BANGLADESH
Crowds flock to see tiny cow
Hundreds of people are ignoring COVID-19 restrictions and flocking to a farm near Dhaka to see a cow that its keepers say is the world’s shortest. The miniature cow, named Rani, is 51cm tall and 66cm long. It weighs 26kg and is so small it can be carried around. The managers of the farm where it is kept say they have applied to Guinness World Records to certify Rani as the world’s shortest cow. “We are very confident that this will be very smallest one,” Shikor Agro Industries executive Mohammad Salim said. The title is held by Manikyam, a cow from the Indian state of Kerala who was 61cm tall when it made it to the record books in 2014, the Guinness World Records Web site says. “Many people are coming from different places to see the mysterious cow, the smallest cow in the world, so I also have to be here to see the cow,” said Ranu Begum, a visitor. Bangladesh has extended its lockdown to Wednesday to combat a surge in COVID-19 cases led by the highly contagious Delta variant.
IRAN
Cyberattack hits ministry
The Web site of the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development was on Saturday taken down by what state television said was a “cyber disruption,” a day after an apparent cyberattack on the state railway company. Computer systems of ministry staff were the subject of the attack, which resulted in the ministry’s portal and sub-portal sites becoming unavailable, state television reported. It did not give any indication of who it believed could have been behind the attack, and did not say if any ransom demand had been made. Train services had been disrupted on Friday, with hackers posting fake delay notices on station boards, state-affiliated news outlets reported. The government-run railway company said only the displays had been affected and that trains ran normally.
GERMAN
Famed war survivor dies
Esther Bejarano, a survivor of the Auschwitz death camp who used the power of music to fight antisemitism and racism in post-war Germany, has died at the age of 96. Bejarano died in the early on Saturday at the Jewish Hospital in Hamburg, the German news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur quoted Helga Obens, a board member of the International Auschwitz Committee in Germany, as saying. A cause of death was not given. Minister of Foreign Affairs Heiko Maas paid tribute to Bejarano, calling her “an important voice in the fight against racism and antisemitism.” Bejarano was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1943, where she volunteered to become a member of the girls’ orchestra, playing the accordion every time trains full of Jews from across Europe arrived. Bejarano would later say that music helped keep her alive in the notorious death camp. “We played with tears in our eyes,” she said in a 2010 interview with The Associated Press. “The new arrivals came in waving and applauding us, but we knew they would be taken directly to the gas chambers.” Bejarano emigrated to Israel and married Nissim Bejarano. The couple had two children before returning to Germany in 1960. After again encountering open antisemitism, Bejarano decided to become politically active, cofounding the International Auschwitz Committee in 1986. She teamed up with her children to play Yiddish melodies and Jewish resistance songs, and also with hip-hop group Microphone Mafia to spread an anti-racism message. Bejarano received numerous awards, including Germany’s Order of Merit, for her activism.
Young Chinese, many who fear age discrimination in their workplace after turning 35, are increasingly starting “one-person companies” that have artificial intelligence (AI) do most of the work. Smaller start-ups are already in vogue in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, with rapidly advancing AI tools seen as a welcome teammate even as they threaten layoffs at existing firms. More young people in China are subscribing to the model, as cities pledge millions of dollars in funding and rent subsidies for such ventures, in alignment with Beijing’s political goal of “technological self-reliance.” “The one-person company is a product of the AI era,” said Karen Dai
South Korea’s air force yesterday apologized for a 2021 midair collision involving two fighter jets, a day after auditors said the pilots were taking selfies and filming during the flight and held them responsible for the accident. “We sincerely apologize to the public for the concern caused by the accident that occurred in 2021,” an air force spokesman told a news conference, adding that one of the pilots involved had been suspended from flying duties, received severe disciplinary action and has since left the military. The apology followed a report released on Wednesday by the South Korean Board of Audit and Inspection,
About 240 Indians claiming descent from a Biblical tribe landed at Tel Aviv airport on Thursday as part of a government operation to relocate them to Israel. The newcomers passed under a balloon arch in blue and white, the colors of the Israeli flag, as dozens of well-wishers welcomed them with a traditional Jewish song. They were the first “bnei Menashe” (“sons of Manasseh”) to arrive in Israel since the government in November last year announced funding for the immigration of about 6,000 members of the community from the states of Manipur and Mizoram in northeast India. The community claims to descend from
‘TROUBLING’: The firing of Phelan, who was an adviser to a nonprofit that supported the defense of Taiwan, was another example of ‘dysfunction’ under Trump, a US senator said US Secretary of the Navy John Phelan has been fired, a US official and a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, in another wartime shakeup at the Pentagon coming just weeks after US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ousted the Army’s top general. The Pentagon announced his departure in a brief statement, saying he was leaving the administration “effective immediately,” but it did not provide a reason or say whether it was his decision to go. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Phelan was dismissed in part because he was moving too slowly to implement reforms to
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