INDONESIA
Woman jailed for pork video
A court has sentenced a woman to two years in prison and handed her a heavy fine after she recited an Islamic prayer before eating pork in a viral TikTok video widely criticized in the Muslim-majority country. Lina Mukherjee, 33, was on Tuesday found guilty of “spreading information aimed at inciting hatred against religious individuals and specific groups” at a court in the South Sumatra city of Palembang. A resident reported Mukherjee in March for the video, which had amassed millions of views. In it she uttered a Muslim prayer that translates to “in the name of God,” before consuming crispy pork skin. Pork is forbidden under Islam, Indonesia’s dominant religion. Mukherjee was also fined 250 million rupiah (US$16,262), and her jail term would be extended by three months if it is not paid.
SINGAPORE
Ex-PM’s son charged
Goh Jin Hian (吳仁軒), the son of former prime minister Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), was among four people yesterday charged with false trading offenses, Channel News Asia reported. The 54-year-old former CEO of investment holding company New Silkroutes Group Ltd, Goh stands accused of conspiring with three other men linked to the firm for creating a misleading appearance of the price of its securities on 31 trading days between February and August 2018, the report said. Goh is also accused of pushing up the price of the firm’s securities by placing orders and executing trades using his bank investment account. He was handed 39 charges under the Securities and Futures Act, while the three other men each received 31 similar charges.
RUSSIA
Top official woos China
A senior Kremlin official on Tuesday called for closer policy coordination between Moscow and Beijing to counter what he described as Western efforts to contain them, as he hosted China’s top diplomat for security talks. Moscow “seeks progressive development and strengthening of the Russian-Chinese relations of comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation,” Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev told Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅). “Amid the campaign unleashed by the collective West that is aimed at the double containment of Russia and China, it’s particularly important to further deepen Russian-Chinese coordination and interaction on the international arena,” Patrushev said. Putin is set to hold “substantive” talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) during a trip next month to Beijing, he added. Patrushev reaffirmed Russia’s “invariable” support for Beijing’s policy on issues related to Taiwan, the Xinjiang region and Hong Kong, which he said “are being used by the West to discredit China.”
UNITED STATES
Neuralink to start human trial
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s brain-chip start-up Neuralink on Tuesday said it has received approval from an independent review board to begin recruitment for the first human trial of its brain implant for paralysis patients. Those with paralysis due to cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis can qualify for the study, it said, but did not reveal how many participants would be enrolled in the trial, which would take about six years to complete. The study would use a robot to surgically place a brain-computer interface (implant in a region of the brain that controls the intention to move), Neuralink said, adding that its initial goal is to enable people to control a computer cursor or keyboard using their thoughts alone.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home