KOREAS
North frees S Korean man
North Korea has released a South Korean citizen detained last month after crossing the border into the North, the South’s Ministry of Unification Ministry said yesterday. The 34-year-old man, surnamed Seo, was detained after “illegally” entering the North last month, the ministry said. Officials in Seoul have pressed for the return of six other South Koreans believed to have been held for years in the North, and the ministry said they believed Seo’s release is a positive sign.
BANGLADESH
Protest response criticized
New York-based Human Rights Group (HRW) has accused authorities of using abusive measures in handling a student-led protest calling for safer roads. HRW said in a statement yesterday that ruling party men armed with sticks and machetes have swooped in on protesters and journalists since the students took to the streets on July 29 after two students were killed in a road accident in Dhaka. Several journalists, including an Associated Press photographer, have been attacked. HRW also criticized the arrest of a renowned photographer on charges of spreading false information about the protest. The protests grew last week, becoming a major embarrassment to the government, which faces a general election later this year.
JAPAN
Score lowering confirmed
Tokyo Medical School has confirmed after an internal investigation that it systematically altered entrance exam scores since 2000 or even earlier to limit female applicants and ensure more men became doctors. The findings released yesterday by lawyers involved in the investigation confirm recent media reports. The manipulation surfaced during an investigation of an alleged wrongful admission of a bureaucrat’s son. The internal probe found the school first reduced all applicants’ first-stage scores to 80 percent, then added up to 20 points only to male applicants with three or fewer application tries. The school wanted fewer female doctors because it believed they would become mothers, which would shorten or halt their careers.
UNITED STATES
SpaceX on 15th mission
Space Exploration Technologies successfully deployed an Indonesian satellite into orbit early yesterday, notching another milestone in its bid to quickly reuse rockets in its 15th mission of the year. The company reflew a booster for a second mission in less than three months, this time to carry a commercial satellite for PT Telkom Indonesia aloft from Cape Canaveral, Florida. This marks SpaceX’s first reuse of a Falcon 9 Block 5, a version of its workhorse rocket that was built to be launched as many as 10 times, with limited refurbishment between missions. SpaceX is targeting about 30 total missions this year, up from a record 18 last year.
AUSTRALIA
Superbug found in Victoria
The state of Victoria yesterday reported its first case of a superbug in a hospital patient who likely picked up the drug-resistant fungus in Britain. Victoria Deputy Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said health officials were taking a “search and destroy” approach to ensure the Candida auris fungus did not spread. “The man was isolated as soon as the diagnosis was made and intense cleaning and disinfection has occurred,” Sutton said in a statement. First identified in Japan in 2009, the fungus has spread to more than a dozen countries, including the US, where it is becoming a menace in hospitals, mostly in New York and New Jersey.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
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