JAPAN
Cycling on phone banned
Cyclists using a mobile phone while riding could face up to six months in jail under new rules that entered into force yesterday. Those who breach the revised road traffic law can be punished with a maximum of six months in prison or a fine of up to ￥100,000 (US$660). “Making a call with a smartphone in your hand while cycling, or watching the screen, is now banned and subject to punishment,” the National Police Agency said in a leaflet. Some accidents caused by cyclists watching screens have resulted in pedestrian deaths, the government said. Under the new rules, cycling while drunk can land the rider with up to three years in prison or a fine of up to ￥500,000. Those who offer alcoholic drinks to cyclists face up to two years in prison or a fine of up to ￥300,000.
Photo: AFP
NORTH KOREA
Media hail new ICBM
Pyongyang yesterday said that a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) it test-launched is “the world’s strongest,” while experts said that it is too big to be useful in a war situation. The ICBM launched on Thursday flew higher and for a longer duration than any other weapon the nation has tested, but foreign experts say the test failed to show that Pyongyang has mastered some of the last remaining technological hurdles to possess functioning ICBMs that can strike the mainland US. The Korean Central News Agency identified the missile as a Hwasong-19 and called it “the world’s strongest strategic missile” and “the perfected weapon system.” Leader Kim Jong-un observed the launch, describing it as an expression of the nation’s resolve to respond to external threats to its security, it said. The color and shape of exhaust flames seen in media photographs of the launch suggest the missile uses preloaded solid fuel, which makes weapons more agile and harder to detect than liquid propellants that in general must be fueled beforehand. However, experts said the photos show that the ICBM and its launch vehicle are oversized, raising a serious question about their wartime mobility and survivability. “When missiles get bigger, what happens? The vehicles get larger, too. As the transporter-erector launchers get bigger, their mobility decreases,” said Lee Sang-min, an expert at South Korea’s Korea Institute for Defense Analyses. The Hwasong-19 was estimated to be at least 28m long, while advanced US and Russian ICBMs are less than 20m long.
Photo: EPA-EFE
PAKISTAN
Explosion kills seven
A bomb targeting police guarding polio vaccinators yesterday killed seven people, including five children, police said. The bomb targeted officers in the city of Mastung in Balochistan Province as they were traveling in a van to guard medical workers participating in a nationwide vaccine campaign, police said. “Seven individuals: one police officer, five children and one shopkeeper” were those killed in the attack at the city’s main market, senior officer Abdul Fatah told reporters. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blast. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries where polio remains endemic and vaccination teams are frequently targeted by militants waging a campaign against security forces.
Photo: AP
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the British member of parliament and former British economic secretary to the treasury Tulip Siddiq, who is a niece of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. The Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near Dhaka, the capital. Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed
APPORTIONING BLAME: The US president said that there were ‘millions of people dead because of three people’ — Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy US President Donald Trump on Monday resumed his attempts to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths. Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden. Trump told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.” “Let’s say Putin No. 1, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, No. 2, and
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