HONG KONG
Dead babies found in bottles
A cleaning person found two dead baby boys in glass bottles in the living room of a vacated apartment, police said yesterday. A 24-year-old man and a 22-year-old woman, believed to be the parents, have been detained on suspicion of illegal disposal of bodies. The bottles were 30cm tall and the bodies had no obvious signs of injury, New Territories North Chief Inspector Au Yeung Tak (歐陽德) told reporters. He said an autopsy would be conducted to try to determine the age of the babies and whether they were dead at birth. The landlord sent the cleaning person to the apartment on Friday after the tenants moved out. Hong Kong broadcaster RTHK reported that the bodies were “soaked in liquid and kept in bottles.”
IRAN
Women arrested for dancing
Two young women were arrested in Tehran after the publication of a video in which they danced to celebrate the coming of the Persian New Year, local media reported yesterday. The clip of the two women near Tajrish square, a popular gathering spot for young people in the north of the capital, went viral on social media. “The Tehran prosecutor ordered the arrest of two women who broke social norms by dancing in Tajrish,” the Tasnim News Agency reported. The women were dressed up as Hadji Farouz, a red-clad folklore character whose dancing and songs announce the coming of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, which is to begin on March 20.
UNITED STATES
Three die in helicopter crash
Two soldiers and a border agent died in a helicopter crash on Friday near the US-Mexico border, the military said. “A UH-72 Lakota helicopter assigned to the federal Southwest border support mission crashed ... while conducting aviation operations near Rio Grande City, Texas,” Joint Task Force North said in a statement. “Two soldiers and one US Border Patrol agent were killed,” it said, adding that a third soldier was injured. “The cause of the accident is under investigation.”
JAPAN
Boat delays space launch
The planned launch of what would have been the country’s first private spacecraft to take off from a commercial launchpad was called off yesterday due to a ship that entered a hazard area downrange. Space One Co, a start-up backed by Canon Inc, plans to try hold the launch on Wednesday or later, board of directors member Kozo Abe told a news conference near the coastal launch site in Wakayama Prefecture. Abe did not offer details on the ship. “It is very reassuring to me that the postponement was not due to a rocket malfunction,” Wakayama Governor Shuhei Kishimoto told reporters.
UNITED STATES
No proof of aliens: Pentagon
A Pentagon study released on Friday that examined reported sightings of UFOs over nearly the past century found no evidence of aliens or extraterrestrial intelligence, a conclusion consistent with past government efforts to assess the accuracy of claims that have captivated public attention for decades. The study from the Department of Defense’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office analyzed government investigations since 1945 of reported sightings of unidentified anomalous phenomena, more popularly known as UFOs. It found no evidence that any of them involved signs of alien life, or that the government and private companies had reverse-engineered extraterrestrial technology and had conspired to hide it from the public.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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