JAPAN
Ten bodies found on coast
The badly decomposed remains of 10 people have been found on the nation’s coast across the sea from North Korea, along with the wreckage of two boats, officials said yesterday. The discovery comes just days after a group of eight fishermen, who said they were from North Korea, washed up on the same shore. Police said two cadavers were found in separate places on the edge of the surf on Sado Island, about 750km from North Korea across the Sea of Japan. The bodies had begun to putrefy and had nothing to identify them, senior local police official Hideaki Sakyo told reporters. However, he added, there were boxes of North Korean tobacco, as well as boat parts and life jackets with Korean writing on them nearby. A wrecked wooden boat with squid-fishing equipment was also found on the coastline.
TURKEY
Academic detained in probe
Counterterror police detained 10 people, including academic Fikret Baskaya, early yesterday in an operation targeting members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group, state-run Anadolu news agency reported. Baris Yarkadas, a lawmaker from the main opposition CHP, wrote on Twitter that Baskaya, 77, had been detained at his home in the capital, Ankara, at 6:30am and that police had seized some of his personal possessions. Anadolu said arrest warrants had been issued for a total of 17 people on allegations of aiding the PKK and spreading the group’s propaganda on social media. Baskaya is a university lecturer and author.
HONG KONG
Monet glasses get US$50,000
A collection of French artist Claude Monet’s personal belongings, including a pair of round-rimmed wire spectacles, have fetched almost US$11 million at an auction, Christie’s said. The dainty glasses, made from gold-colored metal, on Sunday went to an unnamed Asian buyer for US$51,457, far exceeding the auction house’s estimate of US$1,000 to US$1,500. The sale included other rare items like Monet’s pencil sketches, paintings and Japanese woodblock prints from the French master’s personal collection. A sculpture of a cat from 19th-century Japan’s late Edo or early Meiji period, sleeping curled up and measuring 32.8cm, went under the hammer for US$67,538. “This collection provides an intimate insight into the life of Monet the artist and Monet the collector,” said Adrien Meyer, cochairman of the Impressionist and Modern art department at Christie’s. The top lots sold for well above their estimated price. An oil painting of a cliff face overlooking the sea by Monet, titled Falaises des Petites-Dalles, went for US$4.6 million. More than 75 percent of the lot was snapped up by Asian buyers.
SRI LANKA
Would-be migrants arrested
Police say they have arrested 22 people who were attempting to illegally migrate to Australia by boat. The suspects were arrested on a tip on Sunday at the coastal town of Puttalam, about 120km north of the capital, Colombo, police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said. They were to appear in court yesterday. Sri Lankan and Australian authorities are cooperating with each other to combat human smuggling. No Sri Lankan asylum seekers have reached Australia by boat since 2013. However, Sri Lankans, Iranians and Afghans are the largest national groups among more than 2,000 asylum seekers living on Nauru and Papua New Guinea. Australia pays those countries to house them, but refuses to resettle any of them.
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
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number