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.”
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
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