JERUSALEM, Israel (AP) – Israeli President Shimon Peres was rushed to the hospital yesterday night after he fainted on stage while speaking at an event in Tel Aviv.

He regained consciousness shortly afterwards but is being held overnight for observation.

Peres was answering questions from the crowd after a talk on young leadership when he passed out, paramedics told Israeli media.

The 86-year-old regained consciousness on his own a few seconds later, they added.

Initially Peres refused to be taken to hospital but eventually agreed to go to Tel Hashomer hospital in Tel Aviv for a check- up.

Dr Ari Shamis of the hospital told Channel 10 TV that the president would be held overnight for observation, adding that Peres was not in danger and that he had “spontaneously regained consciousness.”

Peres’ doctor, Professor Rafi Valden, told Israeli media the president was doing well and ascribed the episode to overwork.

“It was very hot there and he was standing up for a long time and felt weak. He feels fine now and is speaking to well-wishers from around the world on the phone.”

Peres is not known to suffer from any health problems.

His spokeswoman, Ayelet Frisch blamed Peres’ notoriously gruelling schedule and predicted he would be home the next morning.

Born in Poland on August 2, 1923, Peres immigrated to Israel in 1934. He was elected to parliament on the Labor Party ticket in 1959 and held a succession of Israel’s most senior posts, including the premiership and the defence and foreign affairs portfolios before being elected in 2007 for a seven-year term in the nonpartisan, largely ceremonial office of president.

In 1994 he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

School book ban raises censorship concerns in PR

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) – Several university professors in Puerto Rico are protesting a decision to ban five books from the curriculum at public high schools in the US territory because of coarse language.

The Spanish-language books previously were read as part of the 11th grade curriculum, but proofreaders this year alerted education officials about “coarse” slang, including references to genitalia in Mejor te lo cuento: antologia personal, by Juan Antonio Ramos.

Also among the banned books is the novel Aura by Carlos Fuentes of Mexico, one of Latin America’s most prominent contemporary writers. The other four authors affected are from Puerto Rico.

Magali Garcia Ramis, a communications professor at the University of Puerto Rico, expressed concern yesterday about how books are being evaluated by the island’s Department of Education.

Department of Education spokesman Alan Obrador could not be reached, and the Puerto Rico Teachers Association also was unavailable.

The island’s secretary of state, Kenneth McClintock, showed his support for screening books when he updated his Facebook status yesterday. He said he was “glad that Secretary of Education Chardon is taking a hard look at the rough vocabulary in some assigned-reading books!”

Silvia Alvarez Curbelo, another communications professor at the University of Puerto Rico, said so-called bad words have to be considered in their context.

She and other professors said the ban was reminiscent of censorship imposed by the Taliban, the extremist Islamic movement whose regime in Afghanistan once banned music, movies, TV and nearly all other forms of entertainment as part of their strict interpretation of Islamic laws, or Shariah.

Fuentes’s Aura includes a brief romantic encounter beneath a crucifix. It is a scene that prompted Mexico’s former interior secretary to try to have the book dropped from a reading list at his daughter’s private school, without success.

The other banned books are Antologia personal, by Jose Luis Gonzalez; El entierro de Cortijo, by Edgardo Rodriguez Julia; and Reunion de espejos, a compilation of essays by Jose Luis Vega.

Yemeni child bride dies in labour

SAN’A, Yemen (AP) – A 12-year-old Yemeni child-bride died after struggling for three days in labour to give birth, a local human rights organisation said yesterday.

Fawziya Abdullah Youssef died of severe bleeding on Friday while giving birth to a stillborn in the al-Zahra district hospital of Hodeida province, 140 miles (223 kilometers) west of the capital San’a.

Child marriages are widespread in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, where tribal customs dominate society. More than a quarter of the country’s females marry before age 15, according to a recent report by the Social Affairs Ministry.

Youssef was only 11 when her father married her to a 24-year-old man who works as a farmer in Saudi Arabia, said Ahmed al-Quraishi, chairman of Siyaj human rights organisation, which promotes the rights of children in Yemen.

Al-Quraishi said that he stumbled upon Youssef in the hospital while investigating cases of children who had fled from the fighting in the north.

“This is one of many cases that exist in Yemen,” said al-Quraishi. “The reason behind it is the lack of education and awareness, forcing many girls into marriage in this very early age.”

