Beer-drinking Malaysian model wants public caning

Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno will be the first woman in the multicultural country to be caned under Islamic law

KUALA LUMPUR — A model who will be caned six times in Malaysia next week for drinking beer appealed Thursday for her punishment to be carried out in public to deter other Muslims.

Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, 32, was also fined 5,000 ringgit (1,400 dollars) last month after she pleaded guilty to drinking alcohol at a hotel nightclub in the eastern state of Pahang last year.

She will be the first woman in the multicultural country to be caned under Islamic law, with the punishment set to be meted out in a female prison.

But the Malaysian mother of two, who lives in neighbouring Singapore, said Thursday that she wanted to be caned publicly.

"It will be a more effective way to educate Muslims not to drink if I am caned in public. I want to send this message to other Muslims and I am sincere," Kartika told AFP.

"I am willing to be caned publicly or in front of a mosque, but the prosecutor has told my dad today that this cannot be done. I also requested for journalists to witness the caning in prison but it is not allowed."

Kartika, who has lived in Singapore for 15 years after marrying a citizen of the city-state, said she had the support of her parents and husband to be publicly punished.

She denies using her sentencing as a way to boost her part-time modelling career.

"I am not thinking about popularity or modelling, I am only thinking about my religion and want to tell Muslims to stay away from alcohol," she said.

Malaysia, which has large Chinese and Indian minorities, has a dual-tracked legal system and sharia courts can try Muslims for religious offences.Link...

Reality TV star sought in death may be in Canada

This image provided by the Los Angeles Police Department shows Jasmine Fiore, who has been identified as the woman whose body was found stuffed inside a suitcase and placed in a dumpster and discovered Aug. 15, 2009. Police said Ryan Alexander Jenkins, 32, a reality TV personality, is a "person of interest" in her death. (AP Photo/Los Angeles Police Department)

BUENA PARK, Calif. — A county sheriff's office in Washington state said Thursday that a former reality television contestant wanted for questioning in the death of his ex-wife has apparently escaped into Canada.

Ryan Alexander Jenkins, 32, was a contestant on the VH1 reality TV show "Megan Wants a Millionaire." Police said Wednesday that they want to question him as a "person of interest" in the death of Jasmine Fiore, 28, a former model whose nude body was found over the weekend stuffed into a suitcase in a Buena Park, Calif., trash bin.

The Whatcom County Sheriff's Office in northwest Washington said deputies received word Wednesday that Jenkins, who is Canadian, could be in the county. They found his car and an empty boat trailer at a marina in Blaine.

They had a report that a man matching his description arrived by boat at Point Roberts, U.S. territory about 10 miles away at the tip of a peninsula reachable by land only from Canada. Authorities believe Jenkins walked across the border to British Columbia.

After taping for the VH1 series finished, Jenkins met Fiore in Las Vegas casino in March and the two soon got married, said Fiore's mother, Lisa Lepore.

But in May, "they had a big blowout," Lepore said. "She had the marriage annulled."

At least one actor who appeared on "Millionaire" with Jenkins at a mansion in the Hollywood Hills was shocked by the latest developments and remembered a suave bachelor who grew in confidence as taping progressed.

Jenkins earned the nickname "Smooth Operator" because of "his cheeky cockiness. And I mean that in a friendly way," said Rob Locke, who played the host, a butler named Niles.

"We were all under the impression that he was single. Then I saw on Facebook that he got married and there were photos of him and his wife. My personal observation was, 'Wow, that was quick,'" Locke said, adding that taping ended in March.

Fiore's mother said her daughter and Jenkins had been fighting after a quickie Las Vegas wedding, and that he was jealous of her ex-boyfriends.

Court records show that Jenkins was charged in June in Clark County, Nev., with a misdemeanor count of "battery constituting domestic violence" for hitting Fiore in the arm and will be tried in December.

Jenkins also has a criminal history in his hometown of Calgary, Canada. He was sentenced to 15 months of probation in January 2007 on an unspecified assault charge, according to the Alberta, Canada Ministry of Justice. No further details were available.

Neal Tomlinson, a partner at the law firm representing Jenkins in the Nevada case, declined to comment and declined to say if his firm was representing Jenkins in the current matter.

Fiore was last seen alive with Jenkins at a poker game in San Diego. Jenkins reported her missing Saturday night to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, police said.

It's still not clear how Fiore died, although a preliminary coroner's report indicated she was strangled.

Jenkins, variously described as an architect, real estate developer and investment banker from Calgary, appeared in three episodes of the series "Megan Wants a Millionaire," about a woman seeking to land a wealthy bachelor by putting suitors through their paces, such as designing a marketing campaign for her pet Chihuahua.

