JAPAN
Court rules vagina kayak art
A Tokyo court has acknowledged that a vagina-shaped kayak created by a Japanese “vagina artist” is art while on display, but found her guilty of violating the country’s obscenity law by distributing it in the form of digital data. The Tokyo District Court yesterday ordered Megumi Igarashi, known by her alias Rokudenashiko (good-for-nothing girl), to pay a fine of ￥400,000 (US$3,710) over the illegal distribution of her scanned vagina data. Igarashi was charged over the kayak display and distribution of its data in 2013 and 2014. She has argued her kayak is art using a vagina as a motif, not obscenity. Despite its lucrative porn industry and tolerance to displays of scantily dressed women in ads on public transportation, Japan’s obscenity laws prohibit public display of genitalia.
CHINA
Ships in deadly collision
Authorities are questioning the crew of a Maltese-flagged ship that collided with a Chinese fishing boat over the weekend, killing at least two sailors and leaving 17 others missing, state media reported yesterday. The ship’s Greek captain and 19-member mostly Filipino crew said they were unaware they had collided with another craft in heavy fog early on Saturday morning, the reports quoted Xu Zhiyong (徐志勇), a border checkpoint officer in the port of Beilun in the eastern province of Zhejiang, as saying. The Catalina did not stop following the accident, but was later ordered into port for investigation and docked on Saturday night in Beilun where it was boarded by Chinese officers who conducted an investigation, the reports said. The captain, second mate, officers of the deck and other officers were taken off the ship for further questioning. Navy ships and other craft are searching for survivors in the area of crash, about 150km off the coast of Zhejiang, just south of Shanghai.
AUSTRALIA
‘Neighbours’ creator dies
Australian media mogul Reg Grundy, a game show pioneer who also developed television hits including Neighbours, Sons and Daughters and Prisoner, has died, aged 92, it was announced yesterday. “Reg Grundy has passed away in the arms of his beloved wife, Joy, on their Bermuda estate,” radio personality Alan Jones, a long-time friend, said on his morning program. “So ends a remarkable chapter of a great Australian.” Grundy developed a series of hit drama series, including Prisoner Cell Block H and Young Doctors. At his peak, he became so entrenched in Australian folklore that it was common in the 1980s and 1990s for Australians to refer to their underwear as “Reggies” or “Grundies” — rhyming slang for “undies.”
AFGHANISTAN
Buses, fuel tanker collide
Two buses and a fuel tanker on Sunday collided on a major highway in Afghanistan, killing 52 people, officials said. Another 73 people who had been on the buses were wounded in the accident, which set all three vehicles ablaze, spokesman for Ghazni Province governor Jawed Salangi said. The collision happened at 7am on the main highway linking Kabul, to the southern city of Kandahar. The buses were traveling one behind the other from Kabul to Kandahar when the accident happened, Ghazni Province traffic department director Mohammadullah Ahmadi said. He blamed the crash on reckless driving.
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
RSS