CHINA
Transgender hearing held
An arbitration panel has held a hearing in what is believed to be the country’s first transgender employment discrimination case. Lawyer Huang Sha said yesterday he was told a ruling would be issued later in the case of his client, who has identified himself only as Mr C. C sued for compensation and an apology after being fired from his job at a medical services company because, although born a woman, he dressed like a man. The case comes amid growing awareness of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues in the nation, where society and the government have generally frowned on non-traditional expressions of gender and sexuality.
CAMBODIA
Facebook stirrer jailed
An opposition member of parliament has been arrested for posting a map on Facebook professing to show that the government had ceded territory to Vietnam to whip up opposition, a government spokesman said yesterday. Cambodia National Rescue Party member Um Sam An was arrested on Sunday in the province of Siem Reap after arriving from overseas, a party colleague and fellow lawmaker said. “He created a fake border map and used it as an incitement to overthrow the government,” government spokesman Phay Siphan said. Formal charges would be filed when he appeared before a court.
PAKISTAN
Powerful earthquake hits
At least six Pakistanis were killed when a powerful earthquake rocked parts of South Asia on Sunday, officials said. Five people died in various remote regions of the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the National Disaster Management Authority said in a statement and at least 20 homes were damaged. One man was killed in the mountainous northern region of Gilgit-Baltistan when he was hit by falling rocks in the town of Chilas, an official said. The magnitude 6.6 quake struck neighboring northeast Afghanistan at a depth of 21km at 2:58pm on Sunday. It was felt in Kabul 282km to the south of the epicenter and in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, where some residents evacuated apartment blocks after tremors shook ceiling fans and furniture.
CHINA
‘Uncivilized’ flyers banned
The nation has banned three passengers from major airlines for “uncivilized behavior,” state media reported yesterday, as the nation seeks to instil manners in its increasingly well-traveled populace. The three were blacklisted for hitting a checkpoint security officer with a can of milk, attacking airline personnel over a flight delay, and refusing to switch off a tablet PC during a landing, the China Daily report said. They are the first to be included in a system rolled out by the China Air Transport Association in February, and would be unable to book flights with five of China’s biggest airlines for up to two years, the report said. Chinese authorities last year declared 11 types of action “strictly prohibited” on flights and at terminals, including damaging airport security facilities and assaulting crew members, the report said. In January last year, 25 passengers were held by police for questioning after they fought with crew members over a bad weather delay and opened the emergency exits. In 2013, an official who missed two flights lost his temper at the boarding counter and went on a rampage, violently destroying two computers and attempting to smash a window with a signboard.
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
‘DISAPPEARED COMPLETELY’: The melting of thousands of glaciers is a major threat to people in the landlocked region that already suffers from a water shortage Near a wooden hut high up in the Kyrgyz mountains, scientist Gulbara Omorova walked to a pile of gray rocks, reminiscing how the same spot was a glacier just a few years ago. At an altitude of 4,000m, the 35-year-old researcher is surrounded by the giant peaks of the towering Tian Shan range that also stretches into China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The area is home to thousands of glaciers that are melting at an alarming rate in Central Asia, already hard-hit by climate change. A glaciologist, Omarova is recording that process — worried about the future. She hiked six hours to get to
The number of people in Japan aged 100 or older has hit a record high of more than 95,000, almost 90 percent of whom are women, government data showed yesterday. The figures further highlight the slow-burning demographic crisis gripping the world’s fourth-biggest economy as its population ages and shrinks. As of Sept. 1, Japan had 95,119 centenarians, up 2,980 year-on-year, with 83,958 of them women and 11,161 men, the Japanese Ministry of Health said in a statement. On Sunday, separate government data showed that the number of over-65s has hit a record high of 36.25 million, accounting for 29.3 percent of