JAPAN
Odor-eliminating pants a hit
Underpants that reportedly can neutralize the smell of flatulence are proving a hit in the country, whose hard-working businessmen seem to like the idea of breaking wind without getting rumbled. A textile company has developed a range of underwear that it says prevent unwelcome odors. The underwear is manufactured with niff-absorbing ceramic particles in the material fibers. The company’s range has now expanded to 22 items, including socks that prevent feet from smelling and t-shirts that mask the whiff of sweaty armpits.
SOUTH KOREA
President’s wife in probe
President Lee Myung-bak’s wife, Kim Yoon-ok, will be questioned in writing by special prosecutors probing alleged irregularities in the purchase of a retirement home for her husband, officials said yesterday. Prosecutors have already grilled Lee’s brother and son, but assistant special counsel Lee Chang-hoon said protocol dictated that Kim would not be required to appear before the investigation team in person. The probe is focused on alleged irregularities in the purchase of a plot of land on the southern edge of Seoul to build a retirement home for Lee Myung-bak when he leaves office in January. The president’s wife and brother have been included in the investigation because of reports that they each loaned Lee Si-hyung 600 million won (US$550,000) to buy the lot.
SOUTH KOREA
Islands budget tripled
A parliamentary committee has agreed to nearly triple a special budget for promoting Seoul’s sovereignty over an isolated set of islands also claimed by Japan, officials said yesterday. The Foreign Affairs Committee approved the 6.2 billion won budget on Friday, a foreign ministry official said. The money — up from this year’s budget of 2.3 billion won — would be used to fund state-led activities promoting the ownership of the Dokdo Islands, which are known as the Takeshima Islands in Japan.
ITALY
Central Venice flooded
Heavy rains and seas whipped up by strong winds have flooded Venice and brought the lagoon city’s high-tide mark to its sixth-highest level since records began being kept 150 years ago. News reports said the same weather system that put 70 percent of central Venice under water on Sunday was wreaking havoc elsewhere in the country, with about 200 people evacuated from their homes in hard-hit Tuscany. Moveable barriers that would rise from the sea bed to protect Venice from high tides have been in the works for years, but will not be operational before 2014.
PARAGUAY
Police make big cocaine haul
Anti-drug police said on Sunday they seized 1,700kg of cocaine at a remote site on the border with Brazil and arrested 19 suspects. “This is possibly the largest shipment ever seized up to now,” the head of the country’s anti-drug force, Francisco de Vargas, said on Telefuturo TV network. Among those arrested was the country’s most-wanted criminal, Ezequiel de Souza, who was carrying both Brazilian and Paraguayan identification papers. Police found the drugs at an indigenous community known as La Paloma, located 600km northeast of the capital, Asuncion. The suspects were immediately flown to the capital to face charges of possessing drugs, drug trafficking and criminal association. They face sentences of up to 25 years in prison. Ten suspects were Paraguayan — including police officers.
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
YELLOW SHIRTS: Many protesters were associated with pro-royalist groups that had previously supported the ouster of Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, in 2006 Protesters rallied on Saturday in the Thai capital to demand the resignation of court-suspended Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and in support of the armed forces following a violent border dispute with Cambodia that killed more than three dozen people and displaced more than 260,000. Gathered at Bangkok’s Victory Monument despite soaring temperatures, many sang patriotic songs and listened to speeches denouncing Paetongtarn and her father, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and voiced their backing of the country’s army, which has always retained substantial power in the Southeast Asian country. Police said there were about 2,000 protesters by mid-afternoon, although
RSS