Initial investigation showed that the ship had damaged about 4,000 square metres (43,055 square feet) of the reef, famous for its rich marine life that divers say rivals that of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

Tubbataha is a protected marine park under Philippine law, and is off limits to any vessel unless permission is granted by park authorities.

Fines can reach up to $585 for every square metre that has been damaged, officials said.

While only a small portion of the marine park has been damaged, the incident has stoked nationalist sentiment and revived debate about a controversial agreement that allows a US military presence in the country.

The United States has repeatedly apologised for the incident, but has not clearly explained why a naval vessel with state-of-the-art equipment ran aground in an area that local officials said was clearly visible in any map.

The US embassy in Manila said the 68-metre (223-foot) vessel was en route to Indonesia when the incident happened in January.

Angelique Songco, head of the Tubbataha Management Office that oversees the marine park, said US and Philippine divers would remain in the area for further clean-up operations to ensure no debris was left behind.

Indonesia president takes reins of crisis-hit party

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/343250/indonesia-president-takes-reins-of-crisis-hit-party

Published: 31 Mar 2013 at 15.49

Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono took full control of the ruling Democratic Party Sunday in a bid to salvage its tumbling popularity ahead of elections in 2014.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono answers questions during a press conference in Berlin, on March 5, 2013. Yudhoyono has taken full control of Indonesia’s ruling Democratic Party in a bid to salvage its tumbling popularity ahead of elections in 2014.

Yudhoyono, 63, who is the party’s founder and heads its executive body and advisory board, cemented his position as its most powerful member by being chosen as chairman at a party congress in Bali on Saturday.

He replaces former chairman Anas Urbaningrum, who resigned in February after being named as a suspect by the Corruption Eradication Commission.

That case was the latest in a wave of scandals which have seen several high-ranking party officials convicted for graft and named as corruption suspects in the past year.

Yudhoyono said he was taking the reins as chairman in order to “save and consolidate” the party.

“This position I am going to take is temporary, and only in the process to save and consolidate the party,” Yudhoyono told the congress following a consensus to appoint him.

“If possible I would like to end this chairman post soon after the election ends, in about a year and a half from now,” he added.

Support for the Democratic Party, which has backed Yudhoyono in two successful presidential elections, has nose-dived following the graft cases but Yudhoyono himself remains popular.

A survey in December by Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting showed that satisfaction with Yudhoyono, who was re-elected in a landslide in 2009 for his vow to fight rampant graft, remains high at 51.6 percent.

But the party’s overall popularity slumped to just 8 percent from 21 percent in the 2009 general election.

Yudhoyono said that he will remain chairman of the party until after the 2014 legislative and presidential elections — he will step down as president as he is limited to two terms under the constitution.

He added that he will prioritise his presidential duties and hand over the party’s daily chairmanship to Syariefuddin Hasan, who is also the cooperatives and small and medium enterprises minister.

Foreign investors are keen to see who will take over from Yudhoyono after the elections, and whether Indonesia — which is Southeast Asia’s leading economy — can maintain stability post-2014.

The Democratic Party is expected to endorse a figure to run for the presidency next year.

Religious ‘radicals’ driving Myanmar unrest: experts

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/343245/religious-radicals-driving-myanmar-unrest-experts

Published: 31 Mar 2013 at 13.49

Two years after a repressive junta ceded power, Myanmar is grappling with a surge in religious extremism that experts trace to anti-Muslim “provocateurs” including radical Buddhist monks.

Buildings burn around a mosque in riot-hit Meiktila, central Myanmar, on March 21, 2013. Two years after a repressive junta ceded power, Myanmar is grappling with a surge in religious extremism that experts trace to anti-Muslim “provocateurs” including radical Buddhist monks.

At least 43 people have been killed while mosques and Muslim homes have been destroyed over the past fortnight in central Myanmar, in a wave of violence that witnesses say seems to have been well organised.

“It is clear that there are some agents provocateurs with radical anti-Muslim agendas at work in the country — including influential Buddhist monks preaching intolerance and hatred of Muslims,” said Jim Della-Giacoma, a Myanmar expert with the International Crisis Group think-tank.

