SOUTH KOREA
Politician ends hunger strike
Opposition leader Lee Jae-myung yesterday ended a 24-day hunger strike, a party spokesperson said, two days after parliament voted to let prosecutors serve an arrest warrant against him for alleged bribery. Lee, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, is to maintain a schedule including court attendance while hospitalized, the spokesman told reporters. Prosecutors this month sought the warrant in an investigation into bribery allegations concerning a development project. Prosecutors say that Lee asked a company to illegally transfer US$8 million to North Korea when he was the governor of Gyeonggi Province.
SWEDEN
Motorway collapses
A large chunk of a motorway in the southwest collapsed overnight, causing three people to be taken to hospital with light injuries, police said yesterday. The landslide damaged the motorway between Gothenburg and Norway’s capital, Oslo, near the small town of Stenungsund, about 50km north of Gothenburg on Sweden’s west coast. “The hardest hit parts of the landslide area measure around 150 by 100m. In total, however, the landslide has affected an area of around 700 by 200m,” the Gothenburg Rescue Services said in a statement. The slide affected about 10 vehicles, a wooded area, and a business area with a gas station and a fast food restaurant, it said.
UNITED STATES
Pilot lands in backyard
A recording was released on Friday of a 911 emergency call from a homeowner reporting that the pilot of a US Marine Corps F-35 had parachuted into his backyard after ejecting from the stealth jet. “I guess we got a pilot in our house,” the homeowner said. “He ejected from the plane. I guess he landed in my backyard and we were trying to see if we could get an ambulance to the house.” “I’m sorry, what happened?” said the bewildered 911 dispatcher who fielded the unusual call over the weekend. The pilot parachuted safely into a neighborhood in North Charleston, South Carolina, on Sunday last week after ejecting from the US$80 million jet, which continued flying in what some called a “zombie state.” The plane eventually crashed about 100km north of where the pilot ejected and the wreckage was located on Monday after authorities asked the public to help find the missing jet. After the homeowner spoke to the dispatcher, the pilot himself got on the phone and tried to explain the situation. “I’m a pilot in a military aircraft and I ejected, so I just rode a parachute down to the ground,” he said. “Can you please send an ambulance?”
MEXICO
Doll and its owner arrested
Handcuffed, a knife still sticking out of its overalls, a Chucky doll hunched against the wall as police held it by its bright orange hair to take its mug shot. In a bizarre twist, Chucky and its owner were taken into lockup in a town in Coahuila state’s Monclova earlier this week. The puppet master, identified only as Carlos “N,” allegedly used the “demon doll” to scare people and demand money, local media reported. Both were charged with disturbing the peace and putting others’ integrity at risk. One officer at the police department was seen laughing as she held up the long knife taken from Chucky. Media reported that the officer who put Chucky in cuffs was later reprimanded for not taking her job seriously. Local media reported that Carlos “N” was later released, although the Chucky doll’s whereabouts are still unknown.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
DISASTROUS VISIT: The talks in Saudi Arabia come after an altercation at the White House that led to the Ukrainian president leaving without signing a minerals deal Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was due to arrive in Saudi Arabia yesterday, a day ahead of crucial talks between Ukrainian and US officials on ending the war with Russia. Highly anticipated negotiations today on resolving the three-year conflict would see US and Ukrainian officials meet for the first time since Zelenskiy’s disastrous White House visit last month. Zelenskiy yesterday said that he would meet Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the nation’s de facto leader, after which his team “will stay for a meeting on Tuesday with the American team.” At the talks in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, US
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