SOUTH KOREA
Lebanese ambassador dies
Lebanese Ambassador Jad Saeed El-Hassan died in a car accident yesterday in Seoul, police said. El-Hassan was driving his car himself when it hit another vehicle inside a tunnel, police officers said on condition of anonymity, citing department rules. He was taken to a hospital, where doctors said the diplomat had died before his arrival, according to officials at the Inje University Seoul Paik Hospital. Two South Koreans in the second car were slightly injured and taken to another hospital, the officers said.
JAPAN
Oil tanker in trouble
A 998-tonne oil tanker was listing off the coast of Hyogo Prefecture yesterday after a large explosion and subsequent fire that sent towering columns of acrid smoke into the sky. The 64-year-old captain was unaccounted for hours after the accident, while four of his crew were in hospital being treated for severe burns, coast guard officials said. The tanker had unloaded its cargo of crude oil last week. Akihiro Komura, an official from Syoho Shipping, a Hiroshima-based shipping firm that owns the vessel, said that seven of the eight crew were safe.
JAPAN
Scientist to retract paper
A scientist under pressure over inconsistencies in her groundbreaking research has agreed to retract one of two papers published in Nature, reports said yesterday. Haruko Obokata, 30, was feted after unveiling research that appeared to show a straightforward way to reprogram adult cells to become a kind of stem cell. However, questions quickly emerged about her results. The institute that sponsored the study has urged her to withdraw her two papers after concluding that she fabricated at least some of the data. Obokata has agreed with her co-authors to withdraw one of the papers, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun, Kyodo News and other media. Her lawyer said that she will not withdraw the main paper, which summed up the cells’ characteristics and method of making them.
NEPAL
Everest conquest marked
The lone surviving member of the first expedition to reach the top of Mount Everest yesterday led a rally marking the 61st anniversary of the achievement. Kancha Sherpa, 81, led the rally of 500 people in Kathmandu, with mountaineers and trekking guides also taking part. New Zealander Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay, became the first climbers to reach the top of Everest on May 29, 1953. Kancha had carried loads up the mountain for the expedition and went up to the last camp on Everest, but did not climb to the summit. “We were all very happy on that day. It was the biggest day of my life,” Kancha said of the day the summit was reached. A service was held on Wednesday night in Kathmandu in memory of the 16 Sherpa guides killed in an April 18 avalanche just above Everest’s base camp.
INDIA
Three held for rape, murder
Police have arrested three people for allegedly gang raping and hanging two teenage sisters from a tree in a village in Uttar Pradesh state. Two of the suspects are police officers, police Superintendent Atul Saxena said yesterday. Villagers found the girls’ bodies hanging from a mango tree on Wednesday morning, hours after they disappeared from fields near their home in Katra village. Autopsies showed they had been raped and strangled before being hung from the tree, Saxena said.
UNITED STATES
Brad Pitt punched: police
Actor Brad Pitt was punched in the face on Wednesday while signing autographs at the Hollywood premiere of Maleficent starring his partner, Angelina Jolie, news reports said. A man jumped over a barrier outside the El Capitan Theater and attacked the actor at the debut of the film, Los Angeles police sergeant Leonard Calderon said, according to CNN. CNN said neither Pitt nor Jolie seemed fazed by the altercation. Police arrested a man identified as Vitalii Sediuk, 25, the Los Angeles Times reported. It said the motive for the attack was not immediately known.
MEXICO
Storm blamed for deaths
Torrential rains from tropical storm Amanda claimed the lives of three people, authorities said on Wednesday. Waters rushing down mountainsides caused flash floods that swept away two people in the town of Zitacuaro in the western state of Michoacan, said the state’s director of civil protection, Nicolas Alfaro. Two of the people killed were a 50-year-old man and a girl of eight. Roads and cars were damaged, and authorities warned that homes might need to be evacuated if the rains continued.
UNITED STATES
Man sentenced for filicide
A man who murdered his two-year-old daughter apologized on Wednesday — but not for murdering the child. Instead, just before he was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison, Arthur Morgan III apologized to the child’s mother for the breakdown of their relationship. “I want to say I’m sorry for the deterioration of what I thought was a beautiful friendship between the two of us that blossomed into a daughter,” Morgan told Imani Benton. “For anybody that was truly affected by this, I hope we can all heal from this situation.” Morgan was found guilty last month of murdering Tierra Morgan-Glover by tossing her into a New Jersey creek, strapped into a car seat and weighed down by a tire jack, in November 2011.
UNITED STATES
Deer jumps onto minivan
A suburban Chicago woman is grateful her family is safe after a 90kg deer leaped from an overpass, landing on their minivan as it traveled along a highway. Heidi Conner told the Arlington Heights Daily Herald that the doe came to rest in the middle of the family’s Chevy on Sunday. She and her four children were traveling at about 112kph. She says the accident was bizarre, adding “nobody can believe this deer fell from the sky.” Illinois State Police said witnesses reported seeing the deer jump from an overpass onto the vehicle below.
SOUTH AFRICA
Mother refuses baby switch
Two mothers have discovered that they are raising each other’s daughters after they were mistakenly switched at birth at Tambo Memorial Hospital in Boksburg, east of Johannesburg, four years ago. While one of the women wants to reclaim her biological child, the other is refusing to give back the girl she has raised as her own. Both mothers gave birth on the same day in 2010 and were discharged. Last year, one of the mothers sued her ex-partner for maintenance for her daughter. “The man denied he was the father. A DNA test was done it was found it was not his baby and not her baby,” lawyer Henk Strydom said. The high court in Pretoria appointed the University of Pretoria’s Centre for Child Law to investigate what will now be in the best interests of the children, which is the guiding principle under the law. It must report back within 90 days.
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
CYBERSCAM: Anne, an interior decorator with mental health problems, spent a year and a half believing she was communicating with Brad Pitt and lost US$855,259 A French woman who revealed on TV how she had lost her life savings to scammers posing as Brad Pitt has faced a wave of online harassment and mockery, leading the interview to be withdrawn on Tuesday. The woman, named as Anne, told the Seven to Eight program on the TF1 channel how she had believed she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood star, leading her to divorce her husband and transfer 830,000 euros (US$855,259). The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as artificial intelligence image-creating technology to send Anne selfies and other messages
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