On the show, Jenkins was identified as an investment banker who had a couple million dollars.

A resume posted on the professional networking site LinkedIn.com says Jenkins graduated from Mount Royal College in Calgary in 1999, has a license to fly commercial airplanes and worked in investment sales and as president of a boutique development company focused on cutting-edge green technologies.

Fiore and Jenkins got married in Las Vegas on March 18, according to a Clark County marriage certificate.

It was a spontaneous marriage and by May, Fiore had the marriage annulled because "she didn't trust him because he was doing (things) behind her back," Lepore said. She declined to say what the incident involved.

Jenkins then went to Mexico to do another reality TV show, but struggled to get Fiore back when he returned. It was not immediately clear which show he appeared on.

"He convinced her during that month that he was really the guy for her," Lepore said. "He wrote poems and stories, and prayed, and (claimed he) had this huge spiritual awakening."

VH1 said in a statement Wednesday that it has postponed any future airings of the show. The statement also said that the show was an outside production licensed to VH1, but that it was produced and owned by 51 Minds Entertainment.

A message left at 51 Minds was not returned.Link...

Myanmar's Suu Kyi begins house arrest amid outrage

ANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi awoke at her lakeside home Wednesday to begin the first full day of her latest house arrest, following her globally condemned conviction that lawyers said they would promptly appeal.

Only China — Myanmar's top trading partner and key ally — asked the world to accept the decision.

"The international community should fully respect Myanmar's judicial sovereignty," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said in a statement Wednesday. He said China hopes Myanmar can "gradually realize stability, democracy and development."

Suu Kyi, a 64-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was convicted Tuesday by a Myanmar court of violating her previous house arrest by allowing an uninvited American who swam to her home to stay for two days. She has already spent 14 of the past 20 years under house arrest — but Tuesday marked her first conviction.

Suu Kyi now begins 18 more months in detention behind a new barbed-wire fence that was erected at the lakeside entrance to her home, where American John Yettaw had entered.

She was initially sentenced to three years in prison with hard labor, but it was quickly reduced to 18 months of house arrest by the military-ruled country's chief, Senior Gen. Than Shwe. That will remove her from the political scene next year when the junta plans to hold its first elections since 1990, when her party won overwhelmingly but was never allowed to take power.

Suu Kyi's lawyers said they would appeal the conviction immediately and were applying for permission to visit her.

Later Wednesday, witnesses said a group of her lawyers visited her home. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

According to the regulations for her new house arrest, Suu Kyi can receive visitors at her home only with permission from authorities.

The country's state-run newspapers, which many normally don't bother to read, were sold out Wednesday with people eager to learn about the verdict.

"I am not surprised that (Suu Kyi) was sentenced to three years because that is what the government wants to do, keep her locked up during the elections," said Soe Nyunt, a 34-year-old grocery shop owner.

"It was at least a relief that Daw Suu is kept in her house. I had thought the government would keep her inside Insein prison," said Moe Moe, a 45-year-old school teacher. Daw is a respectful term for a woman.

Her conviction and continued detention were condemned by world leaders and sparked demonstrations in cities from London to Japan on Tuesday. The European Union began preparing new sanctions against the country's military regime, and a group of 14 Nobel laureates, including the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, called on the U.N. Security Council to take strong action against the country.

President Barack Obama termed the conviction a violation of the universal principle of human rights and said Suu Kyi should be released immediately.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called for the release of more than 2,000 political prisoners, including Yettaw, who was convicted along with Suu Kyi and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment with hard labor.

Yettaw's lawyer, Khin Maung Oo, said Wednesday that he was preparing documents to file an appeal.

"I will try my utmost to get my client deported as quickly as possible, especially because of his health condition," Oo said, adding that he did not immediately know whether Yettaw was being detained in a cell or at the prison hospital.

Yettaw, 53, spent a week in the hospital for epileptic seizures before the verdict. He is also said to suffer from asthma and diabetes.

"How is he going to do hard labor if he is so ill?" his former wife, Yvonne Yettaw, told The Associated Press by telephone from Palm Springs, California. "Maybe they'll realize he won't make it seven years, and they'll send him home."

Virginia Sen. Jim Webb will visit Myanmar later this week as part of a five-nation Asia tour, prompting some speculation that he will try to negotiate Yettaw's handover to the U.S. — a prospect his lawyer said was unlikely.

"It is impossible that Mr. Yettaw will be sent back with the visiting senator. I think my client will finally be deported but not immediately," Khin Maung Oo said.

Webb's visit will be the first by a member of the U.S. Congress to Myanmar in over a decade. He is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's East Asia and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee. link...