Indonesian Maid in HK court for sex with boss's teenage son

Tuesday, May 06, 2008 HONG KONG (Reuters) - A 45-year-old Indonesian maid
admitted having sex with her Hong Kong employer's 14-year-old
son after watching Internet porn together, a newspaper reported
on Tuesday.

A court heard how the maid, a divorcee and mother of two,
had sex with the boy in a relationship that lasted five months,
the South China Morning Post reported.

The boy tried to end the affair, but she refused, the paper
reported. The teenager eventually confessed to the relationship
to the leader of a Christian group he belonged to and the maid
was arrested.

The maid, Suwartin, had worked with the boy's extended
family for 11 years and pleaded guilty to five charges of
committing an indecent act with an under-age partner, the Post
reported.

She later apologised and said she "would live with the
shame of what she had done for the rest of her life", the paper
reported.

"She had acted out of loneliness," the paper quoted the
maid's lawyer as saying.

She will be sentenced in two weeks' time.

Maids from the Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka are
often the subject of court cases in richer neighbours such as
Hong Kong and Singapore, but usually as victims of abuse rather
than offenders.

(Reporting by James Pomfret; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Hundreds strip naked in Vienna

from http://reuters.com

Hundreds strip naked in Vienna for artist Tunick

Sunday, May 11, 2008 By Paul Bolding

VIENNA (Reuters) - About 1,800 people stripped naked on Sunday for U.S. photographer Spencer Tunick at the stadium that will host the Euro 2008 soccer final.

Tunick, who regularly stages such mass nude events, arranged his subjects in the coloured seats of the venue, having been told by organizers the grass was too precious.

"It will be fun. Austria is very conservative. This might bring more openness," said Michael, a 20-year-old Austrian who drove for two hours to take part. Others came from Germany and elsewhere.

Tunick spoke to his models over the public address system, telling the men and women to spread out in sections of the stands and strike different poses. He told them not to smile or laugh and to remove sunglasses.

The stadium stages seven matches of the Euro 2008 soccer championship, being jointly hosted by Switzerland and Austria next month, including the final on June 29.

"This very special ephemeral installation that we are inviting you to be part of is devised to capture and combine the spirit of sports, the grand sweeping waves of stadium architecture and the abstract relation of the human form to modern structures," Tunick said on his website.

One of Tunick's latest stunts was on a Swiss glacier, where 600 people stripped off in temperatures of about 10 Celsius (50 F) last August.

His biggest was last year in Mexico City with 18,000 people. The next after Vienna are planned for Cork, Ireland, on June 17 and Dublin on June 21.

Sponsors of Tunick's latest event included a body promoting the soccer festival and Austrian railways, which gave participants free tickets.

Those taking part were volunteers who were offered a limited edition copy of the photo.

Tunick told a news conference in Vienna last week that rules in the United States made it hard to organize his photo shoots there. "My work is a little edgy. It is tough for me to get permission to do things in the U.S.," he said.

(Editing by Charles Dick)

Dalai Lama envoy upbeat on China talks

HONG KONG (Reuters) - An envoy of the Dalai Lama said on Tuesday that one-day talks with China on the unrest in Tibet had been "a good first step", and the two sides will meet again after he reports back to the exiled spiritual leader.

"We had very candid discussions ... we have a good rapport, so that is always very helpful," Lodi Gyari told Reuters at Hong Kong airport as he prepared to board a flight for India, home of the Tibet government-in-exile.

"We have agreed to meet once again so I think it is a good sign, but we will make a formal statement after I have reported to his Holiness when I get back to India."

Lodi Gyari and another envoy held a meeting with Chinese officials, the first since an eruption of Tibetan protests and deadly riots two months ago, in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen on Monday.

The unrest, the most serious challenge to Chinese rule in the mountainous region for nearly two decades, prompted anti-China protests around the world that disrupted the international leg of the Olympic torch relay and led to calls for Western leaders to boycott August's Beijing Games.

China proposed the latest talks last month after Western governments urged it to open new dialogue with the Dalai Lama, who says he wants a high level of autonomy, not independence, for the predominantly Buddhist Himalayan homeland he fled in 1959.

But state-run Xinhua news agency said on Sunday that the meeting was arranged at the government-in-exile's repeated request for contacts and consultations with Beijing.

Lodi Gyari, speaking to the media for the first time since the closed-door Shenzhen meeting, said a date for a further round of talks would only be announced after consultations with the Dalai Lama.

(Reporting by James Pomfret; Writing by Lucy Hornby; Editing by John Chalmers)