VIETNAM
Typhoon kills 27
Extreme weather caused by Typhoon Rammasun has killed 27 people, with the storm unleashing flash floods, landslides and lightning strikes, officials said yesterday. Heavy rain flooded 7,200 houses and 4,200 hectares of cropland, with the north of the country worst hit, the national flood and storm control committee said. The cost of the damage was estimated at about US$6 million.
INDIA
Medical kickbacks probed
The government has ordered an investigation into doctors and laboratories suspected of offering kickbacks for referring patients for medical tests, following a sting operation by Hindi news channel News Nation TV. The channel showed laboratories in New Delhi offering commissions as high as 50 percent to doctors who referred patients to their diagnostic centers. Officials at one laboratory visited by News Nation’s undercover reporters said they had kickback arrangements with 10,000 doctors, with monthly payments running into tens of thousands of rupees for some neurosurgeons who prescribe expensive tests.
TURKEY
Police officers arrested
Authorities yesterday arrested 55 senior police officers in a criminal probe over alleged corruption and abuse of office, the latest apparent crackdown on opponents of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ahead of presidential polls. Forty serving and former top police officers were arrested in Istanbul, including the former head of the anti-terrorism unit of Istanbul police, television reports said. Fifteen others were arrested elsewhere. The suspects are accused of espionage, illegal wire-tapping, forgery in official documents, violation of privacy, fabricating evidence, and violation of secrecy of investigation.
PHILIPPINES
Bishops caution president
Catholic bishops yesterday warned President Benigno Aquino III to resist temptations to bully the Supreme Court to reverse a decision that an economic stimulus fund was illegal, asking him to uphold the constitution. Aquino has warned the court of a possible constitutional crisis if it does not reverse its decision that the Disbursement Acceleration Program was illegal. “There is a very important distinction between what is popular — or appears to be so — and what is right,” said Archbishop Socrates Villegas, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines.
AUSTRALIA
Senator sorry about joke
A federal senator who told breakfast radio she would only date men who were rich and “well-hung” apologized yesterday, saying she had tried to hide her embarrassment with a joke. Jacqui Lambie told Tasmania’s Heart 107.3 that she had not been in a relationship for more than a decade. When the hosts offered to help her find love, she replied: “Now they must have heaps of cash and they’ve got to have a package between their legs, let’s be honest. And I don’t need them to speak, they don’t even need to speak.” A young male listener rang the show to say he met her criteria. “I’m just a bit concerned because you’re so young, I’m not sure you’d be able to handle Jacqui Lambie,” the politician said. “Are you well-hung?” “Like a donkey,” he replied. Lambie later apologized. “When Kim and Dave on Hobart’s Heart FM 107.3 this morning asked me about my love life in a light-hearted segment — I tried to cover up my embarrassment by making a joke,” she said. “A lot of people laughed, some people may have got offended.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
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