JAPAN
Tighter rules ordered
The government yesterday ordered stricter immigration procedures in response to the escape of former Nissan Motor Co chief executive Carlos Ghosn, the first official response to an episode that has rocked the nation’s legal system. “I have instructed the Immigration Services Agency to coordinate with related agencies to further tighten departure procedures,” Minister of Justice Masako Mori said in a statement. Ghosn’s “apparently illegal” departure was regrettable, she said, promising a thorough investigation to uncover truth and adding that there was no record of his leaving the country. Ghosn’s skipping bail cannot be justified and the court has revoked his bail, Mori said.
UNITED STATES
Rod Stewart faces charges
Rock icon Rod Stewart and his son are facing simple battery charges after an altercation with a security guard during a private event in a children’s area at The Breakers hotel in Palm Beach on New Year’s Eve, according to court records. Security guard Jessie Dixon told Palm Beach police officers that Stewart’s group was at the check-in table for a private party that they were not authorized to attend, a police report said. Dixon said the group became loud and began causing a scene. Dixon, 33, told investigators that he put his hand on the younger Stewart’s chest and told him to back up and make space, the report said. That is when Sean Stewart, the rock star’s 39-year-old son, got “nose to nose” with Dixon. Sean Stewart then shoved Dixon backward. Rod Stewart, 74, punched Dixon in his “left rib cage area” with a closed fist, the report said.
LIBYA
Airstrike kills at least 30
At least 30 people were killed and dozens injured on Saturday in an airstrike on a military school in Tripoli, said Amin al-Hashemi, a spokesman for the Ministry of Health of the Government of National Accord. The cadets were gathered on a parade ground before going to their dormitories when the strike happened, he added. The military school is in a residential sector of the capital. The ministry called for blood donors to go to hospitals and blood banks to help those injured.
AUSTRALIA
Man killed in shark attack
A man has been mauled to death by a suspected great white shark at a popular diving spot off the southwestern coast, officials said yesterday. The man was attacked at Cull Island near the town of Esperance in Western Australia, the Department of Primary Industries said in a statement. “A man received fatal injuries after being bitten by a reported white shark,” the department said. Surf Life Saving Western Australia said he was believed to be a diver. The fatal attack, the first in the country this year, is the second in the area in less than three years.
CAMBODIA
Collapse toll reaches 36
The death toll from the collapse of a building under construction yesterday surged to 36, even as an additional survivor was pulled from rubble, officials said. At least a dozen bodies were found in overnight operations at the site in the coastal province of Kep, where the building toppled on Friday. Prime Minister Hun Sen announced the end of the rescue operation. Twenty-three people were found alive, according to a statement from Kep provincial authorities. It said that at least 13 women and six children were among the dead.
A deluge of disinformation about a virus called hMPV is stoking anti-China sentiment across Asia and spurring unfounded concerns of renewed lockdowns, despite experts dismissing comparisons with the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago. Agence France-Presse’s fact-checkers have debunked a slew of social media posts about the usually non-fatal respiratory disease human metapneumovirus after cases rose in China. Many of these posts claimed that people were dying and that a national emergency had been declared. Garnering tens of thousands of views, some posts recycled old footage from China’s draconian lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in the country in late
French police on Monday arrested a man in his 20s on suspicion of murder after an 11-year-old girl was found dead in a wood south of Paris over the weekend in a killing that sparked shock and a massive search for clues. The girl, named as Louise, was found stabbed to death in the Essonne region south of Paris in the night of Friday to Saturday, police said. She had been missing since leaving school on Friday afternoon and was found just a few hundred meters from her school. A police source, who asked not to be named, said that she had been
VIOLENCE: The teacher had depression and took a leave of absence, but returned to the school last year, South Korean media reported A teacher stabbed an eight-year-old student to death at an elementary school in South Korea on Monday, local media reported, citing authorities. The teacher, a woman in her 40s, confessed to the crime after police officers found her and the young girl with stab wounds at the elementary school in the central city of Daejeon on Monday evening, the Yonhap news agency reported. The girl was brought to hospital “in an unconscious state, but she later died,” the report read. The teacher had stab wounds on her neck and arm, which officials determined might have been self-inflicted, the news agency
ISSUE: Some foreigners seek women to give birth to their children in Cambodia, and the 13 women were charged with contravening a law banning commercial surrogacy Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday thanked Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni for granting a royal pardon last year to 13 Filipino women who were convicted of illegally serving as surrogate mothers in the Southeast Asian kingdom. Marcos expressed his gratitude in a meeting with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, who was visiting Manila for talks on expanding trade, agricultural, tourism, cultural and security relations. The Philippines and Cambodia belong to the 10-nation ASEAN, a regional bloc that promotes economic integration but is divided on other issues, including countries whose security alignments is with the US or China. Marcos has strengthened
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