NORTH KOREA
Kim’s ‘genius’ trumpeted
State media yesterday boasted that the nation’s armed forces had “gained invincible power” under leader Kim Jong-un as preparations were made for a major army holiday that analysts say could be marked with a military parade or major weapons test. Today, North Korea celebrates the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army. The Korean Central News Agency listed the history of the country’s military achievements, from its battles against the US in the 1950-1953 Korean War to smaller conflicts. Kim had further propelled the country’s military might with his “genius military ideology, excellent military command and unparalleled courage and guts,” the report said. “Our revolutionary armed forces have gained invincible power that the world cannot ignore.” Signs that Pyongyang was preparing for its “biggest ever military parade” to mark the upcoming anniversary have been detected, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported, citing multiple unnamed government sources. The parade was likely to take place at midnight, the report said, involving about 20,000 troops and the North’s most sophisticated weaponry.
CHINA
Deaths up, Beijing on alert
Shanghai yesterday reported 39 COVID-19 deaths, its highest daily toll, despite weeks of lockdowns. That brought its total toll to 87, while the country logged nearly 22,000 new local virus cases, National Health Commission data showed. Meanwhile, 22 more infections were reported in Beijing, after warnings from an official on Saturday that the city must take urgent action. Preliminary observations showed that COVID-19 had been “spreading invisibly” within the capital for a week now, affecting “schools, tour groups and many families,” Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention Deputy Director Pang Xinghuo (龐星火) said. Targeted lockdowns have already been imposed on some communities where COVID-19 cases have been found. Beijing has also imposed tight controls on entry to the city, with travelers required to have a negative COVID-19 test from within 48 hours. People who have traveled to cities or counties where just a single COVID-19 case has been reported in the past two weeks are barred entry.
UNITED STATES
Bride spikes guests’ food
A Florida bride and her wedding caterer have been criminally charged after serving food laced with marijuana to their wedding guests, sickening them and sending several to hospital. Danya Shea Svoboda, 42, and Jocelyn Montrinice Bryant, 31, who catered the wedding, face charges of contravening Florida’s anti-tampering laws, delivery of marijuana and culpable negligence. On Feb. 19, Seminole county deputies arrived at a community clubhouse where fire rescue personnel were treating multiple wedding guests for “symptoms consistent with that of someone who has used illegal drugs.” One guest began vomiting, and another grew paranoid that her son-in-law had died and her family had not told her. One of the guests said they saw the caterer reach into a punch bowl and remove a green substance, saying she could detect a “strong odor of marijuana.” According to her affidavit, she asked the caterer if there was marijuana in the food. The caterer “giggled and shook her head yes,” she said. The guest asked “if this was for real” and the caterer repeated “yes.” Several guests went to hospital, where tetrahydrocannabinol was found in their blood; food samples collected at the wedding also contained the compound.
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
NEW STORM: investigators dubbed the attacks on US telecoms ‘Salt Typhoon,’ after authorities earlier this year disrupted China’s ‘Flax Typhoon’ hacking group Chinese hackers accessed the networks of US broadband providers and obtained information from systems that the federal government uses for court-authorized wiretapping, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Saturday. The networks of Verizon Communications, AT&T and Lumen Technologies, along with other telecoms, were breached by the recently discovered intrusion, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter. The hackers might have held access for months to network infrastructure used by the companies to cooperate with court-authorized US requests for communications data, the report said. The hackers had also accessed other tranches of Internet traffic, it said. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs
STICKING TO DEFENSE: Despite the screening of videos in which they appeared, one of the defendants said they had no memory of the event A court trying a Frenchman charged with drugging his wife and enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her screened videos of the abuse to the public on Friday, to challenge several codefendants who denied knowing she was unconscious during their actions. The judge in the southern city of Avignon had nine videos and several photographs of the abuse of Gisele Pelicot shown in the courtroom and an adjoining public chamber, involving seven of the 50 men accused alongside her husband. Present in the courtroom herself, Gisele Pelicot looked at her telephone during the hour and a half of screenings, while her ex-husband
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
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