JAPAN
White tiger kills zookeeper
A white tiger attacked and killed a zookeeper in its enclosure in southern Japan, officials said yesterday. “A zookeeper was found collapsed in a cage, bleeding,” a local police official said, adding that the man was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. The attack happened late on Monday at the Hirakawa Zoological Park in the southern city of Kagoshima. Akira Furusho, 40, was discovered bleeding from the neck and officials believe that he was mauled by one of the zoo’s four rare white tigers, media reports said. The zoo said that the tiger was sedated with a tranquilizer gun after the attack, as rescue workers and police rushed to the scene.
PHILIPPINES
No cancer found in Duterte
The condition of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s health “is not serious” and it will remain a confidential matter, his spokesman said yesterday. “The president will abide by the constitution, but because it is not serious, he will treat his medical condition as confidential,” Harry Roque told a news briefing. Philippine Acting Minister of the Interior Eduardo Ano yesterday said that Duterte had told a Cabinet meeting on Monday night that test results showed he does not have cancer.
INDIA
Prominent editor arrested
Police in southern India have arrested the chief editor of a prominent investigative magazine on charges of publishing defamatory content against a top state official. Police in Tamil Nadu yesterday arrested R.R. Gopal at the airport in the state’s capital, Chennai, as he was about to board a flight to a neighboring state. Police said that they arrested Gopal after his influential Tamil-language magazine, Nakkeeran, published reports linking the state’s governor to a university sex scandal. Dozens of journalists and politicians protested the arrest, calling it an assault on freedom of expression.
INDIA
Airport police to go grumpy
Armed police at airports have been told to cut down on smiling, with officials blaming the 2001 US terror attacks partly on an excessive focus on friendliness, local media reported yesterday. The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), in charge of aviation safety, is to move from a “broad smile system” to a “sufficient smile system,” the Indian Express reported. The English language newspaper said the move was aimed at making the CISF “more vigilant than friendly.” “We cannot be over-friendly with the passengers, because one of the reasons cited as to why 9/11 happened... was excessive reliance on passenger friendly features,” CISF director-general Rajesh Ranjan was quoted as saying.
YEMEN
Smiths turn bombs to knives
Missiles fired by Saudi-led coalition jets rain down on militia and civilians alike, killing and maiming thousands. Children, farmers and others collect shrapnel from their farmlands, from dirt alleys in impoverished neighborhoods, and offer it for sale to Ali Ghomari and other artisans. From missiles, they do not make ploughshares. They make knives — jambiyya, the ornamental daggers that Yemeni men wear for prestige and as a show of courage. The entire Ghomari family sits in huts forging glowing metal around open fires in the northern city of Abs. When he has the money, Ghomari sometimes buys the remains of trucks and cars destroyed in wrecks, bombings or airstrikes. “Trucks make the best dagger because the steel is strong and special,” he said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Decades-old bottle found
A plastic bottle that is at least 47 years old has been found washed up on a beach with its lettering and messaging still clear, prompting warnings about the enduring problem of plastic waste. The item, found by a coast guard warden at a beach in Somerset, “still looks almost new,” the Burnham Coast Guard said on Facebook. “We were staggered yesterday by how much debris has washed up on the beach,” it said. “It’s shocking how long rubbish can survive and ultimately harm nature.” The bottle advertises itself as “4d off,” meaning it dates back to before decimalization was introduced in Britain in 1971.
UNITED STATES
Hurricane gaining power
Hurricane Michael gained strength over warm tropical waters amid fears it would swiftly intensify into a major hurricane before striking Florida’s northeast Gulf Coast, where coastal dwellers are boarding up homes and seeking evacuation routes. A hurricane hunter plane that on Monday bounced into the swirling eye of Michael off Cuba found that wind speeds were rising, even as forecasters said that the storm could reach major hurricane status with winds topping 179kph by last night. Landfall is expected today on the northeast Gulf Coast, where authorities warned of a potentially devastating strike.
UNITED STATES
Impotence gene found
Researchers have identified a genetic variant that is partially responsible for erectile dysfunction, a development that could help improve treatment, a study published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found. Men who have a copy of this variant have a 26 percent increased risk of facing erectile dysfunction, compared with the average population, the study said. Those with two copies of the variant face a 59 percent higher risk, lead author Eric Jorgenson said. The results were based on a database of 36,649 patients of Kaiser Permanente Northern California.
MEXICO
Couple claims 20 killings
A couple detained while transporting human body parts in a baby carriage has admitted to killing 20 people, twice the number originally suspected, the chief investigator on the case said on Monday. The man also admitted to raping some of his female victims and selling some of their body parts, Mexico State prosecutor Alejandro Gomez said. The man and woman were arrested on Thursday last week in Ecatepec on suspicion of killing 10 women. The man gave detailed accounts of the 10 murders and told investigators that he and his wife had killed 10 others as well, Gomez said. “He described it in a completely natural way... I would say he actually seemed happy to have done this,” Gomez said in a radio interview.
UNITED STATES
Swift ventures into politics
When pop megastar Taylor Swift praised two Democratic candidates in her home state of Tennessee, she broke a years-long policy of keeping her politics to herself. Her endorsements drew much praise, but also a fierce backlash. Some white supremacists who have formed an odd cult around her cried betrayal, while some mainstream fans said she should have stuck to music. On Monday, President Donald Trump joined in, saying he now likes Swift’s music “about 25 percent less.” On Instagram on Sunday, Swift threw her support behind Senate candidate Phil Bredesen and House of Representatives candidate Jim Cooper.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday declared martial law in an unannounced late night address broadcast live on YTN television. Yoon said he had no choice but to resort to such a measure in order to safeguard free and constitutional order, saying opposition parties have taken hostage of the parliamentary process to throw the country into a crisis. "I declare martial law to protect the free Republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean communist forces, to eradicate the despicable pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people, and to protect the free
The US deployed a reconnaissance aircraft while Japan and the Philippines sent navy ships in a joint patrol in the disputed South China Sea yesterday, two days after the allied forces condemned actions by China Coast Guard vessels against Philippine patrol ships. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the joint patrol was conducted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone by allies and partners to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight “ and “other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace.” Those phrases are used by the US, Japan and the Philippines to oppose China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the
‘ANCIENT AND MODERN’: The project, which took 22 years to complete, unearthed more than 300,000 treasures now on display across the network It caused untold commotion, decades of disruption and — among historians and archeologists — controversy and despair, but at midday on Saturday, the antiquities-rich subterranean world of Thessaloniki opened to a world of driverless trains and high-tech automation with the inauguration of its long-awaited subway. The excitement on the streets of the northern Greek port city is almost palpable. “Archaeologically, it has been an extremely complex and difficult endeavor,” said Greek Minister of Culture, Education and Religious Affairs Lina Mendoni of the more than 300,000 finds made since construction began 22 years ago. “To get here required a battle on many
‘AMERICA FIRST’: Patel, 44, previously called for stripping the FBI of its intelligence-gathering role and purging its ranks of anyone who refuses to support Trump’s agenda US president-elect Donald Trump has tapped Kash Patel to be FBI director, nominating a loyalist to lead the chief US law enforcement agency — which Trump has long derided as corrupt. Patel rose to prominence expressing outrage over the agency’s investigation into whether Trump’s campaign conspired with Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. With the nomination of Patel, Trump is signaling that he is preparing to carry out his threat to oust FBI Director Christopher Wray, a Republican first appointed by Trump during his first term as president, whose 10-year term at the FBI does not expire until 2027. FBI
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