CHINA
Cabin crew smoking banned
Pilots and other cabin crew can no longer smoke in the cockpits of domestic flights. The Civil Aviation Administration this week issued a notice to enforce the ban on in-flight smoking with immediate effect, the China Daily reported yesterday. First-time offenders, including those who smoke electronic cigarettes, would be suspended for 12 months and repeat offenders would be barred for 36 months, the regulator was quoted as saying, adding that airlines must carry out routine inspections. The government in October 2017 outlawed in-flight smoking, but individual airlines were given two more years before the cockpit ban was to take effect. Cabin crew who fail to stop other members from smoking in the cockpit would also be suspended for six months, the regulator was quoted as saying, adding that penalties could be more severe should smoking result in serious consequences.
INDIA
Alleged murderer caught
A man accused of murdering his friend, chopping up his body and flushing the parts down the toilet has been arrested, police said on Thursday. The grisly crime was discovered when residents at the Bachraj Paradise Society apartment complex in Mumbai found chunks of flesh blocking their drains. “While sifting through all the flesh we found two fingers, which helped us ascertain these were human parts,” police official Jayant Bajbale told reporters. After detecting a foul smell, police conducted a search of one of the apartments and came across a power tool they believe was used to dismember the corpse. “We identified the tenant and tricked him into coming to his flat and then arrested him,” Bajbale said. The 40-year-old confessed to killing his friend over a minor altercation. He told police that he chopped off the body parts of the victim over two or three days and disposed of them in bags dumped in different locations.
PHILIPPINES
Bill to boost female police
As more than 83 percent of the nation’s police officers are male, legislation is being pushed to recruit more female officers. A proposal to double the police’s annual recruitment allocation for women was passed by the House of Representatives Committee on Public Order and Safety and has been endorsed for plenary approval, said the Philippine National Police, which supports the measure. The 190,000-strong force is authorized to hire 10,000 new cops annually. Under the law, only 10 percent of these positions are reserved for women, leaving many aspiring women waiting for months or years to enter the force. The police force has eased on gender restrictions on recruitment ahead of the legislation, police spokesman Senior Superintendent Bernard Banac said in a statement.
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
‘ABSURD MISTAKE’: The election commission said that there had been a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations ran short of ballot papers South Korean riot police yesterday cleared protesters from a Seoul polling station after a 35-hour blockade sparked by a shortage of ballot papers during local elections earlier this week. Wednesday’s election was the first nationwide vote since South Korean President Lee Jae-myung took office following the ouster of Yoon Suk-yeol over his short-lived martial law declaration. Lee’s ruling Democratic Party swept most races, but failed to flip the crucial Seoul mayoral seat. The South Korean National Election Commission apologized, blaming a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations in Seoul ran short of ballot papers. Some polling stations stayed open until 10pm to
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
A Sherpa guide was found crawling to base camp on Mount Everest a week after he went missing and was reunited with his family, who had given up hope he would return. Dawa Sherpa was last seen on Friday last week descending the mountain, but he did not reach base camp even though his client did. The pair were among the last climbers on the mountain as the climbing season came to an end and the route was dismantled. Dawa was located by a cleaning crew on Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above
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