“Also, the systematic and methodical way in which Muslim neighbourhoods were razed to the ground is highly suggestive of some degree of advance planning by radical elements,” he added.

Monks — once at the forefront of the pro-democracy movement and viewed with reverence in this devout Buddhist-majority nation — have been linked to the unrest.

Some members of the clergy have been involved in the violence, while others are spearheading a move to shun shops owned by Muslims and only visit stores run by Buddhists, identified by stickers showing the number “969”, which has become a symbol of their campaign.

“When the profit goes to the enemy’s hand, our nationality, language and religion are all harmed,” said Wirathu, a monk from Mandalay whose anti-Muslim remarks have come under recent scrutiny.

“They will take girls with this money. They will force them to convert religion. All children born to them will be a danger to the country. They will destroy the language as well as the religion,” he said in a speech put online.

More moderate voices among civil society activists and religious leaders are calling for the country to defuse violence that has cast a shadow over the Buddhist-majority nation’s political reforms.

“We need to fight this incitement by a group of bad people,” said Thet Swe Win, a human rights activist who co-organised a recent “Pray for Myanmar” peace event in Rangoon.

“We must prevent racial and religious disputes,” he added.

The apparent spark for the recent violence was an argument in a gold shop in the town of Meiktila on March 20 that escalated into a full-scale riot.

Since then armed gangs have roamed from town to town in central Myanmar razing mosques and Muslim homes.

It follows Buddhist-Muslim clashes in the western state of Rakhine last year that left at least 180 people dead, mostly minority Muslim Rohingya who are viewed by many Burmese as illegal Bangladeshi immigrants.

A wave of hate has swept across social media websites targeting the Rohingya, who have long been denied citizenship by Myanmar’s government, which — like many Burmese — refers to them as “Bengalis”.

Recently, however, the violence has also targeted Muslims with Myanmar citizenship, some of whose families came to the country more than a century ago from India, Bangladesh or China.

Speaking to AFP, monk Wirathu denied that he was against all Muslims, and said the “969” movement was unrelated to the recent unrest.

“We just targeted Bengalis who are terrorising ethnic Rakhine (Buddhists),” the 45-year-old said.

“We are just preaching to prevent Bengalis entering the country and to stop them insulting our nationalities, language and religion,” he added.

In an effort to stem the violence, the government has declared a state of emergency and deployed troops in the worst-hit areas.

The United Nations’ human rights envoy to the country, Tomas Ojea Quintana, has said the reluctance of security forces to crack down on the unrest suggests a possible state link to the fighting — comments rejected by Myanmar.

On Thursday, President Thein Sein appeared on national television to address the nation, warning unidentified “political opportunists and religious extremists” that their actions “will not be tolerated.”

It was a “courageous” speech, according to independent analyst Mael Raynaud.

“A Myanmar president addressing the nation directly and talking about religious extremism clearly aimed at Buddhist monks — that’s never been seen before,” he said.

In contrast, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who many believe has her sights set firmly on the next election in 2015, has not yet spoken publicly about the recent clashes.

“Now is the time for political leaders to rise to the challenge of shaping public opinion, rather than just following it,” Della-Giacomo said.

Suu Kyi “must be prepared to vocally and unambiguously take the side of peace and tolerance”, he added.

North Korea’s joint industrial estate open

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/343240/joint-industrial-estate-open-despite-n-korea-threat

Published: 31 Mar 2013 at 11.49

An inter-Korea joint industrial complex, which lies inside North Korea, was operating normally despite the North’s threat to shut it down, a Seoul official said.

South Korean soldiers check vehicles on a road linked to the Kaesong Industrial Complex, on February 13, 2013. The complex, which lies inside North Korea, was operating normally despite the North’s threat to shut it down, a Seoul official said.

The complex in the city of Kaesong, just north of the border, was running as usual after Pyongyang warned of a potential closure as it declared a “state of war” with the South on Saturday, said Seoul’s Unification Ministry.

“There has been no problem so far in operations of the Kaesong complex,” a spokesman of the ministry handling cross-border affairs told AFP without elaborating.