Impoverished parents in Yemen sometimes give away their young daughters in return for hefty dowries. There is also a long-standing tribal custom in which infant daughters and sons are promised to cousins in hopes it will protect them from illicit relationships, he said.

Al-Quraishi said there are no statistics to show how many marriages involving children are performed every year.

The issue of child brides vaulted into the headlines here two years ago when an eight-year-old Yemeni girl went by herself to a courtroom and demanded a judge dissolve her marriage to a man in his 30s. She eventually won a divorce, and legislators began looking at ways to curb the practice.

In February, parliament passed a law setting the minimum marriage age at 17. But some lawmakers are trying to kill the measure, calling it un-Islamic. Before it could be ratified by Yemen’s president, they forced it to be sent back to parliament’s constitutional committee for review.

Such marriages also occur in neighboring oil-rich Saudi Arabia, where several cases of child brides have been reported in the past year, though the phenomenon is not believed to be nearly as widespread as in Yemen.

EU wants more reforms from Zimbabwe

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AFP) – The European Union said yesterday it wanted Zimbabwe’s unity government to succeed, but sought further reforms from President Robert Mugabe during a first meeting with him in seven years.

“We want this government of national unity to be a success,” EU aid commissioner Karel de Gucht told reporters after the talks.

An EU delegation held separate talks with Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, who formed a unity government in February in a bid to curb political violence and halt the nation’s economic freefall.

After lashing out at “bloody whites” for meddling in his country’s affairs Friday, a jovial Mugabe welcomed the delegation with “open arms” saying his problem was with Britain and not the West at large.

“It (the meeting) went well. They were asking questions about the GPA and they thought it is not working, yet everything we were asked to do under the GPA we have done and timeously even,” said Mugabe, referring to the power sharing deal or Global Political Agreement.

Mugabe expressed his disappointment at EU travel restrictions and asset freezes against himself and his key allies, which he often blames for his country’s woes.

Despite a call by the Southern African Development Community for the penalties to be dropped, the EU maintains that mismanagement and a poor human rights record – rather than sanctions – are behind the country’s problems.

The EU did not discuss sanctions during the talks with Mugabe, though the issue did come up in talks with Tsvangirai, held later in the day in Zimbabwe’s second city of Bulawayo.

Tsvangirai said the sanctions would form part of a recently launched dialogue process with the EU, but said Zimbabwe still needed to commit to great political reforms.

“There are issues of reforms, such as constitutional reforms… the issue of media, that are necessary,” Tsvangirai said.

US envoy arrives in Israel for talks

JERUSALEM, Israel (AP) – US Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell is in Israel to try to kick-start Israeli-Palestinian talks before the two sides meet at the UN later this month.

A spokesman for the US Consulate in Jerusalem said Mitchell arrived in Israel last night. He is set to meet Israeli and Palestinian leaders next week.

Peace talks broke down in December after Israel launched a military offensive in Gaza to stop militants firing rockets on southern Israeli towns.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he is willing to renew talks. The Palestinians insist Israeli construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem end before negotiations begin.

The sides are expected to announce a renewal of talks at the United Nations General Assembly on September 23.

Honduras’ interim president: US revoked my visas

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) – Washington has revoked the visas of Honduras’ interim president and 17 other top officials to pressure the Central American nation to reinstate ousted leader Manuel Zelaya, Honduras’ government said yesterday.

The interim government expects the United States to revoke the visas of at least 1,000 more public officials “in the coming days,” Information Minister Rene Zepeda told The Associated Press.

Interim President Roberto Micheletti said losing his diplomatic and tourist visas would not weaken his rejection of the return of Zelaya, who was toppled in a June 28 military-backed coup and flown into exile.

Micheletti said he was expecting the action and called it “a sign of the pressure that the US government is exerting on our country”.

The move “changes nothing because I am not willing to take back what has happened in Honduras,” he said on Radio station HRN.

Washington on Friday revoked the diplomatic and tourist visas for 14 Supreme Court judges, the armed forces chief, the foreign relations secretary and Honduras’ attorney general, presidential spokeswoman Marcia de Villeda said yesterday.

US State Department spokesman Darby Holladay said later yesterday that he could not comment. There was no immediate reaction from Zelaya, who is currently in Nicaragua.