FEVERED SPECULATION A S POSTPONES ENGAGEMENT
J A PAN PRINCESS
TOKYO: Japan’s Princess Mako has postponed her wedding to her college sweethear t until 2020, sparking speculation that alleged money trouble involving the fiancé’s mother could have thrown a spanner in the works. In an announcement that came completely out of the blue, the 26- year- old eldest granddaughter of Emperor Akihito cited time constraints as the reason to delay the formal engagement. “We have come to realize that we do not have enough time to prepare for the ceremonies and our new life before the wedding planned in autumn,” she said in a s t atement released through the imperial household agency Wednesday. Mako and Kei Komuro, also 26, had been scheduled to be formally engaged in a traditional cour t ceremony nex t month before their wedding on November 4. The imperial household agenc y insisted the couple still want to wed and flatly denied any connection between the postponement and a series of recent magazine ar ticles about the alleged money trouble of the Komuro family.
‘ FAKE’ DOC TOR ACCUSED O F INFEC TING 46 INDIANS WITH HIV
NEW DELHI: India is investigating claims an unlicensed doctor infected at least 46 people with HIV by re- using syringes, the latest case to expose the paucit y of healthcare in the countr y of 1.25 billion. Police in Uttar Pradesh have registered a criminal case against Rajendra Yadav, who provided cheap door- to- door medical ser vices to poor villagers in the nor thern state. India has only limited public healthcare ser vices and that, combined with a lack of regulation, has allowed unlicensed doc tors to thrive, par ticularly in rural areas. The latest case was exposed when government medical screenings uncovered a high concentration of human immunodeficiency virus ( HIV ) cases in the Unnao distric t of Uttar Pradesh. Unnao’s chief medical officer S. P. Choudhar y told Agence France- Presse that all 46 cases are from specific localities within their distric t that ’ s why they decided to dig deeper. He added that some of the infec ted blamed the quack doctor and his use of a single syringe. But Choudhar y said Yadav, who is still on the run, was unlikely to be the sole fac tor in the high number of cases. The area has a high migrant trucker population, and the prevalence of unprotec ted sex could be the likely reason.
MISERY FOR COMMUTERS A S HEAVY SNOW PARALYZES PARIS
PARIS: Exceptionally heav y snowfall brought public transpor t in Paris and surrounding regions to a near halt on Wednesday, spelling miser y for commuters after hundreds were forced to abandon their cars to sleep in emergency shelters overnight. Officials had opened 46 shelters in the greater Paris region for more than 600 people stranded by the snow, while about 700 had to spend the night at the Montparnasse and Austerlitz train stations in Paris. Some 230 people were had to sleep as best they could at Orly airpor t. At Charles de Gaulle airpor t, officials announced over loudspeakers that all suburban train connections to Paris had been cancelled for at least several hours. Evacuations were still under way for the 1,500 to 2,000 people stranded on a highway south of Paris, prompting anger from drive r s w h o said the route should have been closed to traffic sooner. Some 25 departments across much of the nor thern half of France were on aler t for snow and black ice, and more snow is expected to hit the countr y from Friday. Paris police also urged people to leave their cars at home in order to avoid traffic jams and facilitate the work of rescue ser vices and tow trucks. Police had also closed major highways near Paris to lorries, and rail operator SNCF told clients to postpone their trips if possible.