■ SOUTH KOREA
Government to seize assets
The government announced yesterday its first-ever plan to seize assets gained by alleged collaborators during Japanese colonial rule. Authorities will confiscate 3.6 billion won (US$3.9 million) in land from the descendants of nine alleged collaborators who worked for Japan during its 1910 to 1945 colonial occupation of the Korean Peninsula, a presidential committee said in a statement. The property owners can file a lawsuit to contest the government decision, the committee said. Committee head Kim Chang-kuk said in a statement that the seizures, the first of more to come, would enable the nation "to recover our people's dignity that was violated by Japanese imperialism and those involved in pro-Japanese and anti-nationalistic acts."
■ JAPAN
Film sickens people
Watching the Hollywood film Babel could make viewers feel ill, its local distributor said in national newspaper advertisements published yesterday. At least 15 people have complained of feeling sick while watching the film starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett since it was released in Japan on April 28, a spokeswoman for the distributor Gaga Communications said. The film, about the spiraling international consequences of a shooting in Morocco, became a media sensation in Japan well ahead of its release, as Rinko Kikuchi was nominated for an Oscar for her performance as a deaf mute schoolgirl. But a scene in which Kikuchi's character visits a night club where strobe lights flash for about a minute has made some Japanese moviegoers queasy.
■ JAPAN
Magicians seek damages
A group of magicians sued TV broadcasters on Tuesday for revealing the secrets behind a series of coin tricks, a news report said. Forty-nine magicians are seeking a total of ¥1.9 million (US$16,000) in damages from Nippon Television Network Corp and TV Asahi Corp for airing shows last year that revealed how magicians perform tricks involving coins, Kyodo News agency said. In a suit filed with the Tokyo District Court, the magicians claimed the programs infringed on their common property, it said.
■ NEW ZEALAND
Terrier died saving kids
A plucky Jack Russell terrier named George saved five New Zealand children from two marauding pitbulls, but was so severely mauled in the fight he had to be destroyed, his owner said yesterday. George was playing with the group of children as they returned home from buying sweets at a neighborhood shop in the small North Island town of Manaia on Sunday when the two pitbulls appeared and lunged toward them, his owner Allan Gay said. "If it wasn't for George, those kids would have copped it," Gay said.
■ SOUTH KOREA
Rice and pork fuel workers
The average male worker is primarily powered by rice, greasy pork, instant noodles and cheap liquor, a government survey said. Rice accounted for about 35 percent of the calorie intake for the typical male worker. Pork products accounted for 5 percent and the local liquor called soju was at just over 2 percent, the survey from the Korea Health Industry Development Institute said. The typical woman had a similar breakdown for her main sources of nourishment, but they drank less soju than men and more sugar-laden instant coffee, the survey said. The nation has been battling a problem of obesity as people have shifted away from the traditional diet.
■ COLOMBIA
Drug haul not largest
The Colombian navy said on Tuesday that a buried cache of cocaine found along the Pacific coast was much smaller than initially believed and not the largest drug haul in the nation's history, as officials first claimed. On Monday, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said a 25m ton cache of cocaine worth upward of US$500 million was found buried in 1,000 packages near the town of Pizarro, 400km west of Bogota. He called the seizure the "biggest in the history of Colombia." But the navy said on Tuesday the amount of cocaine seized actually totaled 13.2m tonnes.
■ NIGERIA
Kidnappers release victim
Gunmen released the mother of a prominent Nigerian politician in the troubled oil-rich southern region late on Tuesday, nearly a day after she was kidnapped from her home, police said. Police Commissioner Felix Ogbaudu said the mother of River State Governor-elect Celestine Omeiha was in good health and had been reunited with her son. It was not immediately clear who her kidnappers were, and they had not made any demands, Ogbadu said.
■ GUYANA
Crowd lynch `vampire'
A crowd lynched an elderly woman after villagers accused her of being an evil spirit of local lore who drinks the blood of babies, police said. Police have arrested three people and are questioning others in the beating death of the unidentified woman, whose remains were found on Saturday in a village east of Georgetown, Superintendent Balram Persaud said on Monday. Authorities said the woman raised suspicions with unusual behavior and was set upon by villagers who apparently believed she was an "Old Higue" -- the equivalent of a vampire in the local Obeah religion that blends folk magic and African rituals. The woman's assailants reportedly beat her to death with a broom made from manicole trees and circled the body with white rice.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Prince Charles fires up
Britain's Prince Charles compared the challenge of tackling climate change to the Allies' struggle in World War II during a speech to business leaders on Tuesday. Addressing representatives from firms including Barclays Bank, British Airways and Rolls-Royce at Saint James's Palace in London, Charles said that "we need to act very rapidly indeed" to avert environmental disaster. "We can do it, just think what they did in the last war. Things that seemed impossible were achieved almost overnight," the heir to the throne added. Charles has long harbored a passionate interest in green issues.
■ UNITED STATES
David Lynch makes plea
Maverick filmmaker David Lynch called on Tuesday for schools around the world to adopt transcendental meditation to help avoid a repeat of last month's US university shooting in which 33 people died. "I think rules about guns being in schools will never stop school violence," Lynch, whose dark and disturbing movies include Blue Velvet and Eraserhead, said in a Webcast to promote the brand of meditation he has been practicing for more than 30 years. "The cure for this is a very, very beautiful cure, a very beautiful technique," he said. In 2005 Lynch launched the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-based Education and World Peace.
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
MINERAL DEPOSITS: The Pacific nation is looking for new foreign partners after its agreement with Canada’s Metals Co was terminated ‘mutually’ at the end of last year Pacific nation Kiribati says it is exploring a deep-sea mining partnership with China, dangling access to a vast patch of Pacific Ocean harboring coveted metals and minerals. Beijing has been ramping up efforts to court Pacific nations sitting on lucrative seafloor deposits of cobalt, nickel and copper — recently inking a cooperation deal with Cook Islands. Kiribati opened discussions with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Limin (周立民) after a longstanding agreement with leading deep-sea mining outfit The Metals Co fell through. “The talk provides an exciting opportunity to explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep-ocean resources in Kiribati,” the government said
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
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