SOUTH AFRICA
Zulu king dies
Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini died yesterday aged 72, after weeks in hospital, his palace announced. The king wielded great influence among millions of Zulus through his largely ceremonial and spiritual role, despite having no official power. “It is with the utmost grief that I inform the nation of the passing of His Majesty King Goodwill Zwelithini ... King of the Zulu nation,” the palace said in a statement signed by Mangosuthu Buthelezi, a powerful veteran politician who is also a Zulu prince. The king was hospitalized last month for diabetes. “Tragically, while still in hospital, His Majesty’s health took a turn for the worse and he subsequently passed away in the early hours of this morning,” the statement said. Born in Nongoma, a small town in the southeastern KwaZulu-Natal province, Zwelithini ascended the throne in 1971 during the apartheid era at the age of 23, three years after the death of his father.
JAPAN
Suga to visit with Biden
The government yesterday announced that Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is to travel to Washington next month for his first face-to-face summit with US President Joe Biden, after he and his entourage complete their COVID-19 vaccinations. Suga is expected to be the first foreign leader that Biden meets since he took office in January, Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said. The trip is expected to take place in the first half of next month. The two leaders are expected to discuss pandemic measures, climate change and other regional concerns including North Korea, Kato said. The meeting is also likely to touch on China’s escalating assertiveness in the East and South China seas, which have become a growing concern for Tokyo and Washington.
UNITED STATES
Man roams base freely
A homeless man last month spent five hours freely roaming the military base where the US president’s plane is kept, after easily passing through several layers of security, the air force said on Thursday. The air force inspector general said in a report on the Feb. 4 incident that the unauthorized intruder at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland made his way onto a C-40 transport plane on the tarmac, but did not travel close to Air Force One or the secretary of defense’s dedicated Boeing 747s. The unidentified man was able to drive onto the base and spend five hours there at a food court, in the VIP terminal, and elsewhere, before he drew attention. That was despite signs he did not know where he was, and his unique appearance: “On his head, he had a bright red or pink cap that partially covered his ears and had distinctive balls on top that looked a little like mouse ears,” according to the otherwise heavily redacted report.
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
Filipino farmers like Romeo Wagayan have been left with little choice but to let their vegetables rot in the field rather than sell them at a loss, as rising oil prices linked to the Iran war drive up the cost of harvesting, labor and transport. “There’s nothing we can do,” said Wagayan, a 57-year old vegetable farmer in the northern Philippine province of Benguet. “If we harvest it, our losses only increase because of labor, transportation and packing costs. We don’t earn anything from it. That’s why we decided not to harvest at all,” he said. Soaring costs caused by the Middle East
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s officially declared wealth is fairly modest: some savings and a jointly owned villa in Budapest. However, voters in what Transparency International deems the EU’s most corrupt country believe otherwise — and they might make Orban pay in a general election this Sunday that could spell an end to his 16-year rule. The wealth amassed by Orban’s inner circle is fueling the increasingly palpable frustration of a population grappling with sluggish growth, high inflation and worsening public services. “The government’s communication machine worked well as long as our economic situation remained relatively good,” said Zoltan Ranschburg, a political analyst
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