SOUTH KOREA
Airline bans power banks
Air Busan will not allow passengers to keep power banks in luggage stored in overhead cabin bins, in what it yesterday called a pre-emptive measure after one of its planes was engulfed in flames on Tuesday last week. An investigation led by South Korean authorities into the fire has begun, but no cause has yet been determined. Passenger carry-on bags inspected at boarding gates and found not to contain power banks would be tagged and then allowed in overhead luggage bins, in measures set to begin on Friday on trial routes, before expanding to all flights. Any power banks should be kept with passengers so any overheating, smoke or fire can quickly be spotted and dealt with.
NEPAL
Everest climbing fee raised
Tourism Director-General Narayan Prasad Regmi yesterday said that the cost of an Everest climbing permit is to rise by a third to help tackle pollution and boost safety on the world’s highest mountain. Fees for the peak spring climbing season are to rise from US$11,000 to US$15,000 for a permit to scale the 8,849m peak, he said, adding that the fee had remained constant for a decade. Costs of climbing at less popular — and more demanding — times of year, such as during winter or the monsoon rains, have also risen at similar rates, including from US$5,500 to US$7,500 during the autumn season. The funds are put toward cleaning trash from the mountain left by climbers, as well as search and rescue operations. Air Busan said the changes, which would also include additional crew fire training and fire containment equipment on board, were in response to an increase in the number of power banks overheating.
THAILAND
Power to border areas cut
The government yesterday said it would suspend electricity supply to some border areas with Myanmar in an effort to curb scam centers, amid growing pressure on the illegal compounds that have ensnared vast numbers of people of multiple nationalities. According to the UN, hundreds of thousands of people have been trafficked by criminal gangs and forced to work in scam centers and illegal online operations across Southeast Asia, including along the Thai-Myanmar border. “We must take action to cut off the electricity immediately,” Thai Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai told reporters, adding that authorities would instruct the Provincial Electricity Authority that supplies power to these areas to cut it off.
FRANCE
Director guilty of abuse
A Paris court on Monday found filmmaker Christophe Ruggia guilty of sexual assault of actor Adele Haenel when she was between 12 and 15 in the early 2000s, in the nation’s first big #MeToo trial. Ruggia was sentenced to two years under house arrest with an electronic bracelet plus a two-year suspended sentence. Ruggia had denied any wrongdoing. Haenel, now 35, was the first top actor in the nation to accuse the film industry of turning a blind eye to sexual abuse after the #MeToo movement broke out. In 2019, she accused Ruggia of having repeatedly touched her inappropriately during and after filming of the movie Les Diables (The Devils) in the early 2000s. Haenel appeared relieved, breathing deeply, as Monday’s verdict was being released. She was applauded by some women’s rights activists as she left the courtroom. Ruggia’s lawyer said her client would appeal.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
Cook Islands officials yesterday said they had discussed seabed minerals research with China as the small Pacific island mulls deep-sea mining of its waters. The self-governing country of 17,000 people — a former colony of close partner New Zealand — has licensed three companies to explore the seabed for nodules rich in metals such as nickel and cobalt, which are used in electric vehicle (EV) batteries. Despite issuing the five-year exploration licenses in 2022, the Cook Islands government said it would not decide whether to harvest the potato-sized nodules until it has assessed environmental and other impacts. Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown
STEADFAST DART: The six-week exercise, which involves about 10,000 troops from nine nations, focuses on rapid deployment scenarios and multidomain operations NATO is testing its ability to rapidly deploy across eastern Europe — without direct US assistance — as Washington shifts its approach toward European defense and the war in Ukraine. The six-week Steadfast Dart 2025 exercises across Bulgaria, Romania and Greece are taking place as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches the three-year mark. They involve about 10,000 troops from nine nations and represent the largest NATO operation planned this year. The US absence from the exercises comes as European nations scramble to build greater military self-sufficiency over their concerns about the commitment of US President Donald Trump’s administration to common defense and
FIREWALLS: ‘Democracy doesn’t mean that the loud minority is automatically right,’ the German defense minister said following the US vice president’s remarks US Vice President JD Vance met the leader of a German far-right party during a visit to Munich, Germany, on Friday, nine days before a German election. During his visit he lectured European leaders about the state of democracy and said there is no place for “firewalls.” Vance met with Alice Weidel, the coleader and candidate for chancellor of the far-right and anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, his office said. Mainstream German parties say they would not work with the party. That stance is often referred to as a “firewall.” Polls put AfD in second place going into the
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