CHINA
Vaccine probe opened
Police in Jiangsu Province have begun an investigation after at least 145 children received expired polio vaccines, the Global Times reported yesterday. Residents, including the children’s parents, blocked traffic and disrupted public order as they gathered outside Jinhu County offices on Friday, the paper said. Three were arrested, police said in a statement. The vaccine was administered on Jan. 7, despite an expiry date of Dec. 11 last year, the paper said, adding that local government authorities have set up a special investigation team to look into the matter.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Egg beats Kylie Jenner
A picture of a plain egg had garnered more than 23 million likes on Instagram as of yesterday, becoming the platform’s most-liked post ever. It was first posted on Jan. 4 by an account called –?wait for it –?@world_record_egg. The previous Instagram record was held by celebrity Kylie Jenner, whose photograph announcing her baby, Stormi, in February last year was liked 18 million times. Jenner did not take the defeat lying down. She responded with her own post, cracking an egg on the street, which quickly got 9 million likes. “Take that little egg,” she wrote.
INDONESIA
Lion Air recorder found
Navy divers have recovered the cockpit voice recorder of a Lion Air jet that crashed into the Java Sea in October last year, officials said yesterday. Deputy Ministry of Maritime Affairs Ridwan Djamaluddin told reporters that the remains of some of the 189 people who died in the crash were also discovered at the seabed location. “We got confirmation this morning from the National Transportation Safety Committee’s chairman,” he said. Lieutenant Colonel Agung Nugroho, a spokesman for the navy’s Western Fleet, said that divers using high-tech “ping locator” equipment had started a new search effort on Friday and found the voice recorder beneath 8m of seabed mud.
UNITED STATES
Red wolf genes discovered
Researchers say a pack of wild canines found frolicking near the beaches of the Texas Gulf Coast carries a substantial amount of red wolf genes, an animal that was declared extinct in the wild nearly 40 years ago. The finding has led wildlife biologists and others to develop a new understanding that the red wolf DNA is remarkably resilient after decades of human hunting, loss of habitat and other factors all but wiped them out. “Overall, it’s incredibly rare to rediscover animals in a region where they were thought to be extinct and it’s even more exciting to show that a piece of an endangered genome has been preserved in the wild,” said Elizabeth Heppenheimer, a Princeton University biologist involved in the research.
UNITED KINGDOM
Misogyny laws mooted
Police forces should treat harassment and abuse of women that is motivated by misogyny as a hate crime, lawmakers and rights groups said in an open letter yesterday. The government last year said it would review hate crime legislation and look at whether it should encompass new categories such as misogyny. Lawmakers Stella Creasy and Peter Bottomley, and campaigner Helen Pankhurst were among those who signed the open letter. “Because misogyny — acts targeted at women, because they are women — is not included within the law, women are left unprotected. Women have the right to live free from intimidation, abuse and violence,” the letter read.
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
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,
CYBERSCAM: Anne, an interior decorator with mental health problems, spent a year and a half believing she was communicating with Brad Pitt and lost US$855,259 A French woman who revealed on TV how she had lost her life savings to scammers posing as Brad Pitt has faced a wave of online harassment and mockery, leading the interview to be withdrawn on Tuesday. The woman, named as Anne, told the Seven to Eight program on the TF1 channel how she had believed she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood star, leading her to divorce her husband and transfer 830,000 euros (US$855,259). The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as artificial intelligence image-creating technology to send Anne selfies and other messages
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