SINGAPORE
Ships crash in disputed area
A Malaysian vessel and a Greek-registered bulk carrier on Saturday collided in Singapore’s territorial waters off Tuas, according to a statement from the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, which said it was “deeply concerned” by the intrusion. The Malaysian vessel, Polaris, was anchored while the Greek bulk carrier, Piraeus, was sailing at the time of the incident, and there were no injuries, the report said. The Singapore and Malaysia have differences over issues ranging from maritime territorial claims to airspace.
TURKEY
Building collapse toll rises
The death toll from the collapse of an apartment building in Istanbul on Saturday rose to 21, while and 14 people were injured. The eight-story block in the Kartal district of the city collapsed on Wednesday, but the cause is not yet clear. “We estimate that there were 35 people trapped under the rubble and we have now accounted for 35,” Minister of the Interior Suleyman Soylu said, while stressing that search operations would continue as before.
BULGARIA
Skripal agent tied to murder
The country is to investigate reports that a new suspect in the Skripal nerve agent attack in Britain could also have been involved in a 2015 poisoning in Bulgaria, ruling party lawmaker Tsvetan Tsvetanov said on Saturday. Investigative Web site Bellingcat identified a hitherto unknown third suspect — named by his alias “Sergey Fedotov” — in last year’s attack in Salisbury, England, of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter. The Web site said that the same man might also have been involved in the attempted poisoning in April 2015 of businessman Emiliyan Gebrev. “Fedotov” is said to have flown into Sofia from Moscow just days before Gebrev collapsed at a reception there on April 28, 2015, with symptoms of severe poisoning.
GERMANY
No buyers for Hitler art
Five paintings attributed to Adolf Hitler failed to find buyers at an auction on Saturday held amid anger at the sale of Nazi memorabilia. High starting prices of between 19,000 and 45,000 euros (US$21,537 and US$51,010) and lingering suspicions about the authenticity of the works were thought to have scared off potential buyers.
UNITED STATES
Protest at Guggenheim
US art photographer and activist Nan Goldin on Saturday night brought the Guggenheim Museum in New York to a standstill as thousands of fake prescriptions were dropped into the atrium to protest against the institution’s acceptance of donations from the family who owns the maker of OxyContin — the prescription painkiller blamed for the US’ opioids crisis. Tourists and locals gawped in confusion as Goldin and fellow demonstrators began chanting criticism of the Sackler family, who owns Purdue Pharma.
UNITED STATES
Warren in race for top job
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren on Saturday made her bid for the presidency official in Lawrence, Massachusetts, grounding her campaign in a populist call to fight economic inequality and build “an America that works for everyone.” Warren delivered a sharp call for change, decrying a “middle-class squeeze” that has left Americans crunched with “too little accountability for the rich, too little opportunity for everyone else.”
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
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