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.
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
RSS