PHILIPPINES
Heavy rain to continue
Hundreds of thousands of people already reeling from floods have been told to expect further heavy rains until March, authorities said yesterday, as the disaster death toll rose to 53. “There will be more rains in areas which should already be experiencing the dry season,” the national weather bureau’s spokeswoman Venus Valdemoro said. La Nina was partly responsible for the unseasonal downpours, she said. Heavier than normal rainfall is forecast for most of the country over the next three months, increasing the risk of flooding and landslides, especially in eastern regions, Valdemoro said. Heavy rains have swamped much of the country since late last month, with floods affecting nearly 1.6 million people, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.
CHINA
Nine die in apartment fire
An apartment fire in the city of Wuhan has left at least nine people dead. The Xinhua news agency says the fire started late on Monday and was put out early yesterday. An unnamed fire official told Xinhua that most people escaped the four-story building. Fires are a hazard in the country as families try to stay warm. Officials with the State Council yesterday expressed concern about icy conditions in the southern part of the country.
SRI LANKA
Flood victims storm office
Hundreds of flood victims stormed a government office in one of the hardest-hit areas on Monday to demand that aid be distributed, police said. Heavy monsoon rains caused flooding across the island nation last week, killing at least 40 people and leaving 51,400 people in temporary shelters. Anger over the distribution of relief spilled over in Ariyampathi, near the eastern port of Batticaloa. Police rushed to the scene and the crowd left after officials promised to deliver the aid, police spokesman Prishanth Jayakody said. He declined to say how many people were involved or whether anyone was injured.
PHILIPPINES
Medical visa on way in
Manila said yesterday it would introduce special medical visas for foreigners. The medical tourist visas, to be introduced this year, will allow foreigners to stay in the country for six months without having to apply for extensions as regular tourists are required to do, according to the Bureau of Immigration. “The visa will help the Philippines become competitive in the lucrative medical tourism market in Asia now dominated by Taiwan, Singapore and Thailand among others,” immigration bureau deputy head Ronaldo Ledesma reporters.
UNITED KINGDOM
‘Wife-beater’ recalled
New Delhi said yesterday it was recalling a senior envoy from Britain following reports that he assaulted his wife, but indicated it would not consider waiving his diplomatic immunity. The diplomat, named by media as Anil Verma, allegedly attacked his wife on Dec. 11 in an argument at their home in London, Britain’s Mail on Sunday reported. Police were called after neighbors heard his wife, Paromita Verma, scream and saw her run out into the street with blood streaming from her nose, the paper said. The envoy was reportedly angry because there was a Christmas tree in the house that had been given to the family by one of his wife’s relatives.
UNITED KINGDOM
Old whisky returns home
Three bottles of whisky abandoned in the Antarctic ice by British explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton more than a century ago returned home to Scotland on Monday. The bottles of Mackinlay’s were part of a cache recovered last year beneath Shackleton’s Antarctic hut, built in 1908 as part of his failed attempt to reach the South Pole. They made it home on Monday to Whyte and Mackay, the brand’s owner, for analysis to see how they have fared after so long preserved in the polar chill. The wooden crate containing the whisky, marked “British Antarctic Expedition 1907,” was frozen solid in minus-30oC temperatures, but the whisky in the bottles was still liquid.
SOMALIA
Pirates break record
Somali pirates kidnapped a record number of seafarers last year, in cases that left eight sailors dead, a maritime watchdog said yesterday. Pirates in the lawless region hijacked 53 ships and captured 1,181 seafarers last year, the International Maritime Bureau said in a report. The number of pirate attacks against ships has risen every year for the past four years, the bureau said. There were 445 attacks reported last year, up 10 percent from 2009. A total of 188 crew members were taken hostage in 2006, 1,050 in 2009 and 1,181 last year.
SOUTH KOREA
Russian arms trade for debt
Seoul has been negotiating with Russia to receive advanced defense technology as part of debt repayments, officials said yesterday. Russia has so far provided South Korea with US$740 million in weapons as a way of repaying US$1.3 billion in debt dating back to the days of the Soviet Union. Seoul is now in talks on the transfer of cutting-edge technology from Moscow, the South’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration said. Yonhap news agency quoted a military source as saying the Russian technologies include long-range radar and a defense system against an electromagnetic pulse attack.
SWITZERLAND
Arson attack hits court
Unknown assailants set fire to the entrance of the country’s highest criminal court and spray painted the building with anti-establishment slogans, police said on Monday. There was no immediate claim of responsibility and no one was hurt in the attack on the Federal Criminal Court in the town of Bellinzona, police Inspector Renato Pizolli said. Spray painted slogans condemning the judiciary were accompanied by the symbol of an encircled A often used by anarchists. Police said in a statement the fire was most likely arson. The attack in Ticino, near the Italian border, comes several weeks after Italy’s Informal Anarchist Federation claimed responsibility for a parcel bomb that seriously injured a man when it exploded in the Swiss embassy in Rome.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
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