JAPAN
Kobayashi factory searched
Health officials yesterday raided a factory producing health supplements that they say have killed at least five people and hospitalized more than 100 others. About a dozen people wearing dark suits solemnly walked into the Osaka plant of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical Co in the raid shown widely on Japanese TV news. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and the City of Osaka jointly inspected the factory in Osaka that had made the supplements containing beni-koji, or red fermented rice, suspected of having caused health damage, a ministry official said. The ministry could search other locations, they added. The factory, which made the product until December, had been closed due to aging facilities, Japanese media said.
MALAYSIA
‘Allah’ socks spark attack
A Molotov cocktail was yesterday thrown into a convenience store in Kuantan district in the eastern state of Pahang just before dawn, police said, after the chain’s top executives were charged with hurting religious feelings for selling socks with the word “Allah” printed on them. Photographs of the socks on sale at a KK Supermart store sparked outrage on social media among Muslims who viewed the association of Allah with feet as offensive. KK Supermart founder and chairman Chai Kee Kan and his wife Loh Siew Mui, a company director, were on Tuesday charged with wounding religious feelings, along with three representatives of its supplier, state news agency Bernama reported. All pleaded not guilty. Police have not yet identified a suspect in yesterday’s attack.
UNITED STATES
China chip rules revised
Washington on Friday revised rules aimed at making it harder for China to access US artificial intelligence (AI) chips and chipmaking tools, part of an effort to hobble Beijing’s chipmaking industry over national security concerns. The rules, released in October last year, seek to halt shipments to China of more advanced AI chips designed by Nvidia and others as Washington cracks down on Beijing over concerns its advancing tech sector could help boost China’s military. The new rules, which are 166 pages long, go into effect on Thursday. They clarify, for example, that restrictions on chip shipments to China also apply to laptops containing those chips. The Department of Commerce, which oversees export controls, has said it plans to continue updating its restrictions on technology shipments to China as it seeks to bolster and fine-tune the measures.
UNITED STATES
Louis Gossett Jr dies
Louis Gossett Jr, the first black man to win a best supporting actor Oscar for his performance as a hard-man drill instructor in An Officer and a Gentleman, has died. He was 87. Gossett’s family said he died on Thursday night in Los Angeles without stating the cause, multiple US media outlets including CBS News reported. An Officer and a Gentleman also netted the actor a Golden Globe, and he later picked up another supporting actor Globe for The Josephine Baker Story, as well as an Emmy for the eight-part smash-hit miniseries Roots. Gossett chronicled his experiences as a trailblazing black actor in his memoir, An Actor and a Gentleman, including his first trip to Los Angeles in the 1960s when he was pulled over by police four times during a single car journey. “The only time I was really free was when the director said ‘action’ in front of a camera or on the stage and that’s when I flew,” he told the LA Times in 2008.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
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