■ SOUTH KOREA
Court upholds adultery law
The highest court upheld on Thursday a decades-old adultery law that could send people to jail for having an extramarital affair that critics said was anachronistic and infringed on personal freedom. The fourth appeal made to the Constitutional Court since 1989 was brought by the lawyers for a popular actress who was charged under the law when her TV personality husband filed a criminal complaint against her for having an affair with an opera singer.
■ HONG KONG
Magazine restricted
National Geographic, the magazine famous for providing schoolboys with their first glimpse of naked flesh, was banned yesterday from sale to minors. In what was believed to be a reaction to recent obscenity rulings in the former British colony, the latest edition of the magazine has gone on sale wrapped in clear plastic with a warning not to be sold to those under 18. The warning related to four computer-generated images of naked Neanderthal men and women that accompanied an article on a fossil discovery, a report in the South China Morning Post said.
■ MALAYSIA
Food vendor wins millions
A food vendor who had been playing the lottery for a decade has won the biggest ever jackpot of 20 million ringgit (US$5.7 million), reports said yesterday. The vendor and his wife were so astonished by their big win on the Toto lottery that they slapped each other to make sure they were not dreaming, the Star daily said. The couple planned to use the money pay off their debts, help out family members and make donations to charities, but would also treat themselves to a European vacation.
■ UNITED STATES
Liberian convicted
The son of former Liberian president Charles Taylor was convicted on Thursday of committing torture while in charge of a military outfit during his father’s regime. A jury in Miami convicted Charles McArthur Emmanuel on all counts of torture under a 1994 law allowing US authorities to prosecute anyone suspected of committing torture anywhere in the world. Emmanuel faces life imprisonment. Sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 9. Emmanuel was head of a security unit that targeted opponents of his father, who ruled the country from 1997 to 2003 and faces war crimes charges in a UN court in The Hague, where he remains locked up. Emmanuel was born in the US while his father was attending college in Boston. He eventually returned to the US after his father fled Liberia.
■ GERMANY
Tempelhof closes
The last flight lifted off from Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport late on Thursday, bringing an end to an era of aviation that spanned World War II, the Cold War and the rebirth of the German capital. Shortly before midnight, a vintage DC-3 “Candy Bomber” and a Junkers Ju-52 — both from the 1930s — took off from the airport. Then the runway lights went black forever. The future of the site is uncertain. Tempelhof was the central point of a massive US-led airlift in 1948 when the Soviets blockaded all land and water traffic to Berlin in an attempt to squeeze the Western allies out of the city.
■ SOUTH AFRICA
Police seek private help
The police force will rope in private security firms to help deal with one of the world’s worst crime rates, Safety Minister Nathi Mthethwa said on Thursday. “Government has had extensive consultations with the private security industry to partner in the fight against crime,” he told journalists. He said the private security firms would “extend the arm” of the police, especially in suburbs with high rates of house robberies. Under a recently signed agreement with leading firms, authorities will give private security officers training on how to secure a crime scene, but they would not carry out police functions such as making arrests, he said.
■ GERMANY
Toilet art proves a hit
A public toilet in Munich that has been transformed into an art museum has attracted hundreds of people in the first days after opening, a spokesman for the city’s tourism agency said on Thursday. Built in 1894, the toilet house was originally constructed to serve nearby households.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Illegal migrants nabbed
An audacious bid by four illegal immigrants to enter the country hidden in a luxury car has ended in failure after they were intercepted by immigration officers, the Home Office said on Tuesday. The four men from Iraq were found sitting in a Bentley GT, worth more than US$192,400 that was being taken from the Nurburgring race track in Germany in a truck to Bentley’s factory in Crewe, England.
■ IRAN
Uranium recovery tested
Intelligence from a member country of the International Atomic Energy Agency says the government has tested ways of recovering highly enriched uranium. The intelligence says a report will soon be submitted to Tehran’s leaders for a decision on whether to go ahead with the project. But experts and diplomats say the country would not have enough source material for a bomb.
■ UNITED STATES
King’s legacy rocks on
Elvis Presley may have left the building several decades ago, but his earning power is far from diminished, with Forbes.com ranking him the top-earning dead celebrity for the second year in a row. Presley pulled in US$52 million in the past year, helped by increased visitors to his Graceland estate to commemorate the 30th anniversary of his death and new ventures like the Elvis Sirius Satellite Radio show, the Web site said.
■ UNITED STATES
Stamp sells for US$1 million
A rare 1868 postage stamp has sold for more than US$1 million at a New York City auction. The US$0.03, rose-colored “B Grill” stamp was among the highlights of a three-day Siegel Auction Galleries sale that ended on Thursday. The auction house said only three other known examples of the stamp remain. “B Grill” refers to an embossed pattern in the stamp paper. An anonymous buyer put in the winning bid of US$1,035,000. The auction also included one of stamp collecting’s most famous prizes, the so-called “Inverted Jenny” from 1918. The US$0.24 airmail stamp features a biplane accidentally printed upside-down. Stamp dealer Harry Hagendorf bought the one auctioned on Thursday for US$388,125.
■ UNITED STATES
Fungus killing bats: report
A previously unknown fungus that thrives in chilly temperatures may be the culprit behind the deaths of at least 100,000 bats hibernating in caves in the northeastern US, scientists said on Thursday. The fungus is a white, powdery-looking organism found on the muzzles, ears and wings of dead and dying bats hibernating in caves in New York, Maine, Vermont and Connecticut in the past two years, they wrote in the journal Science. “Essentially, hibernating bats are getting moldy as they hang from their cave ceiling,” said David Blehert, a microbiologist with the US Geological Survey who led the study. “It’s decimating the cave-bat populations.” Bats play a vital role in keeping down insect populations, pollinating plants and spreading around plant seeds. The disease is affecting all six species of hibernating cave bats in the northeastern US — little brown bats, big brown bats, northern bats, tricolored bats, Indiana bats and the small-footed myotis, Blehert said.
■ PANAMA
Noriega homes not selling
No one wants to buy two crumbling mansions that once belonged to former strongman Manuel Noriega. Officials said there were no bidders on Thursday for the two properties, valued at US$6.1 million. The failed auction was a surprise given that the country is in the midst of a real estate boom. The sale represented the first time the government received permission to put Noriega’s homes on the auction block since he was ousted by the 1989 US-led invasion.
■ MEXICO
Police free hostages
Police on Thursday freed around 20 people taken hostage in a Mexico City department store owned by billionaire Carlos Slim, the public security ministry said. Police entered the store “without firing a single shot and rescued the victims safe and sound,” a statement said. The hostage takers, including a former soldier and a woman, “held at least 20 people ... including clients, waiters and other employees.” They entered the Sanborn’s store early on Thursday and first held up an employee at a cash register. The hostage-takers were between 21 and 44 years old. There are more than 100 Sanborn’s stores in Mexico City alone.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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