AUSTRALIA
New visas for Hong Kongers
The government yesterday said it is to introduce two permanent residence visas for Hong Kongers who have been living in the nation. About 9,000 Hong Kongers on temporary visas would be eligible to apply for the permanent visas starting in March next year, Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs Alex Hawke said in a statement. Canberra has been critical of Beijing imposing a National Security Law in Hong Kong and changing its electoral system. It says those moves undermine rights and the high degree of autonomy that China had guaranteed until 2047. In the 18 months to July last year, about 6,000 Hong Kongers have been granted permanent visas, and 9,250 applications were filed, immigration records show. “These new visas will provide a pathway for temporary graduates and temporary skilled workers from Hong Kong currently in Australia on extended visas, and will build on the already close family connections and economic ties with Hong Kong that have existed for many years,” Hawke said.
SINGAPORE
Rapper Subhas Nair charged
A controversial Singaporean rapper of Indian descent who has accused authorities of racism might face jail after being charged yesterday with sowing divisions between the city-state’s different ethnic and religious groups. Outspoken rapper Subhas Nair faced four counts when he appeared in court over offenses that allegedly occurred between 2019 and this year. According to charge sheets, the 29-year-old made comments on social media appearing to suggest a Chinese man involved in the death of an Indian received lenient treatment from authorities because of his ethnicity. He allegedly posted further remarks on Instagram suggesting Chinese Christians are treated more leniently than Muslims over hate speech. He was also charged over a 2019 rap video that criticized a local Chinese actor who darkened his skin to portray an Indian in an advert. Police had already issued a warning over the video to Nair and his sister Preetipls, a well-known local comedian, who rapped alongside him. Nair appeared in court with his sister and was wearing a T-shirt bearing a picture of a Malaysian man convicted of drug trafficking in the nation, who is set to be executed soon.
UNITED STATES
Psaki has COVID-19
White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Sunday said she has contracted COVID-19 and is experiencing mild symptoms. Psaki, 42, said she was last in contact with President Joe Biden on Tuesday last week, when she met him in the White House, where they were more than 1.8m apart and wearing masks. Biden, who is tested frequently, last tested negative on Saturday, the White House said.
? CAMBODIA
Nation hits vaccination goal
Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday declared his country reopen and ready for a new way of life, having surpassed its COVID-19 vaccination target and recorded one of Asia’s highest inoculation rates. The nation has vaccinated nearly 86 percent of its more than 16 million people, with 2 million given booster shots already and 300,000 school children aged five set to be inoculated yesterday alone. The ratio is similar to that of Singapore. “From now on, the full reopening of the country in all areas and living with COVID-19 in a new way of life starts from today,” he said. “I won’t be in a crab cave anymore,” he said. The nation has recorded more than 118,522 COVID-19 cases and 2,788 deaths overall, the vast majority this year.
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
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
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
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
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