NORTH KOREA
Kim movie an ‘act of terror’
Pyongyang yesterday denounced a new Hollywood comedy about an assassination bid on leader Kim Jong-un as a “wanton act of terror” and warned of a “merciless response” unless the US authorities banned the film. The Interview stars Seth Rogen and James Franco as two celebrity journalists who land an interview with Kim and are then tasked by the CIA with killing him. It is due to be released in the US on Oct. 14. In a statement carried by the KCNA news agency, a foreign ministry spokesman said the film was the work of “gangster moviemakers” and should never be shown. It is not the first time Hollywood has poked fun at a North Korean leader. In the 2004 action comedy Team America, Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, was portrayed as a speech-impaired, isolated despot.
INDIA
Four dead as train derails
A passenger train derailed yesterday in eastern India, killing four people, after a suspected explosion on the tracks during a protest called by Maoist insurgents, officials said. About 12 carriages of the Rajdhani Express, which was traveling from New Delhi to Assam, toppled over at about 2am in Bihar state’s Saran District. “Prima facie, it appears to be a case of sabotage,” Railway Board chairman Arunendra Kumar told the Press Trust of India news agency. “There was a blast on the track, which could have caused the derailment.” However, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said it was “too early” to blame the insurgents, according to PTI, while a senior police officer said that a “technical fault” could have been to blame.
JAPAN
Dog saves boy from bear
A placid pet dog was being hailed as a hero after saving a five-year-old boy from a mauling by a wild bear, police said on Tuesday. The dog, a six-year-old shiba, took on the 1m tall bear after it attacked the young boy during a riverside walk with his great-grandfather. The dog barked “unusually loudly” and chased off the animal on Saturday evening in Odate, about 550km north of Tokyo, a local police spokesman said. “The boy suffered slight bruises and was taken to hospital, but he was released on the same day,” the spokesman said. The boy’s 80-year-old great-grandfather, who was a short distance away near his car, raised the alarm.
THAILAND
Rice tycoon gets three years
The district court in Samut Prakan Province has sentenced a top rice trader believed to have close ties to former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra to three years in jail for embezzling rice from state stockpiles. A court official said Apichart Chansakulporn, former owner of bankrupt President Agri Trading, was found guilty of failing to deliver 20,000 tonnes of rice to Iran after getting a mandate for the trade from the commerce ministry in 2007. “However, he has the right to appeal within a month,” said the official, declining to be identified as he was not authorized to speak to the press.” Apichart remained free on bail
ISRAEL
Prisoners end hunger strike
A Palestinian official says about 80 Palestinian prisoners have ended their hunger strike after 63 days, after reaching a deal with Israel. Minister of Prisoner Affairs Shawqi al-Aissa said the hunger strike ended yesterday. He would not elaborate on the deal struck with the Israel Prison Authority. About 5,000 Palestinians are imprisoned in Israel for offenses ranging from rock throwing to deadly militant attacks. The latest hunger strike was launched on April 24.
SPAIN
Princess charged with graft
A court on Wednesday said it had formalized charges against Cristina de Borbon, sister of newly crowned King Felipe VI, and her husband in a corruption investigation, paving the way for a trial that could further damage the royal family. The Palma de Mallorca court upheld charges of tax fraud and money laundering against Princess Cristina, in one of the last steps before opening trial proceedings. Her husband, Inaki Urdangarin, is accused of embezzling several million euros in public funds and a trial would center on his business dealings. The rulings — which can be appealed before a trial begins — come barely a week after King Juan Carlos abdicated in favor of his son, Felipe, in a bid to revive the monarchy’s scandal-worn image at a time of economic hardship.
UNITED STATES
Actor Eli Wallach dies
Eli Wallach, an early practitioner of Method acting who made a lasting impression as the scuzzy bandit Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, died on Tuesday at the age of 98, the New York Times reported. Wallach’s death was confirmed by his daughter Katherine, the newspaper said. The circumstances of his death were not immediately known. Having grown up the son of Polish Jewish immigrants in an Italian-dominated neighborhood in New York, Wallach might have seemed like an unlikely cowboy, but some of his best work was in Westerns. Many critics thought his definitive role was Calvera, the flamboyant, sinister bandit chief in The Magnificent Seven. Others preferred him in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as Tuco, who was “the ugly,” opposite Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone’s classic spaghetti Western.
UNITED STATES
Dylan lyrics fetch US$2m
Handwritten song lyrics from legendary singer Bob Dylan sold for US$2 million at auction in New York on Tuesday, the most treasured possession in a trove of rock memorabilia up for sale. The handwritten copy of Dylan’s original lyrics for the 1965 epic Like A Rolling Stone, which transformed him from a folk musician into a rock icon, had been valued at between US$1 million and US$2 million by Sotheby’s before the auction.
UNITED STATES
Diplomas misspelled
An Illinois university’s typo is getting national attention.
Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications recently gave 30 diplomas to graduates on which the word “integrated” was spelled without the “n.” Kit Fox, one of the 250 students who graduated from the school Saturday, tweeted a photograph of a friend’s diploma that showed the error. The diploma would have been tagged with a “Medill F” — a stamp earned by students who commit factual or spelling errors.
UNITED STATES
Ribs delivered despite flood
A little thing like a flooded creek was not enough to keep an Alaska restaurant owner from delivering Thai ribs and fried rice to stranded customers over the weekend. Anuson “Knott” Poolsawat, owner of Knott’s Take Out in North Pole, forded the swollen waters of Clear Creek to reach two customers stuck along the Richardson Highway, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported. A sinkhole had developed from heavy rain near the creek. The Alaskan Department of Transportation closed the bridge. Poolsawat hiked up his shorts and waded through the creek, holding the takeout boxes over his head through cold, hip-deep water.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen (高兟), famous for making provocative satirical sculptures of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), was tried on Monday over accusations of “defaming national heroes and martyrs,” his wife and a rights group said. Gao, 69, who was detained in 2024 during a visit from the US, faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, said his wife, Zhao Yaliang (趙雅良), and Shane Yi, a researcher at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group which operates outside the nation. The closed-door, one-day trial took place at Sanhe City People’s Court in Hebei Province neighboring the capital, Beijing, and ended without a
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