JAPAN
Ten bodies found on coast
The badly decomposed remains of 10 people have been found on the nation’s coast across the sea from North Korea, along with the wreckage of two boats, officials said yesterday. The discovery comes just days after a group of eight fishermen, who said they were from North Korea, washed up on the same shore. Police said two cadavers were found in separate places on the edge of the surf on Sado Island, about 750km from North Korea across the Sea of Japan. The bodies had begun to putrefy and had nothing to identify them, senior local police official Hideaki Sakyo told reporters. However, he added, there were boxes of North Korean tobacco, as well as boat parts and life jackets with Korean writing on them nearby. A wrecked wooden boat with squid-fishing equipment was also found on the coastline.
TURKEY
Academic detained in probe
Counterterror police detained 10 people, including academic Fikret Baskaya, early yesterday in an operation targeting members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group, state-run Anadolu news agency reported. Baris Yarkadas, a lawmaker from the main opposition CHP, wrote on Twitter that Baskaya, 77, had been detained at his home in the capital, Ankara, at 6:30am and that police had seized some of his personal possessions. Anadolu said arrest warrants had been issued for a total of 17 people on allegations of aiding the PKK and spreading the group’s propaganda on social media. Baskaya is a university lecturer and author.
HONG KONG
Monet glasses get US$50,000
A collection of French artist Claude Monet’s personal belongings, including a pair of round-rimmed wire spectacles, have fetched almost US$11 million at an auction, Christie’s said. The dainty glasses, made from gold-colored metal, on Sunday went to an unnamed Asian buyer for US$51,457, far exceeding the auction house’s estimate of US$1,000 to US$1,500. The sale included other rare items like Monet’s pencil sketches, paintings and Japanese woodblock prints from the French master’s personal collection. A sculpture of a cat from 19th-century Japan’s late Edo or early Meiji period, sleeping curled up and measuring 32.8cm, went under the hammer for US$67,538. “This collection provides an intimate insight into the life of Monet the artist and Monet the collector,” said Adrien Meyer, cochairman of the Impressionist and Modern art department at Christie’s. The top lots sold for well above their estimated price. An oil painting of a cliff face overlooking the sea by Monet, titled Falaises des Petites-Dalles, went for US$4.6 million. More than 75 percent of the lot was snapped up by Asian buyers.
SRI LANKA
Would-be migrants arrested
Police say they have arrested 22 people who were attempting to illegally migrate to Australia by boat. The suspects were arrested on a tip on Sunday at the coastal town of Puttalam, about 120km north of the capital, Colombo, police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said. They were to appear in court yesterday. Sri Lankan and Australian authorities are cooperating with each other to combat human smuggling. No Sri Lankan asylum seekers have reached Australia by boat since 2013. However, Sri Lankans, Iranians and Afghans are the largest national groups among more than 2,000 asylum seekers living on Nauru and Papua New Guinea. Australia pays those countries to house them, but refuses to resettle any of them.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
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