As The World Turns
Thai protesters occupy commercial center
Pro-democracy demonstrators paralyze Bangkok's commercial heart for a second day.
Also: The observation deck of the world's tallest skyscraper reopened Sunday in Dubai, two months after an elevator malfunction that left visitors trapped more than 120 stories above the ground forced it to close.
Senegal unveils expensive, eyesore statue
Besides looking as ugly as just about every statue around the world by a communist country artist, it's ridiculously sexist. At a minimum, let's hope the proceeds actually make it to the children.
Six-year-old twins caught smuggling cocaine in underwear
A mother and her two six-year-old twins were found with cocaine stuffed down their underwear as they tried to board a plane bound for London, Nigerian police said on Saturday.A spokesman for Nigeria's Drug Law Enforcement Agency said the woman and her husband were arrested after the find.
"Although the man was not found with any drugs, his wife and two children, who are twins aged six years, were found with cocaine hidden in their underwear," the spokesman said.
The woman was carrying more than 3kg of cocaine while her children carried a total of around 700 grams, he said.
Narcotics agents detained the family as they were about to board a London-bound jet at Lagos's Murtala Mohammed International airport on March 28.
"We have released the twins to other family members because they are minors and innocent while their parents will soon be taken to court for drug trafficking," the spokesman said.
Iraqi artists denied entry to Britain for their own exhibition
It was to be Britain's first comprehensive exhibition of contemporary art from Iraq since the first Gulf War, with a guest list including the Iraqi ambassador, the Foreign Secretary David Miliband MP and five of the war-torn country's most promising artists flown over for the occasion.So it was dismaying for all parties to learn, less than a month before "Contemporary Art Iraq" was to open at Manchester's Cornerhouse Art Gallery, that the UK Border Agency had denied all five artists entry into the country.
The reason? They could provide no valid bank statements. Proof of financial stability and a bank account in the applicant's home country is a bureaucratic requirement for British visa authorities, but it is also, according to Iraqi experts, a very tall order in an occupied country with no banking infrastructure.
The exhibition, showcasing works by 19 artists from Iraq who have created pieces through both wars, Saddam Hussein's downfall, the occupation and subsequent upheavals, will still open on Friday 16 April, but organisers are bitter about the absence of the artists – and the taxpayers' money wasted on the effort to bring them here.
Return flights and hotels had been booked and the artists flew to Beirut in an effort to make their passage to obtaining a visa easier. The cost of remaining in Lebanon while they tried to sort out visas added to the £10,000 bill.
For campaigners opposed to the visa restrictions for artists entering Britain on a temporary basis, this is the latest example of a pointlessly bureaucratic and obstructive "points system". A host of headlining artists at the annual WOMAD world music festival have been prevented from performing in past years as well as poets at the Ledbury Poetry Festival.
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