HONG KONG
Dead babies found in bottles
A cleaning person found two dead baby boys in glass bottles in the living room of a vacated apartment, police said yesterday. A 24-year-old man and a 22-year-old woman, believed to be the parents, have been detained on suspicion of illegal disposal of bodies. The bottles were 30cm tall and the bodies had no obvious signs of injury, New Territories North Chief Inspector Au Yeung Tak (歐陽德) told reporters. He said an autopsy would be conducted to try to determine the age of the babies and whether they were dead at birth. The landlord sent the cleaning person to the apartment on Friday after the tenants moved out. Hong Kong broadcaster RTHK reported that the bodies were “soaked in liquid and kept in bottles.”
IRAN
Women arrested for dancing
Two young women were arrested in Tehran after the publication of a video in which they danced to celebrate the coming of the Persian New Year, local media reported yesterday. The clip of the two women near Tajrish square, a popular gathering spot for young people in the north of the capital, went viral on social media. “The Tehran prosecutor ordered the arrest of two women who broke social norms by dancing in Tajrish,” the Tasnim News Agency reported. The women were dressed up as Hadji Farouz, a red-clad folklore character whose dancing and songs announce the coming of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, which is to begin on March 20.
UNITED STATES
Three die in helicopter crash
Two soldiers and a border agent died in a helicopter crash on Friday near the US-Mexico border, the military said. “A UH-72 Lakota helicopter assigned to the federal Southwest border support mission crashed ... while conducting aviation operations near Rio Grande City, Texas,” Joint Task Force North said in a statement. “Two soldiers and one US Border Patrol agent were killed,” it said, adding that a third soldier was injured. “The cause of the accident is under investigation.”
JAPAN
Boat delays space launch
The planned launch of what would have been the country’s first private spacecraft to take off from a commercial launchpad was called off yesterday due to a ship that entered a hazard area downrange. Space One Co, a start-up backed by Canon Inc, plans to try hold the launch on Wednesday or later, board of directors member Kozo Abe told a news conference near the coastal launch site in Wakayama Prefecture. Abe did not offer details on the ship. “It is very reassuring to me that the postponement was not due to a rocket malfunction,” Wakayama Governor Shuhei Kishimoto told reporters.
UNITED STATES
No proof of aliens: Pentagon
A Pentagon study released on Friday that examined reported sightings of UFOs over nearly the past century found no evidence of aliens or extraterrestrial intelligence, a conclusion consistent with past government efforts to assess the accuracy of claims that have captivated public attention for decades. The study from the Department of Defense’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office analyzed government investigations since 1945 of reported sightings of unidentified anomalous phenomena, more popularly known as UFOs. It found no evidence that any of them involved signs of alien life, or that the government and private companies had reverse-engineered extraterrestrial technology and had conspired to hide it from the public.
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
The administration of US President Donald Trump has appointed to serve as the top public diplomacy official a former speech writer for Trump with a history of doubts over US foreign policy toward Taiwan and inflammatory comments on women and minorities, at one point saying that "competent white men must be in charge." Darren Beattie has been named the acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a senior US Department of State official said, a role that determines the tone of the US' public messaging in the world. Beattie requires US Senate confirmation to serve on a permanent basis. "Thanks to
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
‘IMPOSSIBLE’: The authors of the study, which was published in an environment journal, said that the findings appeared grim, but that honesty is necessary for change Holding long-term global warming to 2°C — the fallback target of the Paris climate accord — is now “impossible,” according to a new analysis published by leading scientists. Led by renowned climatologist James Hansen, the paper appears in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and concludes that Earth’s climate is more sensitive to rising greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought. Compounding the crisis, Hansen and colleagues argued, is a recent decline in sunlight-blocking aerosol pollution from the shipping industry, which had been mitigating some of the warming. An ambitious climate change scenario outlined by the UN’s climate