IRAN
Smog hospitalizes hundreds
Almost 400 people have been hospitalized with heart and respiratory problems caused by heavy air pollution in Tehran, with nearly 1,500 others requiring treatment, an official said on Tuesday. Year-round, more than 4 million cars spew exhaust fumes into the atmosphere of the capital and the situation worsens in winter, when cold air leads to a carcinogenic fog that blankets the city. The latest casualties were treated on Monday, said Hassan Abbas, an emergency services manager quoted by the IRNA news agency. “Some 392 people were admitted to hospital due to respiratory and heart problems,” he said. “We treated another 1,434 externally.” Authorities were said to be considering school closures and the introduction of traffic restrictions for the capital yesterday. The sick and elderly have been asked to avoid traffic so as not to breath in a noxious mix of carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and dirty rubber particles.
SOUTH KOREA
KAL heiress held, sister sorry
The second daughter of Korean Air (KAL) chief executive Cho Yang-ho apologized yesterday for swearing “revenge” in a text message to her sister, who was arrested on Tuesday for delaying a flight with a tantrum over snacks. Cho Hyun-min, 31, sent a message reading: “I will certainly take revenge!” on Dec. 17 when KAL heiress Cho Hyun-ah was summoned by prosecutors for questioning. Prosecutors revealed its contents late on Tuesday after Cho Hyun-ah was arrested on charges including violation of aviation safety law, coercion and interference in the execution of duty, Yonhap News Agency said. The 40-year-old has been accused of forcing the chief purser off a Dec. 5 New York-Seoul flight and of compelling the taxiing plane to return to the gate so he could disembark. She had also taken exception to being served macadamia nuts she had not asked for — and in a bag, not a bowl. “I’m really sorry beyond words for my text message... I would not make any excuses. It’s all my fault,” Cho Hyun-min, who holds executive-level positions at the flag carrier and its sister firms, wrote on Twitter. The subject of her vengeance was not clear, but Yonhap and newspapers speculated she was talking about the chief purser, who has criticized her sister in interviews.
CHINA
Wrongful execution cleared
A court will give the parents of a teenager wrongfully executed for murder and rape 18 years ago more than 2 million yuan (US$330,000) in compensation, it said yesterday. Hugjiltu, who was convicted, sentenced and executed in 1996 at the age of 18, was exonerated earlier this month by a court in Inner Mongolia, nine years after another person confessed to the crime, in a case that highlighted flaws in the nation’s legal system. The court cleared the teenager on grounds of “insufficient evidence” and said in an online post that his parents would receive 2,059,621.40 yuan in compensation. It did not explain how the figure was reached. Acquittals in the national court system are extremely rare: 99.93 percent of defendants in criminal cases were found guilty last year, official statistics showed. In Hugjiltu’s case, authorities interrogated the teenager for 48 hours, after which he confessed to having raped and choked the woman in the toilet of a textile factory, the state-run China Daily newspaper reported in November. He was executed 61 days after the woman’s death. Hugjiltu’s family tried for nearly a decade to prove his innocence, reports said, and the inner Mongolia Higher People’s Court officially began a retrial in November.
‘EYE FOR AN EYE’: Two of the men were shot by a male relative of the victims, whose families turned down the opportunity to offer them amnesty, the Supreme Court said Four men were yesterday publicly executed in Afghanistan, the Supreme Court said, the highest number of executions to be carried out in one day since the Taliban’s return to power. The executions in three separate provinces brought to 10 the number of men publicly put to death since 2021, according to an Agence France-Presse tally. Public executions were common during the Taliban’s first rule from 1996 to 2001, with most of them carried out publicly in sports stadiums. Two men were shot around six or seven times by a male relative of the victims in front of spectators in Qala-i-Naw, the center
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
The US will help bolster the Philippines’ arsenal and step up joint military exercises, Manila’s defense chief said, as tensions between Washington and China escalate. The longtime US ally is expecting a sustained US$500 million in annual defense funding from Washington through 2029 to boost its military capabilities and deter China’s “aggression” in the region, Philippine Secretary of Defense Gilberto Teodoro said in an interview in Manila on Thursday. “It is a no-brainer for anybody, because of the aggressive behavior of China,” Teodoro said on close military ties with the US under President Donald Trump. “The efforts for deterrence, for joint resilience
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