JAPAN
China holding professor
Chinese authorities have detained a local man in Beijing, chief Cabinet spokesman Yoshihide Suga confirmed yesterday, following media reports that a Hokkaido University professor was being held on suspicion of spying. “The Japanese embassy in China confirmed that a Japanese man in his 40s was detained by Chinese authorities in Beijing in September for [allegedly] violating Chinese laws,” Suga told reporters. The man previously worked for the Ministry of Defense’s National Institute for Defense Studies and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, media reports said. “We are holding meetings between [the man and] consuls and communicating with his family members, but we decline to comment on further details given the nature of this case,” Suga said.
INDIA
Two states hold elections
Voters yesterday cast ballots in two states where Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party is seeking a second consecutive term. The party is expected to win the elections in Maharashtra and Haryana. Modi took to Twitter to urge voters to participate in large numbers and exercise their right to vote and “enrich the festival of democracy.” Votes are to be counted on Thursday.
JAPAN
Uniqlo pulls S Korean ad
Clothing giant Uniqlo has pulled an advertisement from South Korean television and YouTube after it was accused of mocking victims of wartime sexual slavery. The company said it had stopped airing the 15-second ad after critics pointed out that the Korean-language subtitles appeared to question the testimony of former comfort women. In the ad, the 97-year-old US fashion icon Iris Apfel is asked by the 13-year-old designer Kheris Rogers how she dressed when she was her age. Apfel replies: “I can’t remember that far back.” However, the Korean subtitles gave Apfel’s reply as: “Oh my God, how can I remember what happened more than 80 years ago?” The Korea Herald said some viewers interpreted the time reference as an attempt to ridicule former sex slaves and forced laborers, whose recollections of abuses have been questioned by right-wing politicians and academics. Uniqlo said it had not intended to cause offense. It said the subtitles had been worded that way to highlight the age gap between the pair.
SOUTH KOREA
Ex-minister’s wife sought
Prosecutors are seeking to arrest the wife of former minister of justice Cho Kuk, who resigned last week amid allegations of financial crimes and academic fraud surrounding his family. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday said it requested an arrest warrant for Chung Kyung-shim over her suspected involvement in dubious private equity investments, attempts to destroy evidence and creating fake credentials to help her daughter get into medical school. Chung and Cho deny wrongdoing.
NEPAL
Weather hampers golfers
A high-altitude golf tournament had to be called off over the weekend as most of the players could not fly in due to heavy cloud cover. Forty golfers were meant to play at the base of Mount Kongde at a height of 4,250m. Four golfers made it in a small chopper to the one-hole course that had been prepared just below the snow line, while eight others teed off at a makeshift course in Syangboche, which is at 3,880m. The rest of the tournament is to be played in Kathmandu on Saturday and Sunday.
UNITED STATES
Tornado causes blackout
A tornado late on Sunday plowed through parts of northern Dallas, knocking out power to more than 175,000 homes and businesses, and delaying flights at regional airports, officials said. The storm left a kilometers-long swath of destruction, hitting near Dallas Love Field Airport in the north, the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland, said yesterday. Emergency responders and the Dallas Morning News said no injuries or deaths had immediately been reported, but police and firefighters were going door-to-door in some neighborhoods to check on residents.
SPAIN
Franco to be exhumed
The government is on Thursday to remove the remains of dictator Francisco Franco from a grandiose state mausoleum northwest of Madrid, the government announced yesterday. They would be relocated to a tomb at Mingorrubio El Pardo, a state cemetery about 20km north of Madrid, and placed next those of his wife. “The exhumation and reburial [of his remains] will be done in an intimate manner, with his family present,” Minister of Justice Dolores Delgado said in a statement. Moving Franco’s remains has been a priority for the Socialist government of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, which has said the nation should not “continue to glorify” the dictator.
UNITED STATES
Clinton mocks Trump letter
Former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton tweeted a mocked-up letter from former US president John F. Kennedy to former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev that was meant squarely to mock a real letter from President Donald Trump to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “Found in the archives,” Clinton wrote over an image of what purported to be a letter from Kennedy to the Soviet leader on Oct. 16, 1962, during the Cuban missile crisis. “Dear Premier Khrushchev,” the “letter” began. “Don’t be a dick, OK? Get your missiles out of Cuba. Everybody will say, ‘Yay, Khrushchev! You’re the best!’ But if you don’t everybody will be like ‘what an asshole’ and call your garbage country ‘The Soviet Bunion.’ You’re really busting my nuts here. Give you a jingle later. Hugs, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.”
GERMANY
Rents in Berlin frozen
Berlin’s governing parties struck a deal to freeze rents in the capital for five years, marking one of the most radical plans to tackle spiraling housing costs in a major city. The deal between the Social Democrats, Greens and the Left party paves the way for the city’s legislature to approve the measures this week before bringing them into force in the first quarter of next year. The final agreement was hashed out over a two-day marathon late last week after months of talks.
UNITED STATES
Tarantino shuns Beijing
Quentin Tarantino would not edit Once Upon a Time in Hollywood to placate Chinese censors, the Hollywood Reporter said. Tarantino has maintained a firm “take it or leave it stance” after Chinese regulators put the brakes on a scheduled Friday release, the publication reported, adding that Sony Pictures Entertainment was not given an explanation as to the delay. Some believe the Chinese decision stems from Tarantino’s depiction of martial arts star Bruce Lee (李小龍). Family and friends have said Tarantino wrongly portrayed Lee as a caricature.
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
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
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