BHUTAN
Monk jailed for tobacco
A monk caught carrying US$2.50 worth of tobacco has been jailed for three years, becoming the first person punished under the country’s draconian anti-smoking law, reports said yesterday. Sonam Tshering was caught in January carrying 48 packets of chewing tobacco, which he said he had bought in India before traveling back home. The nation banned the sale of tobacco in 2005 and tightened up its law further last year to combat smuggling, requiring consumers to provide valid customs receipts for their cigarettes. An eight-page judgment from a district court in the capital, Thimphu, said that Tshering had violated the tobacco control act because he had not paid duty for the tobacco.
SOUTH KOREA
Official Web sites attacked
The Korea Communications Commission issued a cyber security alert as the Web sites of 29 government and other agencies came under attack yesterday. A commission spokesman said the “distributed denial of service” attacks had initially been expected to hit 40 Web sites, but only 29 were actually affected. They included those of the presidential Blue House, the US forces, the military Joint Chiefs of Staff, the ministries of foreign affairs, defense and unification, parliament and the tax office. The commission said in a statement the government was working closely with Internet security agencies and others to deal with the problem.
VIETNAM
China warned over Spratlys
Hanoi yesterday said it had lodged a complaint against Chinese military exercises near islands claimed by both countries, accusing its neighbor of violating its sovereignty. Foreign ministry officials met Chinese embassy staff on Wednesday in response to reports of Chinese naval activity last month around the Spratly Islands, which are also claimed by Taiwan and the Philippines. “The Vietnamese side clearly stated that by conducting the drills in Truong Sa Archipelago [Vietnam’s name for the Spratlys], China had violated Vietnamese sovereignty,” a statement from the ministry said. It said officials urged China to “refrain from activities that would further complicate the situation.”
MALAYSIA
Police sound pig alert
Police said they were searching for 100 live pigs stolen from a truck by armed robbers. Police official Roslan Bek Ahmad said three men with machetes hijacked the truck on Wednesday as it was leaving a pig farm in northern Perak state. The driver was tied up and left by the roadside. Roslan said police had recovered the vehicle in central Negri Sembilan state, but it was empty. He said police believed the pigs, worth about 83,000 ringgit (US$27,000), were transferred to another truck.
AUSTRIA
Silvio’s Ruby attends ball
“Ruby,” the teenager at the heart of a sex scandal involving Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, was the star turn on Thursday at the Vienna Opera Ball. The Moroccan-born pole dancer Karima El Mahroug, nicknamed “Ruby the Heart Stealer,” joined entrepreneur Richard Lugner in his box and attracted frenzied attention. Dressed in a long embroidered gown, the 18-year-old hogged the media limelight with photographers jostling to shoot her. Opera Ball organizer Desiree Treichl-Stuergkh threatened to cancel Luge’s loge next year, saying: “This is the biggest embarrassment that Mr. Lugner has ever made. It’s sad, humiliating and disrespectful.”
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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