JAPAN
Job recruiters use mahjong
Fifty graduates opted to gamble with their job prospects at a mahjong tournament set up by recruiters looking for a different way to find the next high flyer. Held in a crammed mahjong outlet in downtown Tokyo, prospects competed against each other in a tournament that began on Friday last week to gain the chance to face recruiters from six companies in the fitness, education, technology and real-estate sectors. “Mahjong is a very strategic game, so I think people who are good at it would be good at marketing. This is a new approach and I find it really interesting,” said candidate Tomoko Hasegawa, who is aspiring to become a designer. Organizers said the recruiting tournaments began in 2012 and had gained popularity, mostly among male students and also with hirers, who say the game reveals more about the candidates than their resumes.
UNITED STATES
Nude celebs in Kanye video
Rapper Kanye West set tongues wagging on Monday with his latest music video, which features nude portrayals of high-profile celebrities, including pop singer Taylor Swift, Republican presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump and comedian Bill Cosby. The video for Famous, which premiered on E! News, featured footage depicting 12 celebrities sleeping next to each other with West situated in the middle, nestled between Swift and his wife, reality star Kim Kardashian. Other celebrities include former president George W. Bush, Vogue editor Anna Wintour, rapper Chris Brown, R&B singer Ray J, transgender reality star Caitlyn Jenner, model Amber Rose and singer Rihanna, who provided vocals for the song. E! News blurred out depictions of breasts and genitals. It is not known if the portrayals are paintings or wax statues, but in some cases it appears to be the actual celebrity. E! News host Jason Kennedy said: “Kanye wants everyone to know this is not a video. This is an art visual.” The imagery was inspired by Vincent Desiderio’s 2008 painting Sleep.
UNITED STATES
Timberlake sorry for tweet
Justin Timberlake, who praised actor-activist Jesse Williams’ moving speech at the BET Awards, has apologized for responding to a tweet claiming he appropriates black culture. Timberlake on Sunday tweeted that he was inspired after Williams spoke passionately about racism and social injustice. A responder tweeted to Timberlake: “Does this mean you’re going to stop appropriating our music and culture?” Timberlake responded: “The more you realize that we are the same, the more we can have a conversation.” The pop singer said he felt “misunderstood” after some said his response was insensitive. Timberlake ended with: “I apologize to anyone that felt I was out of turn. I have nothing but LOVE FOR YOU AND ALL OF US.”
UNITED STATES
‘Suge’ sues Chris Brown
Former rap music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight sued Chris Brown and the owners of a popular nightclub on Monday after he was shot seven times at a 2014 party hosted by the R&B singer. The lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court accuses Brown and the West Hollywood nightclub 1 Oak of failing to have adequate security and allowing at least one armed person into the venue during the party. Knight survived gunshot wounds to the abdomen, chest and left forearm. His attorneys say Knight’s fear months after the shooting led him to flee when he was attacked in his car, running down two men and killing one. Knight is in jail awaiting trial.
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
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