JAPAN
Eighty hurt in ferry accident
A ferry collided with what apparently was a marine animal off an island, injuring more than 80 people, local media reported. The accident happened just after noon on Saturday off Sado Island, Kyodo news agency reported, citing Japan’s coast guard. Five of the injuries were serious and a 15-centimeter crack was found at the ferry’s stern. Ferry operator Sado Steam Ship Co said the jetfoil ferry still reached its destination on the island, located off the west coast of Japan’s main island of Honshu. Coast guard officials said the ferry might have struck a whale or some other sea animal.
NIGER
Forty-five dead in attack
Seven soldiers and 38 militants died in an assault by the militant group Boko Haram in the southeast of the nation, the Ministry of Defence ministry said on Saturday, the latest in a series of attacks that have shattered months of relative calm near the Lake Chad basin. “Armed forces ... strongly repelled an attack by the terrorist group Boko Haram on the outskirts of Gueskerou,” the ministry said in a statement read on state television.
PAKISTAN
Climbers found dead
Two European mountain climbers who went missing on the Pakistani mountain Nanga Parbat, the world’s ninth-tallest, were confirmed dead on Saturday by Italian Ambassador to Pakistan Stefano Pontecorvo. Pontecorvo tweeted that the search for Italian Daniele Nardi and Briton Tom Ballard ended after a team confirmed that telescopic pictures of two silhouettes spotted at a height of about 5,900m were the bodies of the two climbers missing since Feb. 24. Ballard’s disappearance hit his homeland particularly hard because he is the son of Alison Hargreaves, the first woman to scale Mount Everest alone. She died at age 33 descending the summit of K2.
UNITED STATES
Thirty injured in turbulence
A Turkish Airlines passenger jet traveling from Istanbul to New York hit severe turbulence on Saturday as it approached its destination, with 30 people suffering injuries before it landed safely, officials said. The injured were taken from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to local hospitals, mainly for treatment of bumps, cuts and bruises. One flight attendant had a broken leg, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey spokesman Steve Coleman said. The Boeing 777 was over the Atlantic Ocean, about 45 minutes from landing, when it struck the turbulence, Coleman said.
UNITED STATES
R. Kelly released from jail
R. Kelly on Saturday walked out of a Chicago jail after someone, who officials say did not want to be publicly identified, paid US$161,633 that the R&B singer owed in child support. Kelly, who was on Wednesday taken into custody after he said he did not have the entire amount he owed, briefly spoke with reporters, telling them: “I promise you, we’re going to straighten all this stuff out.’”
UNITED STATES
J-Lo engaged to A-Rod
Jennifer Lopez has said yes to Alex Rodriguez’s proposal. The couple late on Saturday posted an Instagram photograph of their hands with a massive engagement ring on Lopez’s ring finger. The former Yankees shortstop captioned his photo with “she said yes” and a heart emoji. The couple has been dating since early 2017. It will be Lopez’s fourth marriage and Rodriguez’s second.
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
Filipino farmers like Romeo Wagayan have been left with little choice but to let their vegetables rot in the field rather than sell them at a loss, as rising oil prices linked to the Iran war drive up the cost of harvesting, labor and transport. “There’s nothing we can do,” said Wagayan, a 57-year old vegetable farmer in the northern Philippine province of Benguet. “If we harvest it, our losses only increase because of labor, transportation and packing costs. We don’t earn anything from it. That’s why we decided not to harvest at all,” he said. Soaring costs caused by the Middle East
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s officially declared wealth is fairly modest: some savings and a jointly owned villa in Budapest. However, voters in what Transparency International deems the EU’s most corrupt country believe otherwise — and they might make Orban pay in a general election this Sunday that could spell an end to his 16-year rule. The wealth amassed by Orban’s inner circle is fueling the increasingly palpable frustration of a population grappling with sluggish growth, high inflation and worsening public services. “The government’s communication machine worked well as long as our economic situation remained relatively good,” said Zoltan Ranschburg, a political analyst
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