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.
As the sun sets on another scorching Yangon day, the hot and bothered descend on the Myanmar city’s parks, the coolest place to spend an evening during yet another power blackout. A wave of exceptionally hot weather has blasted Southeast Asia this week, sending the mercury to 45°C and prompting thousands of schools to suspend in-person classes. Even before the chaos and conflict unleashed by the military’s 2021 coup, Myanmar’s creaky and outdated electricity grid struggled to keep fans whirling and air conditioners humming during the hot season. Now, infrastructure attacks and dwindling offshore gas reserves mean those who cannot afford expensive diesel
Does Argentine President Javier Milei communicate with a ghost dog whose death he refuses to accept? Forced to respond to questions about his mental health, the president’s office has lashed out at “disrespectful” speculation. Twice this week, presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni was asked about Milei’s English Mastiff, Conan, said to have died seven years ago. Milei, 53, had Conan cloned, and today is believed to own four copies he refers to as “four-legged children.” Or is it five? In an interview with CNN this month, Milei referred to his five dogs, whose faces and names he had engraved on the presidential baton. Conan,
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other