SOUTH KOREA
Lebanese ambassador dies
Lebanese Ambassador Jad Saeed El-Hassan died in a car accident yesterday in Seoul, police said. El-Hassan was driving his car himself when it hit another vehicle inside a tunnel, police officers said on condition of anonymity, citing department rules. He was taken to a hospital, where doctors said the diplomat had died before his arrival, according to officials at the Inje University Seoul Paik Hospital. Two South Koreans in the second car were slightly injured and taken to another hospital, the officers said.
JAPAN
Oil tanker in trouble
A 998-tonne oil tanker was listing off the coast of Hyogo Prefecture yesterday after a large explosion and subsequent fire that sent towering columns of acrid smoke into the sky. The 64-year-old captain was unaccounted for hours after the accident, while four of his crew were in hospital being treated for severe burns, coast guard officials said. The tanker had unloaded its cargo of crude oil last week. Akihiro Komura, an official from Syoho Shipping, a Hiroshima-based shipping firm that owns the vessel, said that seven of the eight crew were safe.
JAPAN
Scientist to retract paper
A scientist under pressure over inconsistencies in her groundbreaking research has agreed to retract one of two papers published in Nature, reports said yesterday. Haruko Obokata, 30, was feted after unveiling research that appeared to show a straightforward way to reprogram adult cells to become a kind of stem cell. However, questions quickly emerged about her results. The institute that sponsored the study has urged her to withdraw her two papers after concluding that she fabricated at least some of the data. Obokata has agreed with her co-authors to withdraw one of the papers, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun, Kyodo News and other media. Her lawyer said that she will not withdraw the main paper, which summed up the cells’ characteristics and method of making them.
NEPAL
Everest conquest marked
The lone surviving member of the first expedition to reach the top of Mount Everest yesterday led a rally marking the 61st anniversary of the achievement. Kancha Sherpa, 81, led the rally of 500 people in Kathmandu, with mountaineers and trekking guides also taking part. New Zealander Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay, became the first climbers to reach the top of Everest on May 29, 1953. Kancha had carried loads up the mountain for the expedition and went up to the last camp on Everest, but did not climb to the summit. “We were all very happy on that day. It was the biggest day of my life,” Kancha said of the day the summit was reached. A service was held on Wednesday night in Kathmandu in memory of the 16 Sherpa guides killed in an April 18 avalanche just above Everest’s base camp.
INDIA
Three held for rape, murder
Police have arrested three people for allegedly gang raping and hanging two teenage sisters from a tree in a village in Uttar Pradesh state. Two of the suspects are police officers, police Superintendent Atul Saxena said yesterday. Villagers found the girls’ bodies hanging from a mango tree on Wednesday morning, hours after they disappeared from fields near their home in Katra village. Autopsies showed they had been raped and strangled before being hung from the tree, Saxena said.
UNITED STATES
Brad Pitt punched: police
Actor Brad Pitt was punched in the face on Wednesday while signing autographs at the Hollywood premiere of Maleficent starring his partner, Angelina Jolie, news reports said. A man jumped over a barrier outside the El Capitan Theater and attacked the actor at the debut of the film, Los Angeles police sergeant Leonard Calderon said, according to CNN. CNN said neither Pitt nor Jolie seemed fazed by the altercation. Police arrested a man identified as Vitalii Sediuk, 25, the Los Angeles Times reported. It said the motive for the attack was not immediately known.
MEXICO
Storm blamed for deaths
Torrential rains from tropical storm Amanda claimed the lives of three people, authorities said on Wednesday. Waters rushing down mountainsides caused flash floods that swept away two people in the town of Zitacuaro in the western state of Michoacan, said the state’s director of civil protection, Nicolas Alfaro. Two of the people killed were a 50-year-old man and a girl of eight. Roads and cars were damaged, and authorities warned that homes might need to be evacuated if the rains continued.
UNITED STATES
Man sentenced for filicide
A man who murdered his two-year-old daughter apologized on Wednesday — but not for murdering the child. Instead, just before he was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison, Arthur Morgan III apologized to the child’s mother for the breakdown of their relationship. “I want to say I’m sorry for the deterioration of what I thought was a beautiful friendship between the two of us that blossomed into a daughter,” Morgan told Imani Benton. “For anybody that was truly affected by this, I hope we can all heal from this situation.” Morgan was found guilty last month of murdering Tierra Morgan-Glover by tossing her into a New Jersey creek, strapped into a car seat and weighed down by a tire jack, in November 2011.
UNITED STATES
Deer jumps onto minivan
A suburban Chicago woman is grateful her family is safe after a 90kg deer leaped from an overpass, landing on their minivan as it traveled along a highway. Heidi Conner told the Arlington Heights Daily Herald that the doe came to rest in the middle of the family’s Chevy on Sunday. She and her four children were traveling at about 112kph. She says the accident was bizarre, adding “nobody can believe this deer fell from the sky.” Illinois State Police said witnesses reported seeing the deer jump from an overpass onto the vehicle below.
SOUTH AFRICA
Mother refuses baby switch
Two mothers have discovered that they are raising each other’s daughters after they were mistakenly switched at birth at Tambo Memorial Hospital in Boksburg, east of Johannesburg, four years ago. While one of the women wants to reclaim her biological child, the other is refusing to give back the girl she has raised as her own. Both mothers gave birth on the same day in 2010 and were discharged. Last year, one of the mothers sued her ex-partner for maintenance for her daughter. “The man denied he was the father. A DNA test was done it was found it was not his baby and not her baby,” lawyer Henk Strydom said. The high court in Pretoria appointed the University of Pretoria’s Centre for Child Law to investigate what will now be in the best interests of the children, which is the guiding principle under the law. It must report back within 90 days.
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
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
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the