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WEEKLY UPDATE
‘Scooby Doo’ top dog at N. American box office
LOS ANGELES: Scooby Doo was top dog at the North American box office last weekend, making 29.4 million dollars, according to final figures released Monday.
Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed brought teen idol Freddie Prinze Jr. and former Buffy the Vampire Slayer star Sarah Michelle Gellar back onto the big screen with the cowardly animated dog detective with an insatiable appetite. — AFP
Robots substitute child camel jockeys
DOHA: Robots have been used as jockeys in Qatar for camel races, a favourite sport in the Gulf which has faced widespread criticism over the use of young children from the Indian sub-continent in such races.
“A race organized on Sunday saw for the first time the use of robot-jockeys, to the surprise of the crowd,” said the president of the organizing committee of camel races in Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Faisal al-Thani.
Thani, quoted in Doha newspapers, said the practice would be repeated and widened.
The Gulf Arab monarchies are trying to bring order to the national sport of camel racing in the face of protests over the trafficking of children as jockeys.
The US State Department and human rights groups have raised the alarm over the exploitation of small children by traffickers who pay impoverished parents a paltry sum or simply resort to kidnapping their victims.
The children, mostly from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka or Pakistan, are then smuggled into the Gulf states.
They are often starved by employers to keep them light and maximize their racing potential. Mounting camels three times their height, the children — some as young as six — face the risk of being thrown off or trampled. — AFP
Prince opens his own online music store
NEW YORK: Pop music star Prince announced his own online music store offering downloads of his songs, calling it “the first artist-owned, independent download store of its kind.”
A statement by Prince announced the launch of the “Musicology Download Store” within his NPG Music Club website.
The site will be a music download source for Prince’s new album “Musicology” as well as all his independent music.
The launch came in the wake of several legal download websites aiming to offer consumers an alternative to illicit file-swapping that the recording industry is trying to halt.
Like some of the other sites, he will offer downloads at 99 cents per song. — AFP
SAF games open with a colourful ceremony
ISLAMABAD: The South Asian Federation (SAF) games opened here on Monday, after being postponed three times since 2001, with a colourful ceremony that lit up the sky with laser shows and fireworks.
“I declare the ninth South Asian Federation Games open,” President Pervez Musharraf announced to a capacity crowd of some 45,000 guests including around 2,000 athletes and officials from eight countries.
Athletes from Afghan-istan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan will compete in 15 disciplines until April 7.
The games are taking place under tight security because of recent attacks in Pakistan, including two attempts on Musharraf’s life in December. — AFP
Michael Jackson named most foolish American
LOS ANGELES: Beleaguered pop star Michael Jackson and his little sister Janet have earned the dubious distinctions of being named the most foolish Americans of 2004, organizers of the annual awards announced on Tuesday.
It marked the second time in a row that the “King of Pop” has snatched the April Fools’ Day award as the “Most Foolish American” in a US telephone survey.
In the poll of 1,016 Americans carried out by New York-based public relations consultant Jeff Barge, 77 per cent of respondents voted Michael Jackson to the top of the fool’s list. Janet Jackson came in a close second, backed by 70 per cent of respondents. — AFP
Desert storms pose threat to health, environment
JEJU, South Korea: Monster sandstorms blowing in from the deserts of Mongolia and northern China and reaching as far afield as the west coast of the United States are an increasing threat to health and the environment, experts warned on Wednesday.
The storms, which soak up toxic pollution as they cross China’s heavily industrialized northern areas, are five times more frequent than they were five decades ago, they said.
The storms figure high on agenda at the UN Environ-ment Programme’s (UNEP) three-day conference for environment ministers and officials from more than 150 nations.
UNEP executive director Klaus Toepfer said the hazardous sandstorms were evidence of “the globalization of environmental problems.”
“We are worried about the creep of environmental problems — their disrespect of political boundaries — and the way they threaten to compound and disrupt the function of major natural systems,” Toepfer said. — AFP
Shark attack at Brazilian beach
RIO DE JANEIRO: A 22-year-old swimmer lost his left leg after being attacked by a shark while body-surfing on a beach in northeastern Brazil, officials said.
Alcindo de Souza Leao Jr, 22, was attacked in an area known for shark attacks along the coast of Pernambuco state near the state capital of Recife, rescue officials said. There have been 47 shark attacks in the area, 14 fatal, since 1999. —APP/AFP
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