UNITED STATES
Harry Dean Stanton dies
Harry Dean Stanton, whose grizzled looks and acclaimed acting talent earned him a prolific Hollywood career playing mainly supporting roles, on Friday died at a Los Angeles hospital at 91. He “passed away from natural causes” at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said his agent, John Kelly. Despite more than 150 television and film appearances spanning six decades, including roles in Alien, The Green Mile, Pretty In Pink and The Avengers, Stanton was not a household name. One of his rare leading roles came in the 1984 road movie Paris, Texas.
ECUADOR
President says Correa spied
President Lenin Moreno on Friday said his predecessor planted a hidden video camera in his office so that he could spy on him remotely. In a televised appearance from Guayaquil, he said the camera had been monitored remotely by former president Rafael Correa on his cellphone. He did not explain or provide any evidence to back the accusation. Moreno said the camera was even more perplexing, because every day at 8am his security detail checks his office for bugs, meaning it would have been activated remotely after the daily scan was performed.
UNITED STATES
Boy made to stand for pledge
A Detroit-area teacher is on leave after an 11-year-old boy said he was physically forced out of his chair during the pledge of allegiance. Stone Chaney, a sixth-grader, said he makes a pledge to God and family — not a flag — and has skipped participation since second grade. “I told the lady that I don’t stand for the pledge and she just kind of glared at me... I was confused when it happened because I didn’t know what was going on and then I was irritated, because that’s not supposed to happen,” Stone said. He said another teacher the next day yelled at him to stand up. Superintendent George Heitsch said one teacher has been placed on leave while the district investigates.
UNITED STATES
Foie gras ban reinstated
A US court in California on Friday reinstated a ban on foie gras in a move celebrated by animal rights advocates, who have long opposed the controversial French delicacy made by force-feeding ducks and geese. The decision reverses a ruling in 2015, which said that a statewide ban on the food was superseded by federal law. California’s legislature had voted on its ban in 2004 with an eight-year grace period — after which any restaurant caught selling the product risked a fine of US$1,000. Friday’s judgement will not go into effect until the completion of an appeals process.
UNITED STATES
Slender Man girl mentally ill
A Wisconsin girl who admitted to participating in the stabbing of a classmate to please horror character Slender Man is to avoid prison after a jury determined that she was mentally ill at the time of the attack. Anissa Weier trembled as the jury’s verdict was read late on Friday after a week of testimony and about 11 hours of deliberations. Weier and Morgan Geyser lured classmate Payton Leutner into the woods at a park in Waukesha, a Milwaukee suburb, in 2014. Geyser stabbed Leutner 19 times while Weier urged her on, investigators said. A passing bicyclist found Leutner, who barely survived her wounds. All three girls were 12 at the time. Both Weier and Geyser told detectives they felt they had to kill Leutner to become Slender Man’s “proxies” and protect their families from the demon’s wrath.
PAKISTAN
Blasphemer ordered to death
A Christian man has been sentenced to death on blasphemy charges by a court in eastern Pakistan after a close friend accused him of sharing anti-Islamic material, the defendant’s lawyer said on Friday. Blasphemy is a criminal offense in Muslim-majority Pakistan, and insults against the Prophet Mohammed are punishable by death. Most cases are filed against members of minority communities. Nadeem James, 35, was arrested in July last year, accused by a friend of sharing material ridiculing the Prophet Mohammed on WhatsApp.
BANGLADESH
Myanmar violate airspace
Authorities have summoned the Burmese envoy to protest what they say were violations of their airspace amid an exodus of Rohingya Muslims fleeing violence in western Myanmar. The Burmese presidential spokesman yesterday said there is no evidence of any trespassing and that Dhaka should have reached out to discuss its concerns instead of issuing public statements. The Bangladeshi Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday said that Myanmar drones and helicopters flew into Bangladeshi airspace on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday last week. Bangladesh warned that the “provocative acts” could lead to consequences.
CHINA
‘Coercive measures’ ordered
The government has ordered 31 people to be placed under “coercive measures” for a collapse last year at a construction site that killed 73 people, the state news agency reported yesterday. Coercive measures are a form of detention that can range from constant surveillance to outright arrest. It is often used against people accused of endangering national security. The punishment follows the collapse in November last year of a platform being built for a cooling tower at a power plant in southern China, killing 73 people, injuring two more and causing losses of US$15.6 million, a government report said.
VIETNAM
Typhoon repairs begin
Shaken residents were piecing their homes and businesses back together yesterday after a powerful typhoon hammered large swathes of coast and killed at least four people. Typhoon Doksuri tore through the nation on Friday afternoon, reducing structures to piles of debris and knocking out electricity and telecommunications in several provinces, in one of the worst storms to hit the country in years. Residents yesterday woke up to the widespread destruction in normally idyllic coastal communities.
THE VATICAN
Diplomat recalled from US
The Vatican has recalled a priest serving as an envoy in Washington and opened a child pornography investigation after US officials asked the church to lift his diplomatic immunity. The Vatican said on Friday that US officials complained in August “of a possible violation of laws relating to child pornography images by a member of the diplomatic corps of the Holy See.” A US Department of State official said that the diplomat in question had been allowed to leave the US because he enjoys immunity from criminal prosecution. “The United States formally requested that the Nunciature waive diplomatic immunity for the individual, but the Nunciature declined to do so,” the official said, on condition of anonymity. Neither the church nor US officials named the priest — one of four assigned to the Apostolic Nunciature, the Vatican embassy in Washington — but the Vatican said an investigation is under way.
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
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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