CAMBODIA
Kem Sokha appeal fails
The Phnom Penh Appeals Court yesterday upheld a treason conviction and 27-year prison sentence for opposition leader Kem Sokha, who was arrested in 2017. The court also barred Kem Sokha from leaving the country for five years after he finishes his sentence, which he is serving under house arrest. Kem Sokha, now 72, was convicted in 2023. He was accused of conspiring with the US to topple the government.
Photo: AP
AUSTRALIA
‘No shift’ after ban
There was “no meaningful shift” away from big tech platforms such as TikTok and Instagram in the immediate wake of a ban implemented in December last year on teenagers from social media, government documents showed. The documents, obtained using freedom of information laws, showed that platforms such as Instagram and TikTok were still “dominating app store rankings and downloads” one month on from the ban. Data compiled throughout January showed “no meaningful shift away” from the platforms, the eSafety Commission said in an internal briefing.
JAPAN
Space sake sold
A small bottle of sake, made from mash fermented in space, sold for almost US$700,000, its brewer said as the company explores ways to make the drink on the moon. Sake brewer Dassai teamed up with aerospace and engineering firm Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to build specialized brewing equipment and send it to the International Space Station (ISS) along with sake ingredients. The alcoholic fermentation process was carried out in November last year inside facilities at the ISS that mimicked lunar gravity, the two firms said in a joint statement on Tuesday. The mash was returned to Earth in February and in March was refined into 116ml of sake. The drink was packaged in a 100ml bottle and went to an anonymous buyer for ￥110 million (US$700,000). The remaining 16ml allowed for taste tests.
SINGAPORE
French teen charged
A French teen is facing mischief and public nuisance charges after posting a video on social media of himself licking a straw from an orange juice vending machine and then putting it back. Didier Gaspard Owen Maximilien, 18, was charged on Friday last week and has not entered a plea, the Straits Times reported. He allegedly committed the offense at a shopping mall on March 12, the report said. Mischief carries a penalty of up to two years in prison or a fine, or both, while public nuisance is less severe with up to three months in prison or a fine, or both. IJooz, the company operating the juice vending machine, filed a police report, and sanitized the dispenser while replacing all 500 straws in the machine.
RUSSIA
Parade pared down
A parade to mark the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II is to take place next week without tanks, missiles and other military equipment, the Ministry of Defense said in a statement. It will be the first time in nearly two decades — and in Russia’s four-year-old war in Ukraine — that no military equipment would rumble through Moscow’s Red Square on May 9, the day Russia celebrates its most important secular holiday. The ministry cited the “current operational situation” as a reason for excluding military equipment, as well as cadets, from this year’s parade on the 81st anniversary of the victory.
SPEAKING OUT: After Siranudh Scott’s allegations surfaced, celebrities and public figures took to social media to share their own experiences of sexual misconduct and abuse A high-profile alleged sexual abuse case within a wealthy Thai beer brewing family has prompted a wave of painful accounts from survivors of unconnected abuse in the conservative nation. Siranudh Scott, a member of the billionaire Thai family that founded the ubiquitous Singha beer brand, posted an emotional video this month accusing his elder brother Sunit of repeatedly abusing him when he was a teenager. Sunit, who is in his 30s, later denied the allegations in a video posted online, but Singha parent Boonrawd dismissed him from his executive role with the company on Tuesday last week. “I felt I needed to speak
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
COMMUNITY CONFLICT: Concerns about disease spread from corpses has run up against friends and families’ desire to bury their dead as infection spreads in the area Angry residents of a town at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) attacked and burned a tent that was part of a health center where people are being treated for the virus, the staff there said Saturday. It was the second such attack in the region in a week. No one was hurt in the attack, according to reports but as patients ran out to escape the fire, 18 people with suspected Ebola infections fled the facility and are unaccounted for, a hospital director said. Angry residents arrived at the clinic in the
Forecasters in Europe yesterday warned of exceptional heat as record temperatures driven by a “heat dome” push temperatures well above seasonal norms across the continent. The surge follows a record-breaking Monday, with France logging its hottest day in the month of May on record, its weather agency said, and the UK also posting unprecedented highs. A so-called “heat dome” of warm air from northern Africa trapped under a high-pressure system over western Europe is behind the high temperatures not usually seen until high summer. Restrictions on outdoor work were imposed in parts of Italy, beaches in southwest France filled earlier than usual and
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