Probable WWII submarine found

A 
wreck found under water in a Papua New Guinea harbour likely was a Japanese midget submarine from World War II.

Australian and New Zealand warships found it while working in the area to clear WWII-era explosives on Thursday.

Simpson Harbor is in the town of Rabaul, which was a major Japanese military base on the northeast coast of the South Pacific nation.

New Zealand Navy Lt. Commander Matthew Ray told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio the find was initially identified as "a 20-metre long solid, manmade object".

Closer inspection confirmed it was a submarine, he said.

In this photo released by Australian Department of Defence, the stern section of an uncharted submarine wreck is shown on the seabed off the coast of Rabaul, Papua New Guinea

As Rabaul was Japan's major base in the Southwest Pacific for most of the war, most of the submarines in the harbour had been Japanese.

"My best guess would be it's a Japanese midget submarine. It doesn't look big enough to be an ocean-going ... submarine," said former submariner Gary Oakley.

One- and two-man Japanese midget submarines were transported by ship or larger submarines and used covertly to infiltrate enemy targets including Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and Sydney Harbor.

Such a submarine could have been destroyed by an American air raid or naval bombardment or even scuttled by the Japanese toward the end of the war, said Oakley, also an Australian War Memorial curator.

He said it could also be the first Australian submarine lost in World War I, although that submarine, AE1, was thought to have sunk in another harbour some 20km away.

AE1 became the first Australian naval loss of the war when it sank on Sept. 15, 1914, with the loss of 35 lives.

No Human Rights please, we’re Malaysian

F
ormer prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, known for his decades of inhumane administration, has come out strongly against Human Rights in Malaysia. This was after Rahim Noor, the thuggish former policeman who beat up Anwar Ibrahim while he was handcuffed, equated the Human Rights movement with Communism.

Mahathir declared that he was against Human Rights because it would allow people of the same sex to marry. Clearly he is mixing it up with gay rights. But then, Mahathir always seems to have homosexuality on his mind, right from his graphic description of a homosexual act on national television in 1998. He also built the twin towers, an entirely unnecessary piece of real estate for a small nation like Malaysia, and a phallic symbol if there ever was one. It remains an unviable and loss-making entity, propped up by Petronas and clever accounting.

Vietnamese prostitutes getting 'too much' in Chinatown

A
reader of Shin Min Daily News, Mr Lin (46, sales person), told reporters about his recent experience at Chinatown.

He was with his friend at Chinatown when they were approached by hookers.

"That is not a red light district but more and more Vietnamese girls are soliciting for sex there. The authorities should do something about it!" said Mr Lin.

Mr Lin and his friend were smoking at the staircase outside the MRT station when a hooker approached him.