The Kaesong Industrial Complex, which lies 10 kilometres (six miles) inside North Korea, was built by the South in 2004 as a symbol of cross-border cooperation.

Around 53,000 North Koreans work at plants for 120 South Korean firms at the complex, which serves as a crucial source of hard currency for the impoverished communist state.

Tensions are ratcheted high between North and South Korea and on Saturday Pyongyang warned Seoul and Washington that any provocation would swiftly escalate into an all-out nuclear conflict.

It was the latest in a recent string of threats from Pyongyang, which have been met by tough warnings from Seoul and Washington, fuelling international concern that the situation might spiral out of control.

The Kaesong complex has remained largely immune to strains on cross-border relations and has continued to produce goods from shoes to watches, despite tension heightened by the North’s recent nuclear test and long-range rocket launch.

But there had been concerns that operations at the complex would be affected by Pyongyang’s move last week to sever the military hotline used to monitor movement in and out of the zone.

The line was used daily to provide the North with the names of those seeking entry to Kaesong, guaranteeing their safety as they crossed one of the world’s most heavily militarised borders.

The two Koreas have technically remained at war since the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty. The North declared the armistice void earlier in March.

US strategy takes Korean crisis into new territory

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/343233/us-strategy-takes-korean-crisis-into-new-territory

Published: 31 Mar 2013 at 09.49

Soaring tensions on the Korean peninsula have seen dire North Korean threats met with an unusually assertive US response that analysts warn could take a familiar game into dangerous territory.

This photo taken on March 28, 2013 and released by North Korea’s official news agency shows leader Kim Jong-Un in Pyongyang. Soaring tensions on the Korean peninsula have seen dire North Korean threats met with an unusually assertive US response that analysts warn could take a familiar game into dangerous territory.

By publicly highlighting its recent deployment of nuclear-capable B-52 and stealth bombers over South Korea, Washington has, at times, almost appeared to be purposefully goading an already apoplectic Pyongyang.

“There certainly seems to be an element of ‘let’s show we’re taking the gloves off this time’ about the US stance,” said Paul Carroll, program director at the Ploughshares Fund, a US-based security policy think-tank.

And the North has responded in kind, declaring on Saturday that it was now in a “state of war” with South Korea.

Security crises on the Korean peninsula have come and gone over the decades and have tended to follow a similar pattern of white-knuckle brinkmanship that threatens but finally pulls back from catastrophic conflict.

North Korea’s founding leader Kim Il-Sung and his son and successor Kim Jong-Il were both considered skilled practitioners of this high-stakes game of who-blinks-first diplomacy.

And they ensured Pyongyang had enough form to lend its threats credibility, having engineered provocations that ranged from blowing up a South Korean civilian airliner in 1987 to shelling a South Korean island in 2010.

The current crisis, with Pyongyang lashing out at a combination of UN sanctions and South Korea-US military exercises, diverges from precedent in terms of the context and the main characters involved.

It follows the two landmark events that triggered the UN sanctions and re-drew the strategic balance on the peninsula: The North’s successful long-range rocket launch in December and its third — and largest — nuclear test in February.

Both may have emboldened North Korea to overplay its hand, while at the same time prompting Washington to decide there was already too much at stake to consider folding.

“Rhetorical salvoes are one thing, while rocket launches and nuclear tests are quite another,” said Carroll.

In addition, both North and South Korea have new, untested leaders with a strong domestic motivation to prove their mettle in any showdown.

Bruce Klingner, a Korea expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, believes the danger of “miscalculation” is especially high from North Korea’s young supremo Kim Jong-Un.

Kim was not only emboldened by the successful rocket and nuclear tests, but “also by the knowledge that Seoul and Washington have never struck back in any significant way after previous deadly attacks”.

This time around, however, South Korea has signalled it would respond with interest, and the message sent by the B-52 and stealth bomber flights is that it has the US firmly in its corner.

Peter Hayes, who heads the Nautilus Institute, an Asia-focused think tank, points out that the B-52 deployment carried a particular — and potentially dangerous — resonance.

