DENMARK
Pro-HK graffiti on Mermaid
Copenhagen’s famed Little Mermaid statue was found doused with pro-Hong Kong graffiti early yesterday. Three lines in red, reading “Free Hong-Kong” were painted on the rock on which the bronze statue sits, next to the same text in white. Police were seen searching for clues in the area with flashlights and a dog after the pre-dawn vandalism was reported. No one has been apprehended. The Little Mermaid was created in tribute to author Hans Christian Andersen.
Photo: REUTERS
CANADA
False alert shakes Toronto
Toronto-area residents had a rude awakening on Sunday after receiving a false alert about a nuclear power plant emergency. The message was accompanied by a shrill emergency broadcast noise. It said an unspecified event had occurred at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station. There was no abnormal release of radioactivity, and people did not need to take protective action, it added. More than half an hour after people received mobile alerts, plant operator Ontario Power Generation tweeted that there was no emergency and the warning was a mistake. “The alert was issued in error to the public during a routine training exercise” by Ontario Province’s emergency operations center, Provincial Solicitor General Sylvia Jones said in a statement. The provincial government apologizes for raising public concern and would take steps “to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” she said.
JAPAN
Billionaire looking for love
Billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has launched an online advertisement for a girlfriend to fly around the moon with him on a SpaceX rocket. Maezawa is seeking “single women aged 20 or over” who want to enjoy life to the fullest. The matchmaking exercise is to be turned into a TV show for a Web streaming service. “I’m 44 now. As feelings of loneliness and emptiness slowly begin to surge upon me, there’s one thing that I think about: Continuing to love one woman,” he said in the ad. The deadline to apply is Friday and he is to make a final selection by the end of March after going on dates with the applicants.
AFGHANISTAN
Winter storms prove deadly
Severe winter weather has struck parts of the nation with heavy snowfall, rains and flash floods that left at least 18 dead, officials said yesterday. Most highways were closed due to heavy snowfall and fears of avalanches. The severe weather also killed at least 25 people in Pakistan, where Baluchistan and Punjab provinces were the hardest hit, as many roofs collapsed under the weight of the snow.
VATICAN CITY
Benedict defends celibacy
Former pope Benedict, in a new book written with a conservative cardinal, defends priestly celibacy in the Catholic Church in what appears to be a strategically timed appeal to Pope Francis to not change the rules. Benedict wrote From the Depths of Our Hearts with Cardinal Robert Sarah, who heads the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. Excerpts were published on Sunday on the Web site of the French newspaper Le Figaro. The Vatican had no immediate comment on the book, which was due to be published yesterday.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
The death toll from a shooting in western Afghanistan rose to 11 on Saturday, after gunmen targeted civilians at a picnic spot in Herat, the provincial authority said. Bullet marks were visible on a wall of the Sayed Mohammad Agha Shia shrine, while bloodstains marked a blanket abandoned at the scene. “Eleven people have been recorded dead and eight others wounded from Friday’s incident, with the condition of two of the wounded reported as critical,” Herat’s information office said in a statement. The update raises a toll of seven killed provided on Friday by the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs
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