THAILAND
Insult lands Red Shirt in jail
A court has sentenced a member of the Red Shirt political movement to seven-and-a-half years imprisonment for remarks judged to have insulted the country’s monarchy. The court ruled yesterday that 70-year-old Surachai Danwattananusorn made speeches against the monarchy three times in 2010. Surachai was a communist insurgent in the 1970s and was imprisoned in the 1980s. More recently he has led a faction of the Red Shirts, who took to the streets and clashed with the military in 2010. Thailand’s lese majeste law has come under increasing criticism as a violation of free speech.
CHINA
Pizza chain hurts feelings
A British pizza chain that used “French Concession” to describe its Shanghai location has angered some who believe the term evokes the colonial past, state media said yesterday. Pizza Marzano used the term in promotional materials to describe the location of its third and newest branch in Shanghai, causing a customer to complain, the China Daily newspaper said. China’s vocal bloggers weighed in over the incident after photos of the materials were posted online.
INDIA
Officials fully back gay sex
The government sought to clarify its views on homosexuality yesterday, saying it “fully” backed a 2009 court order decriminalizing gay sex despite the objections of a top state lawyer last week. During a hearing in the Supreme Court on Thursday last week, additional solicitor general P.P. Malhotra had called gay sex “against nature” in a submission that caused outrage among gay rights activists. The home ministry later sought to disown the comments, causing confusion about the government’s stance on the highly sensitive social issue. Yesterday, another additional solicitor general, Mohan Jain, stressed that his views were those of the government, which he said fully supported a Delhi High Court decision in 2009 to decriminalize gay sex.
NEW ZEALAND
Huge penguin fossil found
Scientists said yesterday they have found fossilized remains of one of the largest penguins ever, an “elegant” giant standing 1.3m tall. The penguin lived between 27 million and 24 million years ago, when the north and south islands were mostly underwater and consisted of isolated, rocky outcrops that offered protection from predators and plentiful food supplies, researchers said. The first traces of the penguin, dubbed Kairuku — Maori for diver who returns with food — were found embedded in a cliff at Waimate in the South Island by University of Otago paleontologist professor Ewen Fordyce in 1977.
JAPAN
Police raid N Korean group
Police yesterday raided offices related to a pro-Pyongyang organization in Japan in connection with an investigation into the illegal shipment of computers to North Korea. Backed by 100 riot police, 10 police officers entered the Tokyo offices of an organization connected to the Pyongyang-affiliated General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, Chongryon. The raid came after prosecutors last week indicted Lee Soon-gi, 49, for illegally exporting 100 second-hand personal computers to North Korea through China in 2009, officials and local media said. Japan does not allow exports of luxury goods, including computers, to North Korea as part of a range of sanctions against the regime over North Korea’s abductions of Japanese nationals.
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has
‘THE RED LINE’: Colombian President Gustavo Petro promised a thorough probe into the attack on the senator, who had announced his presidential bid in March Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a possible candidate in the country’s presidential election next year, was shot and wounded at a campaign rally in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said. His conservative Democratic Center party released a statement calling it “an unacceptable act of violence.” The attack took place in a park in the Fontibon neighborhood when armed assailants shot him from behind, said the right-wing Democratic Center, which was the party of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. The men are not related. Images circulating on social media showed Uribe Turbay, 39, covered in blood being held by several people. The Santa Fe Foundation
RSS