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.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
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