IRAN
Smog hospitalizes hundreds
Almost 400 people have been hospitalized with heart and respiratory problems caused by heavy air pollution in Tehran, with nearly 1,500 others requiring treatment, an official said on Tuesday. Year-round, more than 4 million cars spew exhaust fumes into the atmosphere of the capital and the situation worsens in winter, when cold air leads to a carcinogenic fog that blankets the city. The latest casualties were treated on Monday, said Hassan Abbas, an emergency services manager quoted by the IRNA news agency. “Some 392 people were admitted to hospital due to respiratory and heart problems,” he said. “We treated another 1,434 externally.” Authorities were said to be considering school closures and the introduction of traffic restrictions for the capital yesterday. The sick and elderly have been asked to avoid traffic so as not to breath in a noxious mix of carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and dirty rubber particles.
SOUTH KOREA
KAL heiress held, sister sorry
The second daughter of Korean Air (KAL) chief executive Cho Yang-ho apologized yesterday for swearing “revenge” in a text message to her sister, who was arrested on Tuesday for delaying a flight with a tantrum over snacks. Cho Hyun-min, 31, sent a message reading: “I will certainly take revenge!” on Dec. 17 when KAL heiress Cho Hyun-ah was summoned by prosecutors for questioning. Prosecutors revealed its contents late on Tuesday after Cho Hyun-ah was arrested on charges including violation of aviation safety law, coercion and interference in the execution of duty, Yonhap News Agency said. The 40-year-old has been accused of forcing the chief purser off a Dec. 5 New York-Seoul flight and of compelling the taxiing plane to return to the gate so he could disembark. She had also taken exception to being served macadamia nuts she had not asked for — and in a bag, not a bowl. “I’m really sorry beyond words for my text message... I would not make any excuses. It’s all my fault,” Cho Hyun-min, who holds executive-level positions at the flag carrier and its sister firms, wrote on Twitter. The subject of her vengeance was not clear, but Yonhap and newspapers speculated she was talking about the chief purser, who has criticized her sister in interviews.
CHINA
Wrongful execution cleared
A court will give the parents of a teenager wrongfully executed for murder and rape 18 years ago more than 2 million yuan (US$330,000) in compensation, it said yesterday. Hugjiltu, who was convicted, sentenced and executed in 1996 at the age of 18, was exonerated earlier this month by a court in Inner Mongolia, nine years after another person confessed to the crime, in a case that highlighted flaws in the nation’s legal system. The court cleared the teenager on grounds of “insufficient evidence” and said in an online post that his parents would receive 2,059,621.40 yuan in compensation. It did not explain how the figure was reached. Acquittals in the national court system are extremely rare: 99.93 percent of defendants in criminal cases were found guilty last year, official statistics showed. In Hugjiltu’s case, authorities interrogated the teenager for 48 hours, after which he confessed to having raped and choked the woman in the toilet of a textile factory, the state-run China Daily newspaper reported in November. He was executed 61 days after the woman’s death. Hugjiltu’s family tried for nearly a decade to prove his innocence, reports said, and the inner Mongolia Higher People’s Court officially began a retrial in November.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not