JAPAN
Snow storm disrupts travel
A snow storm hit Japan yesterday, disrupting rail and road travel, grounding more than 100 flights and adding to the piles left behind by an earlier blanketing. Up to 30cm of snow was forecast for some parts of the country by this morning, a week after the heaviest snowfall in decades left at least 11 people dead and more than 1,200 injured. The weather agency also warned of heavy snow in western and central Japan, as well as strong winds and high waves along coastal areas. The storm caused delays on the Shinkansen bullet-train services. Japan Airlines said it had cancelled 77 flights yesterday day and All Nippon Airways grounded 40 flights across the nation. Jiji Press said 16,000 air passengers were affected. Forecasters said the bad weather would continue into today.
CHINA
Gay activists kiss in protest
A group of gay and lesbian activists staged a Valentine’s Day kissing protest in Beijing yesterday aimed at highlighting Russia’s controversial anti-homosexuality laws. The six people held up a banner with the rainbow flag, the Olympic symbol and the words “To Russia with love” as they kissed on a Beijing street. Russia’s adoption in June last year of a law prohibiting the dissemination of information about homosexuality to minors has sparked protests from human rights groups and calls for a boycott of the Sochi Winter Olympics, the country’s first post-Soviet Games. “We feel more positive today as it is Valentine’s Day, and we have the opportunity to relay the message that everybody has the right to love and the right to campaign,” activist Xiao Tie said.
SOUTH KOREA
Family reunions to go ahead
High-level talks between the rival Koreas ended yesterday with a rare agreement to go ahead as planned with a reunion for divided families, despite the North’s objections to overlapping South Korea-US military drills. The two sides also agreed to stop exchanging verbal insults and to continue their nascent dialogue at a convenient date, according to a joint statement read to reporters in Seoul by South Korea’s senior talks delegate Kim Kyou-hyun. The agreement, which was also carried on the North’s official KCNA news agency, suggested a significant concession by North Korea, which had wanted the South to postpone the Feb. 24 start of its annual military drills with the US until after the reunion. The South had refused, arguing that the two issues — one humanitarian and one military — should not be linked. The apparent concession and the commitment to continue what has been the highest-level official contact between the two countries since 2007 will fuel hopes that they might be entering a period of genuinely constructive engagement. “Agreement was reached today after North Korea accepted our position that the family reunion event is important ... as the first step to build trust,” Kim said.
UNITED STATES
Torture doctor convicted
A Delaware pediatrician known for his research on paranormal science and near-death experiences with children was convicted on Thursday of waterboarding the daughter of his longtime companion by holding her head under a faucet. Melvin Morse, 60, was charged with three felonies — two for the alleged waterboarding and one for alleged suffocation by hand, and convicted of one felony — waterboarding in the bathtub — and five misdemeanors. Jurors reduced the second waterboarding charge to a misdemeanor and acquitted Morse of the suffocation charge.
UNITED STATES
Gamer gets life for murder
In Pensacola, Florida, a fantasy game enthusiast was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday for beating a former newspaper reporter to death with a hammer and burying his body in a concrete-covered pit in Georgia. William Cormier III was so desperate for money that he killed Sean Dugas in the fall of 2012 so he could steal his US$100,000 collection of fantasy role-playing cards for the game Magic: The Gathering, prosecutors said. Florida assistant state attorney Bridgette Jensen said during closing arguments that Cormier used profits from selling the cards to pay for the plastic storage container that became Dugas’ concrete-encased coffin.
UNITED STATES
Stamp may sell for US$20m
A tiny 1-cent postage stamp from a 19th-century British colony in South America has held the auction record for a single stamp three times. Now it is poised to become the world’s most valuable stamp again. Sotheby’s predicts the 1856 British Guiana One-Cent Magenta will sell for between US$10 million and US$20 million when offered in New York on June 17. An 1855 Swedish stamp that sold for US$2.3 million in 1996 currently holds the auction record for a single.
MEXICO
Butterfly protection urged
Dozens of scientists, artists, writers and environmentalists yesterday urged the leaders of Mexico, Canada and the US to devote part of their meeting next week to discussing ways to protect the monarch butterfly. A letter to the three leaders signed by more than 150 intellectuals said the monarch population has dropped to the lowest level since recordkeeping began in 1993. Experts blame the drop in numbers on extreme weather trends, a dramatic reduction of the butterflies’ habitat from illegal logging and genetically modified crops in the US displacing milkweed, which the species feeds on.
CHECHNYA
Giraffe offered asylum
To sentence one giraffe named Marius to death may be regarded as a misfortune; to sentence two would be a catastrophe, according to Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov. The president used his Instagram account to offer to take in the second Marius, which, it emerged on Wednesday, has been threatened with the same fate as his namesake. Kadyrov, who has been implicated in torture and human rights abuses, is a known animal admirer and has a huge personal zoo. “On humanitarian grounds, I am ready to take Marius in. We can guarantee him good living conditions and care for his health,” Kadyrov said. Just days after the euthanasia of a healthy young giraffe named Marius in Copenhagen sparked controversy around the world, Jyllands Park zoo, in western Denmark, announced that it was considering a similar fate for another giraffe, also named Marius.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of