KOREAS
North violates border: South
A North Korean naval patrol boat yesterday briefly crossed the disputed Yellow Sea border with South Korea while tracking Chinese fishing vessels, military officials in Seoul said. The apparently accidental incursion lasted only seven minutes, they said. The patrol boat sailed about 36m into the southern side of the sea boundary, but swiftly retreated after a warning radioed by South Korean naval ships, the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said. “We believe the North Korean boat accidentally crossed the Northern Limit Line while trying to chase away Chinese fishing vessels,” a JCS spokesman said. About 70 Chinese vessels were fishing near the border, he said.
VIETNAM
Student accused of dissent
A 20-year-old student, missing for two weeks since a police raid on her home, is being held at a jail in Long An Province for allegedly spreading propaganda against the one-party communist state, reports said yesterday. Nguyen Phuong Uyen, a student at Ho Chi Minh City’s Food Technology University who was detained on Oct. 14, is accused of distributing anti-state leaflets and is being questioned as part of a case involving “security matters,” a brief report in the state-run Ho Chi Minh City Law newspaper said. Charges of disseminating anti-state propaganda carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in jail.
HONG KONG
Worker killed in accident
A construction worker was killed and 14 were injured yesterday after they were hit by falling steel rods at the construction site for a massive bridge, officials said. Rescuers rushed to the scene after the incident on an artificial island where the Hong Kong-Macau-Zhuhai Bridge is being built near the international airport, the Fire Services Department said. “Preliminary investigation showed the steel rods which were being lifted fell suddenly and the group of workers were struck,” a spokesman said. The 50km bridge linking the territory to the two Chinese cities is due for completion in 2016.
SINGAPORE
City may bin phone books
The city state is considering stopping the publication of free telephone directories listing residential and office numbers as privacy concerns mount, a government agency said. The use of telephone directories “have declined significantly over the years,” the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) said in a consultation paper yesterday. “In addition to the trend of declining usage of Directory Services, IDA has also observed increasing public awareness, and concerns, about use and protection of personal data,” the regulatory body said. Its review follows a personal data protection law that imposes heavy fines on firms making unsolicited telemarketing calls or text messages to consumers who refuse to be contacted.
INDONESIA
Hindu temple discovered
Construction workers in Bali have discovered what is thought to be the biggest ancient Hindu temple ever found on the island, archeologists said. The workers were digging a drain in Denpasar, at a Hindu study center when they came across the remains of the stone temple. They reported the discovery to the Bali archeology office, which then unearthed substantial foundations of a structure that the excavation team believes dates from around the 13th to 15th centuries. “We think this is the biggest ancient Hindu temple ever discovered in Bali,” team head Wayan Suantika said late on Wednesday.
UNITED STATES
Hospital apologizes
A Harvard-affiliated hospital is backing away from its decision earlier this week to promote a paper linking the artificial sweetener aspartame and cancer, now saying the evidence was “weak.” Brigham and Women’s Hospital said in an e-mail to reporters that data in the paper, which was published on Wednesday in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition, “is weak, and that Brigham and Women’s Hospital media relations was premature in the promotion of this work.” Researchers at the hospital combed through two large studies of nurses and health professionals looking for evidence of an increased risk of blood cancers related to consumption of the artificial sweetener aspartame. When they looked at the two studies combined, they found some trends toward a higher risk of cancers that could be linked with aspartame, but the researchers admitted that the findings could also be due to chance.
UNITED KINGDOM
Lottery wins trickle down
One in five lottery winners carry on working after they hit the jackpot and one-third invest in a jacuzzi, according to a survey published on Monday. The study of 3,000 winners who became instant millionaires showed only 59 percent handed in their notice immediately after their life-changing windfalls, while 19 percent carried on working. The National Lottery released the study to mark the creation of 3,000 millionaires since the game was introduced in 1994. It showed that winners had shared their good fortune with their children, family and friends, creating an additional 3,780 millionaires. Winners have also started or supported 900 British-based businesses employing a total of 3,195 people.
SWEDEN
Princess engaged
Princess Madeleine and her US-British boyfriend Christopher O’Neill announced their engagement on the royal palace Web site yesterday. The 30-year-old Madeleine is the youngest of King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia’s three children and is fourth in line to the throne. The tabloid Expressen reported early yesterday that O’Neill, a 38-year-old financier she met in New York, had proposed to the princess, and the couple confirmed the news in a brief video clip posted on the royal Web site.
UNITED STATES
‘Headless’ ladybug found
A newly discovered insect tucks its head into its throat — making it not only a new species, but an entirely new genus. Ross Winton captured the insect in 2009 in traps he set in a sand dune while an entomology graduate student at Montana State University. Winton at first thought he had parts of an ant, but then discovered the bug can hide its head, much like a turtle ducking into its shell. The headless ladybug was formally described in a recent issue of the peer-reviewed journal Systemic Entomology. Just two specimens of the tan, pinhead-sized ladybugs have ever been collected, a male in Montana and a female in Idaho, scientists said, making it the rarest species in the US.
GUATEMALA
Mayans slam calendar tours
Mayans accused the government and tour groups on Wednesday of perpetuating the myth that their calendar foresees the imminent end of the world for monetary gain. “We are speaking out against deceit, lies and twisting of the truth, and turning us into folklore-for-profit. They are not telling the truth about time cycles,” said Felipe Gomez, leader of the Maya alliance Oxlaljuj Ajpop.
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
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