SOUTH KOREA
‘Sewol’ ferry appeals heard
A court yesterday began hearing appeals from the prosecution and defence related to the 15 Sewol ferry crew members jailed over the sinking that claimed more than 300 lives. The prosecution wants the higher court to reconsider the dismissed homicide charges against Captain Lee Jun-seok and some of the 14 surviving crew members, while the defendants are appealing the convictions and the severity of the sentences handed down in November last year. The Sewol was carrying 476 people on board when it capsized off the southern coast on April. Of the 304 who died, 250 were students from the same high school. The tragedy shocked and enraged the country as it became clear that it was almost entirely man-made — the result of an illegal redesign, an overloaded cargo bay, an inexperienced crew and an unhealthy nexus between operators and state regulators.
SOUTH KOREA
Former spy chief convicted
In a political blow to President Park Geun-hye, an appeals court on Monday convicted a former government intelligence chief on charges of intervening in the 2012 vote that elected her president. Former National Intelligence Service director Won Sei-hoon was arrested at the Seoul High Court and taken to jail after the court sentenced him to three years in prison. The court did not comment on whether Won’s intervention helped Park get elected, but it said agents from the service, under Won’s instruction, began an online smear campaign against Park’s political rivals ahead of the December 2012 vote, often depicting the rivals as North Korean sympathizers. Park defeated her main opponent, Moon Jae-in, by 3.5 percentage points.
JAPAN
AKB48 saw-attacker jailed
A man who attacked two members of girl band AKB48 with a saw during a “meet the fans” event was sentenced to six years in jail yesterday. Unemployed Satoru Umeta used a 50cm saw, onto which he had fastened box cutter blades, to injure Rina Kawaei and Anna Iriyama, now both 19 years old, in May last year. Both singers suffered broken bones in their right hands, and cuts on their arms and heads during the incident in Iwate. The presiding judge at the Morioka District Court said Umenta, 24, had done something “cruel and very hazardous, which could have taken people’s lives.” “The fear the victims had during the event, where they were meeting with fans, and the mental damage were significant,” judge Takehiko Okada said. Umeta’s lawyers said their client has shown signs of schizophrenia and was suffering from frustration because of his poor communication skills. AKB48 is one of the most successful acts of all time in monetary terms.
JAPAN
Girls on phones seven hours
High-school girls in the country spend an average of seven hours a day on their mobile phones, a new survey has found, with nearly 10 percent of them putting in at least 15 hours. Boys of the same age average just over four hours mobile phone use a day, the survey by information security firm Digital Arts, published on Monday, said. Teenagers tend to use their phones for social media, such as Line, a Japanese messaging and networking app, as well as smartphone games, making movies and other sharing apps like Instagram. The poll comes amid growing concern over youngsters getting addicted to their portable technology, with Chinese research showing heavy phone use provokes the same kind of neurological changes as alcohol or cocaine dependency.
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