MALAYSIA
Bleaching hits 50% of reefs
More than 50 percent of the coral reefs in the nation’s marine parks have been affected by mass bleaching caused by rising sea temperatures, the Department of Fisheries said in a statement on Sunday, citing a study conducted from April to this month. Severe or prolonged heat stress leads to corals dying off, though there is a possibility for recovery if temperatures drop and other stressors such as overfishing and pollution are reduced. The department urged tour operators to control the number of tourists involved in recreation activities to reduce pressure on reefs. “If bleaching is greater than 80 percent, further management interventions may include temporary access restrictions to protect affected reefs,” it said.
KOREAS
Parasites found in balloons
Parasites from human feces and defaced Western clothing were found in the bags of garbage carried by North Korean balloons into the South, Seoul said yesterday. Pyongyang has sent more than 1,000 trash-carrying balloons into the South in recent weeks, in retaliation for leaflets sent northward by activists opposed to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. An analysis of the contents of some 70 of the balloons found that they contained soil in which “numerous parasites, such as roundworms, whipworms and threadworms” were detected, the Ministry of Unification said in a statement. This is likely because human feces was used in the soil instead of chemical fertilizers, it said, adding that there was “no risk of land pollution [or] infectious diseases” from the balloons, as the volume of soil sent was relatively low.
NETHERLANDS
Man honored for honesty
A homeless man found a wallet containing about 2,000 euros (US$2,140) on an empty train at Amsterdam station and handed it to the police, receiving a gift voucher for his honesty. Hadjer al-Ali, who has been homeless for 18 months, found the wallet at Amsterdam central station while he was “doing his rounds” looking for empty plastic bottles to exchange for cash. Police said the 33-year-old turned in the wallet with “approximately 2,000 euros ... but unfortunately no identity papers or anything that would allow us to contact the owner.” Authorities said that “because we think that honesty should pay, he got a ‘silver thumb’ prize that we sometimes give to citizens and a gift voucher worth 50 euros.” If the money is not claimed within one year, it will go to the finder. “No matter what I find, I always give it back,” al-Ali said in a video posted on local media De Stentor, adding: “Maybe the owner has a business and can give me work, maybe a building I can live it. You never know what can happen.”
AUSTRALIA
‘Bicycle bandit’ gets jail
A bank robber known as the “bicycle bandit” was yesterday sentenced to 35 years in jail — though he reportedly has advanced cancer and is seeking an imminent voluntary assisted death. Kym Allen Parsons, 73, admitted to a string of aggravated robbery charges, documents from the South Australian Supreme Court in Adelaide showed. Parsons earned his moniker for fleeing some of his hold-ups on a bicycle. Justice Sandi McDonald ordered him to serve 35 years, with a minimum period of 28 years before being eligible for parole, court papers showed. Parsons carried out the robberies over a decade until 2014, often brandishing a rifle and wearing a balaclava or motorcycle helmet, public broadcaster ABC said. He reportedly got away with more than A$350,000 (US$233,000).
‘DISCRIMINATION’: The US Office of Personnel Management ordered that public DEI-focused Web pages be taken down, while training and contracts were canceled US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday moved to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off. The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs. Trump has called the programs “discrimination” and called to restore “merit-based” hiring. The executive order on affirmative action revokes an order issued by former US president Lyndon Johnson, and curtails DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients. It is using one of the
One of Japan’s biggest pop stars and best-known TV hosts, Masahiro Nakai, yesterday announced his retirement over sexual misconduct allegations, reports said, in the latest scandal to rock Japan’s entertainment industry. Nakai’s announcement came after now-defunct boy band empire Johnny & Associates admitted in 2023 that its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa, for decades sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men. Nakai was a member of the now-disbanded SMAP — part of Johnny & Associates’s lucrative stable — that swept the charts in Japan and across Asia during the band’s nearly 30 years of fame. Reports emerged last month that Nakai, 52, who since
EYEING A SOLUTION: In unusually critical remarks about Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump said he was ‘destroying Russia by not making a deal’ US President Donald Trump on Wednesday stepped up the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a peace deal with Ukraine, threatening tougher economic measures if Moscow does not agree to end the war. Trump’s warning in a social media post came as the Republican seeks a quick solution to a grinding conflict that he had promised to end before even starting his second term. “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other
In Earth’s upper atmosphere, a fast-moving band of air called the jet stream blows with winds of more than 442kph, but they are not the strongest in our solar system. The comparable high-altitude winds on Neptune reach about 2,000kph. However, those are a mere breeze compared with the jet stream on a planet called WASP-127b. Astronomers have detected winds howling at about 33,000kph on the large gaseous planet in our Milky Way galaxy approximately 520 light-years from Earth in a tight orbit around a star similar to our sun. The supersonic jet-stream winds circling WASP-127b at its equator are the fastest of their kind
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