JAPAN
Panda’s sex determined
A panda born earlier this month is a female, Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo said yesterday, adding that the little cub appeared to be in good health. The cub’s sex was confirmed based on photographs sent to a panda research center in the shy animal’s native China, a zoo spokesman said. Pandas are born pink, hairless and weighing about 100g — so small it can be difficult to determine their sex. The little cub is drinking her mother’s milk, the spokesman said, adding she is now 17.6cm long and weighs 283.9g.
UNITED STATES
Roadkill added to menu
Some folks in Oregon might not want to ask, when served an elk burger or a venison steak, where the meat came from. Under a roadkill bill passed overwhelmingly by the state legislature and signed by the governor, motorists who crash into the animals can now harvest the meat to eat. About 20 other states also allow people to take meat from animals killed by vehicles. Aficionados say roadkill can be high-quality, grass-fed food. “Eating roadkill is healthier for the consumer than meat laden with antibiotics, hormones and growth stimulants, as most meat is today,” People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said.
UNITED STATES
CIA admits candy theft
The CIA this week said that it had been compromised for months in 2013 by a network of high-tech snack thieves. A report shows the intelligence body discovered that insider hackers had stolen more than US$3,300 worth of potato chips, chocolate bars and other snacks from its vending machines. The culprits were “contractors,” the report said, adding that an unidentified contractor figured out how to get snacks without paying. The machines took stored value payment cards from the FreedomPay company. The contractor figured out that if you disconnect the cable that connects the machines with FreedomPay’s cloud-based payment systems, they would accept a card that has no more funds.
BRAZIL
Road pileup kills 21
Twenty-one people were killed in the country’s southeast on Thursday when a truck loaded with rocks smashed into a bus and two ambulances, officials said. The pileup in Espirito Santo state also left 13 people injured, the security services said. It was the third major road accident in the nation this month. The injured were taken to a hospital in Guarapari, near the site of the accident, the state security department said. Thirteen of the dead were in the bus, while the other victims were in the ambulances and truck. About 47,000 people die on Brazil’s roads each year, according to 2013 figures from the WHO.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
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