SOUTH KOREA
Prostitute remark angers
The government yesterday lashed out at an “unspeakable” personal attack, a day after Pyongyang called President Park Geun-hye a “prostitute.” In a statement released through state media, North Korea likened Park to a “comfort woman” and accused her of pandering to her “pimp” US President Barack Obama by breaking an agreement reached in February to tone down inflammatory rhetoric.” “The North ... not only broke the agreement once again, but also continued to issue unspeakable curses and foul words in an immoral act,” Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Eui-do said.
SAUDI ARABIA
More MERS cases reported
The governnment confirmed 26 more cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), which has killed nearly a third of sufferers, and said 10 more people have died. The country has now had 339 confirmed cases of MERS, of which 102 have been fatal. The 143 cases announced since the start of this month represent a 73 percent jump in total infections in the kingdom this month. The 10 confirmed on Saturday included seven in Jeddah, the focal point for the recent outbreak, two in the capital, Riyadh, and another in Mecca. Two of the 10 patients died. The 16 further cases confirmed on Sunday included two in Riyadh, eight in Jeddah and another six in the northern city of Tabuk. Eight MERS sufferers died on Sunday.
AUSTRALIA
Hackers target parliament
A cyberattack on the federal parliament’s computer network in 2011 may have given Chinese intelligence agencies access to lawmakers’ private e-mails for an entire year, the Australian Financial Review reported yesterday. The newspaper said new information showed the attack had been more extensive than previously thought and “effectively gave them control of” the entire system. “It was like an open-cut mine. They had access to everything,” a source told the newspaper.The parliamentary computer network is a non-classified internal system used by federal lawmakers, their staff and advisers for private communications and discussions of strategy.
INDONESIA
Australian told to leave
Authorities in Bali on Sunday released an Australian man who caused a hijack scare by trying to break into a plane’s cockpit, police said. Authorities say the drunken man pounded on the cockpit door during a Virgin Australia flight on Friday, forcing the pilot to issue an alert code to air traffic control. The man was released late on Sunday and was to leave Bali on his own initiative, Bali police special crimes chief Colonel Suryambodo Asmoro told reporters. “Under Indonesia’s law, he couldn’t be charged in Indonesia because what he did was on a plane registered in Australia,’’ Asmoro said, adding that it would be up to Australian authorities to decide on further action.
THAILAND
Abhisit meets commander
Opposition leader and former prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva met the head of the armed forces yesterday to discuss ways to avert a potential showdown between political groups next month. Abhisit, who met Armed Forces Supreme Commander General Thanasak Patimaprakorn, has asked for two weeks to try to resolve the crisis peacefully. “He [Thanasak] supports what I want, which is to bring all sides together to find a way out for the country... The commander underscored that political problems must be solved through political means,” Abhisit told reporters.
UNITED KINGDOM
Britain warns Scotland
Scotland faces lengthy and difficult negotiations to stay in the EU if it votes to leave the Kingdom this year and it will end up worse off than at present, British Foreign Secretary William Hague told Scottish First Leader Alex Salmond in a letter. Scots will vote in a referendum on Sept. 18 on whether to quit the UK. In a letter, written ahead of a speech yesterday by Salmond in Bruges, Belgium, Hague urged the Scottish leader to provide clarity on key issues regarding Scotland’s future EU membership, to better inform voters in their choice. “The terms of EU membership, which your government has said it will seek to secure for an independent Scotland, are at odds with the EU’s own rules of membership,” he said, raising doubts over how Salmond would convince all 28 EU member states to allow Scotland special opt-outs, such as on adopting the euro.
UNITED STATES
Gere’s tramp act convincing
A French tourist listened to her heart when she offered her pizza to a man spotted rummaging through trash in the streets of New York City, not realizing it was Richard Gere making a movie. Karine Valnais Gombeau, a 42-year-old Parisian, spotted the actor, a knit cap pulled down over his ears, sifting through rubbish as she came out of a pizzeria near Grand Central station in Manhattan, with her husband and 15-year-old son, the New York Post reported on Sunday. Without blinking, Gere, 64, asked her what was in the bag that Gombeau offered him. “I tried to tell him in English, but it came out half in French,” she told the Post. “I said: ‘Je suis desolee [I am sorry], but the pizza is cold.’ He said: ‘Thank you so much. God bless you.’” She left without knowing it was Gere making his new movie Time Out of Mind, until the Post ran a photograph of the moment two days later.
SPAIN
Cervantes search begun
Miguel de Cervantes, the nation’s greatest writer, died penniless in Madrid, his body riddled with bullets. His burial place was a tiny convent church. Four centuries later, the country intends to do the great man justice. A team that will search for Cervantes’ remains began excavations yesterday and final conclusions — should the search succeed — will be known by the end of the year. A three-phase search will take place at the Convent of the Barefoot Trinitarians in Madrid’s historic Barrio de las Letras — or Literary Quarter. Prado said that with no living Cervantes descendants, DNA analysis is unlikely to lead anywhere. The investigation will refer to the author’s portraits and his own stories, in which he relates that shortly before dying he only had six teeth. The most obvious marks will be the battle wounds that Cervantes sustained.
UNITED STATES
Man seeks N Korea asylum
A 24-year-old man detained in North Korea had arranged a private tour through a travel company and gave no indication he might try to seek asylum upon arriving in Pyongyang, the company’s director said on Sunday. Matthew Todd Miller was taken into custody by North Korean officials after entering the country on April 10, ripping up his tourist visa and demanding asylum, according to the state-run KCNA news agency. Miller’s travel was arranged by New Jersey-based Uri Tours, which specializes in guided trips through the North, and he gave no indication he might be seeking asylum.
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
‘DOWNSIZE’: The Trump administration has initiated sweeping cuts to US government-funded media outlets in a move critics said could undermine the US’ global influence US President Donald Trump’s administration on Saturday began making deep cuts to Voice of America (VOA) and other government-run, pro-democracy programming, with the organization’s director saying all VOA employees have been put on leave. On Friday night, shortly after the US Congress passed its latest funding bill, Trump directed his administration to reduce the functions of several agencies to the minimum required by law. That included the US Agency for Global Media, which houses Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Asia and Radio Marti, which beams Spanish-language news into Cuba. On Saturday morning, Kari Lake, a former Arizona gubernatorial and US
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
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