After a bloody border incident in 1976 left two American soldiers dead, the United States spent weeks sending flights of B-52 bombers up the Korean peninsula, veering off just before they entered the North’s air space.

Then US secretary of state Henry Kissinger commented that he had “never seen the North Koreans so scared”.

Hayes warned that replaying the B-52 threat could prove to be “strategically stupid” by reviving the North’s historic and deep-rooted fear of a US nuclear strike.

“The B-52 deployment also declares loudly and clearly that they have forced the US to play the game of nuclear war with North Korea,” Hayes said.

“It tells them it has reached the hallowed status of a nuclear-armed state that matters enough to force a simulated nuclear-military response,” he added.

The possible end-game scenarios to the current crisis are numerous, but none point to an obvious path for defusing the situation peacefully.

Most analysts rule out the prospect of a full-scale war on the grounds that North Korea knows it would lose, just as it knows that launching any sort of nuclear strike would be suicidal.

But after threatening everything from an artillery assault to nuclear armageddon, there is also a sense that Kim Jong-Un has pushed himself into a corner and must do something to avoid a damaging loss of face and credibility.

A provocative missile test fired into the sea over Japan is one option with a relatively low risk of further escalation.

Several analysts had originally predicted a limited artillery strike similar to the 2010 shelling of Yeonpyeong island, but the US and South Korean vows of a tough response have called into question just how “limited” such a move would prove to be.

Scott Snyder, a senior fellow for Korea studies with the Council on Foreign Relations, suggested that the United States, having delivered its message loud and clear, should now provide Kim with a way out.

“There is a need for the United States and South Korea to offer some clear diplomatic gestures of reassurance toward the North that can help the North Koreans climb down, calm down, and change course,” Snyder said.

Trial begins in India gang-rape of Swiss cyclist

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/343224/trial-begins-in-india-gang-rape-of-swiss-cyclist

Published: 31 Mar 2013 at 05.49

The trial of six men accused in the shocking gang-rape and robbery of a 39-year-old Swiss cyclist holidaying in India began on Saturday, police said.

An Indian man walks outside the Saket District court in New Delhi on March 13, 2013. The trial of six men accused in the shocking gang-rape and robbery of a 39-year-old Swiss cyclist holidaying in India began on Saturday, police said.

The six were detained soon after the attack two weeks ago in a remote, forested area in Datia district in central Madhya Pradesh state where the woman was camping with her husband.

The trial opened with two prosecution witnesses recording statements and identifying possessions stolen from the Swiss couple that were recovered by police, the Press Trust of India reported.

The Swiss couple were not present during the proceedings and the court is likely to ask them to appear before it, the news agency said.

Judge Jitendra Kumar Sharma said the next hearing will be held in April when another prosecution witness, who helped the victim, will testify.

The Swiss woman was allegedly gang-raped on March 15. Her 30-year-old husband was tied up as the woman was assaulted and the pair were also robbed, according to police.

Only four of the six were charged with gang-rape because testimony from the victim said two of them were “only present at the crime scene”, according to M.L. Dhody, a Datia police officer.

The other two accused are charged with assault and robbery.

Five of the suspects are farmers in their twenties while the sixth is 19, police said.

The incident came three months after the fatal gang-rape of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student on a bus in Delhi, which sparked nationwide outrage.

The public anger prompted parliament to toughen sex offence laws including doubling the minimum prison sentence for gang-rape to 20 years.

The Swiss couple were cycling through northern India. The accused allegedly saw the pair pitching their tent and attacked them. The Press Trust of India said at least one of them was armed with a shotgun.

Karzai to hold talks in Qatar on Taliban office

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/343222/karzai-to-hold-talks-in-qatar-on-taliban-office

Published: 31 Mar 2013 at 04.49

Afghan President Hamid Karzai was set to hold discussions in Qatar on Sunday about the proposed opening of a Taliban office in the Gulf state as a prelude to possible talks on ending more than a decade of war.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, pictured in Kabul, on March 6, 2013. Karzai was set to hold discussions in Qatar on Sunday on the possible opening of a Taliban office in the Gulf state that could facilitate peace talks to end more than a decade of war.

