CHINA
Blogger charged for pun
A popular social media figure has been arrested on charges that he made an insulting pun about Chinese soldiers who froze to death during the Korean War. Luo Changping (羅昌平), who has 2 million followers online, referred to soldiers known as the “Ice Sculpture Company” as the “Sand Sculpture Company,” or “Stupid Company” by replacing one Chinese character in a blog post. Luo’s case was handed to prosecutors in his southern hometown of Sanya last month, state TV reported on Saturday. It gave no indication when he might stand trial. The “Ice Sculpture Company” were soldiers who froze to death during a battle with US-led UN forces at Chosin Reservoir in late 1950 amid temperatures as low as minus-40°C.
SOUTH AFRICA
Murder rate continues to rise
The country’s alarming number of murders and rapes kept increasing at the end of last year, Minister of Police Bheki Cele told a news conference on Friday. From October to December, police registered an average of 74 murders and 122 rapes every day, Cele said. The number of murders jumped 8.9 percent compared with the same period in 2020. The 6,859 killings also marked an increase from the previous three months, when 6,163 people were killed. That earlier figure already represented a worrying rise, which Cele at the time blamed on deadly riots in July that left more than 350 dead. “Murder remains worryingly stubborn,” he said on Friday.
UNITED STATES
Rifle for kids introduced
A gun manufacturer has unveiled a semiautomatic rifle for children modeled on the AR-15, which has been used in a number of deadly mass shootings, sparking condemnation from gun safety groups. WEE1 Tactical is marketing the gun, dubbed the JR-15, as “the first in a line of shooting platforms that will safely help adults introduce children to the shooting sports.” The company’s Web site says that the rifle “also looks, feels, and operates just like mom and dad’s gun.” The JR-15 is only 80cm long, weighs less than 1kg and comes with magazines of five or 10 rounds of .22 caliber bullets, with a price tag of US$389. The AR-15 is the civilian version of a military-style weapon and has been used in multiple mass killings, including in schools. Mass shootings are a recurrent scourge of the country, where the right to own weapons is guaranteed by the Constitution. Attempts to regulate gun sales is often blocked in Congress, where the powerful gun lobby — in particular the National Rifle Association — wields great influence.
UNITED STATES
Turtle released after injury
Just in time for sea turtle mating season in the Florida Keys, a rehabilitated male loggerhead turtle was on Friday released off Pigeon Key. Sheldon, named by his coast guard rescuers, was discovered earlier this month near the Old Seven Mile Bridge. The 105kg reptile was rehabilitated at the Keys-based Turtle Hospital after being found entangled in crab trap line. “It’s mating season in the Florida Keys, it’s important to get this massive male turtle back out to sea so that he can begin mating and help preserve the species,” Turtle Hospital general manager Bette Zirkelbach said. Based on Sheldon’s size and the circumference of his head, Zirkelbach estimated that the turtle is at least 50 years old, well into its prime as a sexually reproductive male. Treatment at the turtle rescue facility included injury care, antibiotics and a diet of mixed seafood.
DIPLOMATIC THAW: The Canadian prime minister’s China visit and improved Beijing-Ottawa ties raised lawyer Zhang Dongshuo’s hopes for a positive outcome in the retrial China has overturned the death sentence of Canadian Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian official said on Friday, in a possible sign of a diplomatic thaw as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks to boost trade ties with Beijing. Schellenberg’s lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo (張東碩), yesterday confirmed China’s Supreme People’s Court struck down the sentence. Schellenberg was detained on drug charges in 2014 before China-Canada ties nosedived following the 2018 arrest in Vancouver of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟). That arrest infuriated Beijing, which detained two Canadians — Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig — on espionage charges that Ottawa condemned as retaliatory. In January
China’s military news agency yesterday warned that Japanese militarism is infiltrating society through series such as Pokemon and Detective Conan, after recent controversies involving events at sensitive sites. In recent days, anime conventions throughout China have reportedly banned participants from dressing as characters from Pokemon or Detective Conan and prohibited sales of related products. China Military Online yesterday posted an article titled “Their schemes — beware the infiltration of Japanese militarism in culture and sports.” The article referenced recent controversies around the popular anime series Pokemon, Detective Conan and My Hero Academia, saying that “the evil influence of Japanese militarism lives on in
Two medieval fortresses face each other across the Narva River separating Estonia from Russia on Europe’s eastern edge. Once a symbol of cooperation, the “Friendship Bridge” connecting the two snow-covered banks has been reinforced with rows of razor wire and “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank obstacles on the Estonian side. “The name is kind of ironic,” regional border chief Eerik Purgel said. Some fear the border town of more than 50,0000 people — a mixture of Estonians, Russians and people left stateless after the fall of the Soviet Union — could be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s next target. On the Estonian side of the bridge,
Jeremiah Kithinji had never touched a computer before he finished high school. A decade later, he is teaching robotics, and even took a team of rural Kenyans to the World Robotics Olympiad in Singapore. In a classroom in Laikipia County — a sparsely populated grasslands region of northern Kenya known for its rhinos and cheetahs — pupils are busy snapping together wheels, motors and sensors to assemble a robot. Guiding them is Kithinji, 27, who runs a string of robotics clubs in the area that have taken some of his pupils far beyond the rural landscapes outside. In November, he took a team
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