SOUTH KOREA
BTS tops Billboard chart
K-pop band BTS on Monday roared to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 singles charts in the US, becoming the first South Korean pop act to debut at No. 1. Dynamite, the first all-English-language single from the seven-member boy band, notched 33.9 million US streams and 300,000 sales in its first week, according to Nielsen Music data. The band also scored the biggest digital sales week in nearly three years since Taylor Swift’s Look What You Made Me Do in September 2017. The band took to Twitter to thank their fans, and in response to a congratulatory statement from President Moon Jae-in, said the song was aimed at helping rejuvenate cities around the world.
RUSSIA
COVID-19 cases top 1m
The nation’s tally of confirmed COVID-19 cases yesterday surpassed 1 million, as authorities reported 4,729 new cases. The nation has the fourth-largest caseload in the world after the US, Brazil and India. Experts say the true toll of the pandemic is much higher than all reported figures due to limited testing, missed mild cases and concealment of cases by some governments, among other factors. As of yesterday, the nation had lifted most lockdown restrictions in major regions.
MAURITIUS
Two killed in spill cleanup
Two crewmembers from a tugboat involved in cleaning up an oil spill were killed late on Monday when their vessel collided with a barge in bad weather, Labor Party lawmaker Mahend Gungerpersad said yesterday. Four other crewmembers were rescued by helicopter and two were still missing, the opposition lawmaker said. “This incident is going to add to the prevailing anger,” he said, referring to weekend protests over the handling of the operation to contain the oil spill and the deaths of dozens of dolphins in the area. Japanese bulk carrier the MV Wakashio struck a coral reef off the Indian Ocean island nation’s coast in July, spilling thousands of tonnes of crude oil into the sea and choking marine life in a pristine lagoon.
SOUTH KOREA
Two intel officers charged
Two military intelligence officers have been indicted on charges of raping a North Korean defector, the Ministry of Defense said yesterday. The victim filed a criminal complaint last year, and her lawyer said at the time that she became pregnant twice and was pressured to have abortions, Yonhap news agency reported. A Defense Intelligence Command lieutenant colonel and master sergeant were indicted by military prosecutors on various charges of sexually assaulting and raping the woman between May 2018 and February last year, a ministry statement said. At the time, the woman was under their protection and supervision for espionage operations, the statement added.
UNITED STATES
Bear prowls California store
Shoppers at the Kings Beach Safeway by Lake Tahoe in California found an otherwise routine trip to the store on Tuesday last week disrupted by an inquisitive bear in the produce aisle, video footage posted online showed. “We were just calmly arriving at the store. I didn’t even imagine what we were going to find,” said shopper Rubi Nevarez, who provided video to Reuters. “As far as I know, this is the second time this has happened.” Local media reported a bear visited the same store on Aug. 21 — and exited with a bag of tortilla chips. It was not clear what the bear was looking for, but it left without a fuss in the end.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
INSTABILITY: If Hezbollah do not respond to Israel’s killing of their leader then it must be assumed that they simply can not, an Middle Eastern analyst said Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah leaves the group under huge pressure to deliver a resounding response to silence suspicions that the once seemingly invincible movement is a spent force, analysts said. Widely seen as the most powerful man in Lebanon before his death on Friday, Nasrallah was the face of Hezbollah and Israel’s arch-nemesis for more than 30 years. His group had gained an aura of invincibility for its part in forcing Israel to withdraw troops from southern Lebanon in 2000, waging a devastating 33-day-long war in 2006 against Israel and opening a “support front” in solidarity with Gaza since
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