Karzai previously opposed such a Qatar venue since he feared that his government would be frozen out of any peace negotiations involving the Islamic extremists and the United States.

The militants refuse to have direct contact with the Afghan president, saying he is a puppet of the United States, which supported his rise to power after the military operation to oust the Taliban from Kabul in 2001.

But with US-led NATO combat troops due to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, Karzai agreed to the proposed Taliban office in Doha and is expected to raise the plan in talks with the Emir of Qatar on Sunday.

Any future peace talks still face numerous hurdles before they begin, including confusion over who would represent the Taliban and Karzai’s insistence that his appointees should be at the centre of negotiations.

“We will discuss the peace process, of course, and the opening of an office for the Taliban in Qatar,” presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi told AFP before Karzai left Kabul on Saturday.

“If we want to have talks to bring peace to Afghanistan, the main side must be the Afghan government’s representatives — the High Peace Council, which has members from all the country’s ethnic and political backgrounds,” Faizi added.

Negotiating with the hardline Taliban regime that harboured Al-Qaeda before the 9/11 attacks was for many years anathema to countries in the UN-backed coalition against the militants.

But the search for a political settlement became a priority as the insurgency raged on, with Taliban leaders able to fuel violence from safe havens across the border in Pakistan.

Kabul has repeatedly stressed that it will only start talks if the militants break all links with Al-Qaeda and give up violence, and Faizi said that any Taliban office in Qatar must be subject to strict conditions.

“It can only be an address where the armed opposition sit and talk to the Afghanistan government,” he said. “This office cannot be used for any other purposes.”

The United Nations this week welcomed news that Karzai would visit Qatar, and issued another call for the Taliban to come to the negotiating table.

“You are Afghans, you care, I assume, about your country, you care about (a) peaceful stable future of the country,” Jan Kubis, the UN envoy to Afghanistan, said.

But a Qatar office could mean little if the Taliban continue to refuse to negotiate with Karzai or the government-appointed High Peace Council.

“The opening of the Taliban office in Qatar is not related to Karzai, it is a matter between the Taliban and the Qatar government,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP.

“Our representatives who are already in Qatar won’t see or talk to him.”

The Islamist militants broke off tentative contacts with the US in Qatar a year ago after the failure of attempts to agree on a prisoner exchange as a confidence-building measure.

Neighbouring Pakistan, which backed the Taliban’s 1996-2001 rule over Afghanistan, is seen as key to any workable peace deal and has expressed support for the Taliban office in Doha.

But cross-border relations have worsened sharply in recent weeks, with Kabul accusing Islamabad of wrecking efforts to end the bloody 11-year insurgency.

A statement from Karzai’s office said he was accompanied on the two-day state visit by Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul and Salahuddin Rabbani, chairman of the High Peace Council.

Animal Kingdom rules in Dubai World Cup

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/343176/animal-kingdom-rules-in-dubai-world-cup

Published: 31 Mar 2013 at 01.49

Animal Kingdom galloped to a resounding victory in the $10 million Dubai World Cup on Saturday, in the process becoming the ninth American-trained winner in the 18-year history of the world’s richest race.

Jockey Joel Rosario celebrates after leading Animal Kingdom to win the $10 million Dubai World Cup, the world’s richest race, at Meydan race track in Dubai on March 30, 2013.

Trained by Graham Motion, the five-year-old horse tracked front-running Royal Delta before jockey Joel Rosario sent him clear early in the home straight.

He won by two lengths from fast-closing Red Cadeaux, with Planteur replicating his finishing position 12 months ago in third place, a further 4 3/4 lengths in arrears at the end of the 2,000-metre test.

For Rosario, victory came on his first ride at Meydan, the state-of-the-art racecourse opened in 2010.

“I’ve never been here before but I knew we had a chance,” Rosario said. “I watched a lot of past races and had an idea where we needed to be (through the race).”

Victory for Animal Kingdom was just reward for connections of a horse that was due to contest last year’s World Cup until he injured a leg three weeks beforehand and was withdrawn.

However, Motion was handsomely compensated for his patience with the injury-prone Animal Kingdom, who returned from the 2011 Belmont Stakes with another injury.

