AUSTRALIA
Foreign interference enforced
Police said 65-year-old Di Sanh Duong who yesterday appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court is the first person to be charged with foreign interference under legislation introduced in 2018. The Federal Police executed search warrants on Oct. 16, following an investigation by the Security Intelligence Organisation and federal police into Duong’s relationship with a foreign intelligence agency, they said. “It is corrupting and deceptive, and goes beyond routine diplomatic influence practiced by governments,” Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Ian McCartney added.
JAPAN
Tiny house held 164 dogs
Health officials have found 164 emaciated dogs crammed into a tiny house in one of the nation’s worst cases of animal hoarding, an animal rights advocate said on Wednesday. The parasite-infested animals were found in a 30m2 house in Izumo in the middle of last month after neighbors complained, said Kunihisa Sagami, head of animal rights group Dobutsukikin. The three people living in the house said they could not afford to spay and neuter the dogs, so they kept getting more of them. Sagami said the family has agreed to give up the dogs and his group would look for foster homes for them.
NORTH KOREA
Public smoking to be curbed
The Supreme People’s Assembly on Wednesday introduced smoking bans in some public places to provide citizens with “hygienic living environments,” the Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The tobacco prohibition law aims to protect the lives and health of residents by tightening the legal and social controls on the production and sale of cigarettes, it quoted the legislature as saying. Nearly 44 percent of the male population were smokers as of 2013, the WHO said. Leader Kim Jong-un is a known chain smoker, and is frequently seen with a cigarette in hand in images in state media.
HONG KONG
Hotline for new law unveiled
Police yesterday unveiled a dedicated hotline for residents to report national security threats. China imposed a National Security Law on June 30 and despite assurances that it would only target a “tiny minority,” its wording has outlawed a host of peaceful political views and helped to stamp out mass dissent. The hotline allows residents to send “national security intelligence” via text message, e-mail and WeChat. Residents can also use the hotline to send pictures, audio and video files, police wrote on Facebook yesterday. Rights groups have voiced concerns that the hotline would deliver another blow to free speech. “Informants may use this hotline against people who they dislike or are in a different political camp,” Human Rights Watch senior researcher Maya Wang (王松蓮) said.
DENMARK
Mutation may delay vaccine
The government said that it has found a new strain of COVID-19 that might hamper efforts to develop a vaccine, after an outbreak in the country’s mink population triggered a mutation of the virus. There is “a risk that the effect of a future vaccine will be weakened or, in a worst case scenario, be undermined,” Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told a virtual news briefing on Wednesday. Her government has passed the information on to the WHO and plans to cull the nation’s entire mink population. There are 12 known cases in which humans have contracted the new form of the virus from mink, she said.
A string of rape and assault allegations against the son of Norway’s future queen have plunged the royal family into its “biggest scandal” ever, wrapping up an annus horribilis for the monarchy. The legal troubles surrounding Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old son born of a relationship before Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s marriage to Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon, have dominated the Scandinavian country’s headlines since August. The tall strapping blond with a “bad boy” look — often photographed in tuxedos, slicked back hair, earrings and tattoos — was arrested in Oslo on Aug. 4 suspected of assaulting his girlfriend the previous night. A photograph
‘GOOD POLITICS’: He is a ‘pragmatic radical’ and has moderated his rhetoric since the height of his radicalism in 2014, a lecturer in contemporary Islam said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist alliance that spearheaded an offensive that rebels say brought down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria. Al-Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda. He is a former extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals. Yesterday, as the rebels entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions. Last week, he said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to
The US deployed a reconnaissance aircraft while Japan and the Philippines sent navy ships in a joint patrol in the disputed South China Sea yesterday, two days after the allied forces condemned actions by China Coast Guard vessels against Philippine patrol ships. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the joint patrol was conducted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone by allies and partners to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight “ and “other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace.” Those phrases are used by the US, Japan and the Philippines to oppose China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the
‘KAMPAI’: It is said that people in Japan began brewing rice about 2,000 years ago, with a third-century Chinese chronicle describing the Japanese as fond of alcohol Traditional Japanese knowledge and skills used in the production of sake and shochu distilled spirits were approved on Wednesday for addition to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list, a committee of the UN cultural body said It is believed people in the archipelago began brewing rice in a simple way about two millennia ago, with a third-century Chinese chronicle describing the Japanese as fond of alcohol. By about 1000 AD, the imperial palace had a department to supervise the manufacturing of sake and its use in rituals, the Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association said. The multi-staged brewing techniques still used today are
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