SOUTH KOREA
Hostages in Nigeria released
Two South Koreans have been released after being abducted nearly three weeks ago by an unidentified armed group in Nigeria, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. The two men, who were abducted in southern Nigeria on Dec. 12, are employees of Daewoo Engineering & Construction Co, Yonhap News Agency reported. South Korean authorities secured their custody on Friday, the foreign ministry said, adding that they are in good health. They “have been moved to a safe area after a medical examination, and have spoken to their families,” the ministry said in a statement. It did not state if any ransom was paid.
UNITED STATES
Burning ship heads to Alaska
A Taiwan-owned cargo vessel carrying lithium-ion batteries has been ordered to continue to Alaska after a fire was reported in its cargo hold. The coast guard on Friday said the fire is contained, but ongoing. The 125m cargo ship Genius Star XI was directed to continue to the port at Dutch Harbor, Alaska, while a coast guard airplane and ship were sent to assist. The ship was about 362km southwest of Dutch Harbor when they reported the fire early on Thursday morning, the guard said in a release. The vessel is owned by Wisdom Marine Group of Taipei. A spokesperson said in an e-mail that there were no injuries to the 19 crew members and no oil has leaked. It was headed to San Diego with the batteries from Vietnam, when the fire was detected on Monday, the e-mail said.
AUSTRALIA
Forecasting harder: official
Climate change is making it harder to accurately forecast extreme weather events, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Murray Watt said yesterday, amid criticism that the Bureau of Meteorology failed to provide timely warnings of this week’s deadly storms. “Climate change is having an impact,” Watt told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio. “The models that we’ve traditionally used are having to change because the climate is changing. That’s something that I know the bureau is working hard on, but unfortunately, the reality is that climate change means that we are going to be living through more unpredictable weather.” The weather bureau has received criticism for its failure to notify residents in time about this week’s deadly thunderstorms following the landfall of ex-tropical cyclone Jasper in Queensland. Watt, who is also the emergency management minister, acknowledged the criticisms, adding that “meteorology is not a perfect science.”
UNITED STATES
Ex-Trump fixer cites AI cases
Michael Cohen, formerly a fixer and lawyer for former US president Donald Trump, said in court papers unsealed on Friday that he mistakenly gave his attorney fake case citations generated by an artificial intelligence (AI) program that made their way into an official court filing. The case citations were included by an attorney for Cohen in a motion seeking an early end to his supervised release following Cohen’s imprisonment for campaign finance violations. US District Judge Jesse Furman earlier this month said three court decisions cited in the motion did not exist. Cohen, who is expected to be a star witness against Trump at one of the former president’s criminal trials, said he had “not kept up with emerging trends [and related risks] in legal technology and did not realize that Google Bard was a generative text service that, like ChatGPT, could show citations and descriptions that looked real but actually were not.”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
CYBERSCAM: Anne, an interior decorator with mental health problems, spent a year and a half believing she was communicating with Brad Pitt and lost US$855,259 A French woman who revealed on TV how she had lost her life savings to scammers posing as Brad Pitt has faced a wave of online harassment and mockery, leading the interview to be withdrawn on Tuesday. The woman, named as Anne, told the Seven to Eight program on the TF1 channel how she had believed she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood star, leading her to divorce her husband and transfer 830,000 euros (US$855,259). The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as artificial intelligence image-creating technology to send Anne selfies and other messages
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