He had earlier won the Kentucky Derby on just his fourth racecourse start.

“I’m numb,” Motion said afterwards. “In many ways it was a little like the Kentucky Derby in that he seemed to draw off so easily. I thought it would be a shame if something came and beat him after that.”

Australia’s Arrowfield Stud recently acquired a 75 per cent share in Animal Kingdom from the American entity, Team Valor, and is expected to stand him as a stallion in due course.

Before then, Animal Kingdom might take aim at the Royal Ascot meeting in June.

Stall 12 had been billed as a possible impediment to Animal Kingdom, who habitually likes to settle in rear before charging home with a late run.

However, after a moderate break this time, Rosario took the horse forward so that he emerged from the first bend immediately behind Royal Delta.

Godolphin’s Hunter’s Light, the much-fancied local hope, stalked the pace but raced with too much zest to sustain his effort. He came home in seventh place.

As the winner powered clear, Red Cadeaux came out of the pack to claim $2 million for finishing second.

“This horse never ceases to amaze me,” said Red Cadeaux’s jockey, Gerald Mosse.

“To run second in the Dubai World Cup and get within two lengths of Animal Kingdom, I’ve got to be happy with that.”

Victory for Animal Kingdom redressed the balance for American-trained horses, which have suffered a series of disappointments since the World Cup surface was changed from dirt to a synthetic surface three years ago.

The horse was already proven on synthetics, having won the 2011 Spiral Stakes at Turfway Park, in Kentucky, ahead of winning the Kentucky Derby.

The World Cup was deprived of last year’s winner at the eleventh hour when Monterosso was withdrawn in the morning through lameness.

Monterosso’s intended jockey, Mickael Barzalona, switched to African Story but the combination could only finish fifth in the 12-strong field.

In the main supporting race, the $5 million Sheema Classic over 2,400 metres, Japan’s Gentildonna threw down a challenge to St Nicholas Abbey, who led early in the home straight, but the Irish challenger ran on too strongly to prevail by 2 1/4 lengths.

The winner is trained by Aidan O’Brien for the the long-established partnership comprising Derrick Smith, John Magnier and Michael Tabor, which was also responsible for $1 million UAE Derby winner Lines Of Battle.

O’Brien said Lines Of Battle would now be prepared for a tilt at the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs.

Taiwan president’s confidant detained on graft claims

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/343172/taiwan-president-confidant-detained-on-graft-claims

Published: 30 Mar 2013 at 23.49

A Taiwanese politician known for her close ties with the president has been taken into custody on suspected corruption, a court said on Saturday, in the latest graft scandal to hit the island.

Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou addresses a ceremony in Taipei, on February 28, 2013. A Taiwanese politician known for her close ties with the president has been taken into custody on suspected corruption, in the latest graft scandal to hit the island.

Lai Su-ju, a member of the Taipei City Council, was detained on the grounds that she could collude with witnesses and other suspects in the case to cover up the alleged crime, the Taipei district court said in a statement.

According to the court, Lai has admitted to accepting Tw$1 million ($33,500) from a businessman but claimed that it was a political donation rather than a bribe in connection with a construction project in the capital Taipei.

Local media said Lai solicited at least Tw$10 million and took the Tw$1 million as a downpayment for her help to facilitate the Tw$70 billion project, although prosecutors declined to confirm.

President Ma Ying-jeou on Friday apologised after Lai was implicated in the island’s latest corruption scandal and urged her to “bravely face the judiciary to clarify the case and reveal the truth”.

Lai, 49, was a rising star in the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party and formerly served as its spokeswoman. As a lawyer, she has represented the president and other top politicians in several high-profile court cases.

She became the second KMT politician with close links to the president to be implicated in a corruption scandal since October, when former party vice chairman and cabinet secretary-general Lin Yi-shih was indicted on graft charges.

Observers said Lin’s case dealt a heavy blow to Ma, who was re-elected for a second and final four-year term last year pledging to fight corruption.

Taiwan has been rocked by a string of corruption cases involving top officials in recent years, including ex-president Chen Shui-bian who is currently serving a 20-year jail term on multiple graft convictions.