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.
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the British member of parliament and former British economic secretary to the treasury Tulip Siddiq, who is a niece of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. The Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near Dhaka, the capital. Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed
APPORTIONING BLAME: The US president said that there were ‘millions of people dead because of three people’ — Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy US President Donald Trump on Monday resumed his attempts to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths. Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden. Trump told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.” “Let’s say Putin No. 1, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, No. 2, and
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