SOUTH KOREA
Hospital fire toll up to 43
The death toll from a hospital fire yesterday rose to 43, officials said, making it the nation’s deadliest blaze in 15 years. Two men, both of them in their 80s, who had been treated in other hospitals since the fire on Jan. 26, succumbed to their injuries, Miryang authorities said. A total of 149 people were injured, including one who is in critical condition. It is now the worst fire disaster since 2003, when an arson attack on a subway station in Daegu killed 192 people. Authorities are still investigating the exact cause of the blaze, but preliminary inspections have suggested possible defects in wiring in the ceiling of what used to be an office pantry. Fingers have also been pointed at cheap, but flammable construction materials, inadequate fire-blocking doors, illicit addition of rooms and a lack of staff.
PHILIPPINES
Senator seeks Duterte probe
A senator and staunch critic of President Rodrigo Duterte yesterday filed a resolution seeking a legislative inquiry into whether Duterte and his eldest daughter had concealed assets amounting to nearly US$2 million. Senator Antonio Trillanes asked the Senate committee on banks, financial institutions and currencies to probe deposits and investments involving their accounts, which he said could show possible violations of the nation’s anti-money laundering law.
INDIA
Help call for missing tanker
The nation said it has sought the help of Nigerians and Beninese to find an oil tanker that has gone missing with 22 Indian crew members off Benin’s coast. Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj late on Sunday confirmed that the tanker, Marine Express, went missing in the Gulf of Guinea. It is not known whether the ship was hijacked for ransom or to steal the nearly 13,500 tonnes of gasoline on board. The ship, owned by a Mumbai company, has been missing since Wednesday last week with no contact with the crew so far, according to Indian media reports.
CHINA
Gas leak kills 8, injures 10
Gas leaking from a pipeline at a steel mill in Guangdong Province early yesterday killed eight people and injured 10, local authorities reported. The Shaoguan City Government said in a post on its microblog that the leak occurred at 3am at Shaoguan Iron and Steel’s Songshan plant. It said the rescue and recovery effort was under way and the cause of the leak was under investigation. China has made considerable progress in improving industrial safety, but scores are still killed annually in factories, coal mines and transportation networks. In 2015, an explosion traced to improperly stored chemicals killed at least 173 people in Tianjin.
SOUTH KOREA
North stole billions in crypto
The government yesterday said that North Korea last year stole cryptocurrency from the South worth billions of won and that it was still trying to hack into its exchanges. “North Korea sent e-mails that could hack into cryptocurrency exchanges and their customers’ private information and stole [cryptocurrency] worth billions of won,” parliamentary intelligence committee member Kim Byung-kee said. Kim did not disclose which exchanges were hacked. He added that the nation’s spy agency assumed that North Korea was continuously trying to hack into exchanges to steal cryptocurrency and that it was trying its best to prevent further hacking.
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
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘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
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
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