SOUTH KOREA
Storm kills six people
At least six people were killed and several others were missing after Typhoon Mitag — which passed Taiwan on Monday — lashed the nation with heavy rain and strong winds, authorities said yesterday. The storm hit southern parts of the nation on Wednesday night, prompting flood warnings and triggering landslides. A woman in her 70s died after she was swept away by strong winds in the southeastern city of Pohang, while another woman was killed after heavy rain caused her house to collapse as she slept, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety said. Six people were killed across the country, but the toll was expected to rise.
AUSTRALIA
Wombat death sparks probe
A police officer is being investigated after an online video appeared to show him stoning a wombat to death, police said yesterday. The video shows a shirtless man pursuing a wombat down a dirt road, throwing rocks at it as another man films the night-time encounter from a vehicle and calls out encouragement. After giving a thumbs-up to the camera, the first man strikes the marsupial at least three times before it falls to the ground and stops moving. The man raises his arms in victory to the driver, who responds with a laugh: “Oh no, you killed him, bro.” Squat and furry, wombats are small burrow-dwelling marsupials that are largely nocturnal and walk on all fours. Australian Broadcasting Corp reported that South Australia police commissioner Grant Stevens had confirmed the man was a police officer.
AUSTRALIA
Deadly fungi discovered
One of the world’s deadliest fungi has been discovered in the nation’s far north for the first time. The poison fire coral fungus was discovered in a suburb of Cairns by a local photographer and subsequently identified by scientists, James Cook University said yesterday. Several people have died in Japan and South Korea after mistaking the bright red fungi for edible mushrooms. James Cook University mycologist Matt Barrett, who confirmed the identity of the mushroom in Australia, said the discovery extends its known distribution “considerably.” Poison fire coral is the only known mushroom with toxins that can be absorbed through the skin and if eaten causes vomiting, diarrhoea, fever and numbness.
UNITED STATES
Sperm donor sues
A man who says his donated sperm was used to father at least 17 children in a breach of an agreement that allowed for no more than five has sued an Oregon fertility clinic. Bryce Cleary said that it is possible that he has many more children from his donations 30 years ago, the Oregonian reported. The lawsuit filed on Wednesday in the Multnomah County Circuit Court says that Cleary donated his sperm when he was a first-year medical student at Oregon Health and Science University in 1989 after the hospital’s fertility clinic solicited him and other classmates. In March last year, his lawsuit says he began to learn that his sperm donations resulted in the births of some children after two women born through the fertility clinic process contacted him. The suit says the women told him they used Ancentry.com data and “specific and substantive information” given to them by the fertility clinic to identify more siblings and Cleary himself. Cleary is “profoundly distressed” as he wades through the “moral, legal, ethical, and personal obligations” he now feels toward those 17 children, the lawsuit said. He is seeking US$5.25 million.
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
‘DOWNSIZE’: The Trump administration has initiated sweeping cuts to US government-funded media outlets in a move critics said could undermine the US’ global influence US President Donald Trump’s administration on Saturday began making deep cuts to Voice of America (VOA) and other government-run, pro-democracy programming, with the organization’s director saying all VOA employees have been put on leave. On Friday night, shortly after the US Congress passed its latest funding bill, Trump directed his administration to reduce the functions of several agencies to the minimum required by law. That included the US Agency for Global Media, which houses Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Asia and Radio Marti, which beams Spanish-language news into Cuba. On Saturday morning, Kari Lake, a former Arizona gubernatorial and US
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