UNITED KINGDOM
Dog rescued from summit
Sixteen rescuers were called out to save a St Bernard dog stranded on a mountain in northwest England in an embarrassing episode for the member of a breed more famed for rescuing stricken humans from the icy dangers of the high Alps. The pooch named Daisy collapsed while descending from the summit of Scafell Pike with her owners, the Wasdale Mountain Rescue team said in a statement on their Web site on Sunday. After showing signs of pain in her legs, she sat down and refused to get up, prompting local police to call in a rescue team. Maneuvering the 55kg dog onto a stretcher to carry her off the hill required “plenty” of treats, they added. After the team reached the bottom of the hill, Daisy got back on her feet and even managed a slight, sheepish wag of her tail.
Photo: AP
BRAZIL
Wetland fires double
The number of fires in Pantanal, the world’s biggest tropical wetlands, more than doubled in the first half of this year compared with the same period last year, according to data released by the National Institute for Space Research. Officials said it was the largest number of fires in a six-month period in the past two decades. There were 2,534 recorded fires in the Pantanal between January and last month, the institute said. Between January and June last year, the institute recorded 981 fires. As of Saturday, the institute had registered another 1,322 fires this month, for a total of 3,856 blazes in the wetlands.
HAITI
New law protested
Several thousand members of Protestant churches on Sunday demonstrated in Port-au-Prince against the country’s new criminal code, which they consider “immoral,” because it penalizes discrimination based on sexual orientation. “If a pastor doesn’t want to marry two men together or two women, he will be arrested and at risk for one to three years in prison,” Pastor Wismond Jeune said, incorrectly, during the protest in Port-au-Prince. The new criminal code does not change the content of the civil code, which codifies marriage and only allows the union of a man and a woman.
FRANCE
Actress dies at 104
Olivia de Havilland, the last surviving star of the 1939 classic film Gone With the Wind and the instigator of a landmark lawsuit that ended Hollywood studios’ control over their actors, has died in Paris. She was 104. No cause of death was given. De Havilland won Oscars for best actress in 1947 and 1950. “Playing bad girls is a bore; I have always had more luck with good girl roles because they require more from an actress,” she said after winning her second Oscar, for The Heiress (1949). In the 1940s, De Havilland tried to expand her repertoire beyond the “nice girl” roles the film studios were typecasting her to play. To gain the right to do so, she had to bring a lawsuit. The landmark court ruling in 1944 changed the way actors were hired, compensated and managed, making them the equivalent of free agents. De Havilland spent most of her life in Paris, moving there in 1955 after marrying Pierre Galante, the editor of Paris Match magazine, in 1955.
AUSTRALIA
Cases set new record
The nation yesterday posted its highest number of new COVID-19 cases, even as officials expressed hope that outbreaks in locked-down Melbourne might have peaked. Authorities confirmed at least 549 new infections — almost entirely driven by an outbreak in Victoria. Authorities admitted a second wave of clusters in Melbourne was taking longer to suppress than hoped, but Victoria Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said that a partial lockdown of 5 million people, now in its third week, was working, and that “today should be the peak,” even if the number of new cases continues to fluctuate and daily records could yet be set.
VIETNAM
Tourists evacuated
The government is evacuating 80,000 people, mostly local tourists, from Danang after three residents tested positive for COVID-19 over the weekend, it said yesterday. The evacuation is to take at least four days with domestic airlines operating approximately 100 flights daily, the government said in a statement. The nation is still closed to foreign tourism, but there had been a surge in domestic travelers looking to take advantage of discounted flights and holiday packages to local hotels and resorts.
INDIA
New infection rate surges
New COVID-19 cases in the nation are rising at the fastest rate globally, increasing 20 percent over the past week to 1.43 million confirmed cases, according to Bloomberg’s Coronavirus Tracker. The Indian Ministry of Health reported 32,771 deaths, with daily cases close to a record 50,000 yesterday. The country is only trailing the US and Brazil in the number of confirmed infections.
JAPAN
Designer Yamamoto dies
Designer Kansai Yamamoto, considered a pioneer of the country’s fashion industry and known for his work with David Bowie, has died of leukemia aged 76, his daughter said yesterday. “He left this world peacefully, surrounded by loved ones,” actress Mirai Yamamoto announced on Instagram. He was known for creating bold avant-garde pieces that defied gender norms and featured brilliant colors and patterns. He leapt to prominence with international shows from the 1970s onward, and won popular acclaim for his collaboration with Bowie, producing a series of outfits for the singer’s Ziggy Stardust alter ego.
SOUTH KOREA
US envoy shaves ’stache
The most controversial moustache in the nation has fallen victim to the razor’s blade, with US Ambassador Harry Harris visiting a traditional barbershop months after his facial hair became the object of unusual criticism. Over the weekend he uploaded a video to social media of him getting the moustache shaved off, saying he did so to keep cool in the Seoul summer, while wearing a mask to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. “Glad I did this,” he said in a tweet. “For me it was either keep the ‘stache or lose the mask. Summer in Seoul is way too hot & humid for both. #COVID guidelines matter & I’m a masked man!”
INDONESIA
Four more charged in death
Police have charged four more people in connection with the alleged torturing to death of a local man found in a freezer aboard a Chinese fishing vessel, authorities said yesterday. They were executives at recruitment agencies which hire locals — such as 20-year-old Hasan Apriadi, who died last month — to work on Chinese ships, police said. A Chinese supervisor on the Lu Huang Yuan Yu 118 has been charged in Apriadi’s death and for assaulting other crew. A total of six recruiting agency bosses are now facing human-trafficking charges, police said.
HONG KONG
‘SCMP’ drops free model
The South China Morning Post (SCMP) is dropping its free online model after months of political unrest and the pandemic hit advertising revenue at the English-language newspaper. Starting next month, it will ask its readers to pay for content online, limiting free articles to a few per month, editor-in-chief Tammy Tam (譚衛兒) said on the paper’s Web site. “Comprehensive reporting is costly and the century-old advertising model is no longer enough to sustain high-quality news,” Tam said. The paper had 50 million active users on its online platforms as of March and about 347,000 print readers as of the fourth quarter, according to its Web site.
THAILAND
Protesters use hamster song
Hundreds of protesters on Sunday sang a Japanese cartoon jingle with new lyrics mocking the government as hungry hamsters feasting on taxpayer cash. The song is the theme for Hamtaro, a cartoon about a hamster who loves sunflower seeds, and the protesters ran in circles around Bangkok’s Democracy Monument, like hamsters running in a wheel. “The most delicious food is taxpayers’ money,” they sang. “Dissolve the parliament! Dissolve the parliament! Dissolve the parliament!” “The adults may think because we’re doing this, they can’t take us seriously, but this is the way for the new generation,” said a 20-year-old protester who gave her name as Fah. “We are doing this differently in hope that something will change.”
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia