JAPAN
Court rules vagina kayak art
A Tokyo court has acknowledged that a vagina-shaped kayak created by a Japanese “vagina artist” is art while on display, but found her guilty of violating the country’s obscenity law by distributing it in the form of digital data. The Tokyo District Court yesterday ordered Megumi Igarashi, known by her alias Rokudenashiko (good-for-nothing girl), to pay a fine of ¥400,000 (US$3,710) over the illegal distribution of her scanned vagina data. Igarashi was charged over the kayak display and distribution of its data in 2013 and 2014. She has argued her kayak is art using a vagina as a motif, not obscenity. Despite its lucrative porn industry and tolerance to displays of scantily dressed women in ads on public transportation, Japan’s obscenity laws prohibit public display of genitalia.
CHINA
Ships in deadly collision
Authorities are questioning the crew of a Maltese-flagged ship that collided with a Chinese fishing boat over the weekend, killing at least two sailors and leaving 17 others missing, state media reported yesterday. The ship’s Greek captain and 19-member mostly Filipino crew said they were unaware they had collided with another craft in heavy fog early on Saturday morning, the reports quoted Xu Zhiyong (徐志勇), a border checkpoint officer in the port of Beilun in the eastern province of Zhejiang, as saying. The Catalina did not stop following the accident, but was later ordered into port for investigation and docked on Saturday night in Beilun where it was boarded by Chinese officers who conducted an investigation, the reports said. The captain, second mate, officers of the deck and other officers were taken off the ship for further questioning. Navy ships and other craft are searching for survivors in the area of crash, about 150km off the coast of Zhejiang, just south of Shanghai.
AUSTRALIA
‘Neighbours’ creator dies
Australian media mogul Reg Grundy, a game show pioneer who also developed television hits including Neighbours, Sons and Daughters and Prisoner, has died, aged 92, it was announced yesterday. “Reg Grundy has passed away in the arms of his beloved wife, Joy, on their Bermuda estate,” radio personality Alan Jones, a long-time friend, said on his morning program. “So ends a remarkable chapter of a great Australian.” Grundy developed a series of hit drama series, including Prisoner Cell Block H and Young Doctors. At his peak, he became so entrenched in Australian folklore that it was common in the 1980s and 1990s for Australians to refer to their underwear as “Reggies” or “Grundies” — rhyming slang for “undies.”
AFGHANISTAN
Buses, fuel tanker collide
Two buses and a fuel tanker on Sunday collided on a major highway in Afghanistan, killing 52 people, officials said. Another 73 people who had been on the buses were wounded in the accident, which set all three vehicles ablaze, spokesman for Ghazni Province governor Jawed Salangi said. The collision happened at 7am on the main highway linking Kabul, to the southern city of Kandahar. The buses were traveling one behind the other from Kabul to Kandahar when the accident happened, Ghazni Province traffic department director Mohammadullah Ahmadi said. He blamed the crash on reckless driving.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was