RUSSIA
Navies in joint patrol
The Russian and Chinese navies carried out a joint patrol in the northeast of the Pacific Ocean, the Russian military said yesterday. The vessels proceeded with maneuvers to practice anti-submarine tactics, it said. The patrol came after the two nations held joint military drills, as the allies deepen ties that have seen NATO dub Beijing an “enabler” of Moscow’s war in Ukraine. China early last month said that the two sides would participate in a joint maritime patrol and that China would also participate in Russia’s “Ocean-2024” strategic exercise.
AUSTRALIA
Explicit film shown on flight
Passengers aboard a flight to Tokyo last week got more inflight entertainment than they bargained for when an explicit film featuring sex talk and explicit images was broadcast to every screen. Technical problems meant individual movie selection was not available on a Qantas flight from Sydney to Haneda, Japan, leaving the crew to pick one film to be broadcast to the whole cabin. Their selection of Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn’s racy drama Daddio was a surprise to many, and to the airline, which apologized yesterday. According to one review, the movie features “references to oral sex, masturbation” as well as a “brief, but clear photo of erect penis on phone screen.” “The movie was clearly not suitable to play for the whole flight and we sincerely apologise to customers for this experience,” a Qantas spokesperson said. Once the mistake was clear, “all screens were changed to a family-friendly movie for the rest of the flight,” Qantas added.
JAPAN
Cabinet photo manipulated
The government on Monday admitted manipulating an official photograph of the new Cabinet to make its members look less unkempt, after online mockery of their sagging trousers. Images taken by local media showed what appeared to be an untidy patch of white shirt under the morning suits of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Minister of Defense Gen Nakatani. In the official photograph issued by Ishiba’s office, those blemishes had mysteriously disappeared, but not quickly enough to stop a barrage of mockery of the “untidy Cabinet” on social media. “This is more hideous than a group picture of some kind of a seniors’ club during a trip to a hot spring. It’s utterly embarrassing,” one user wrote. “Minor editing was made,” top government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters.
NETHERLANDS
Curator rescues artwork
A museum has recovered one of its artworks that looks like two empty beer cans after a staff member accidentally threw it in a bin thinking it was trash. The work, entitled All The Good Times We Spent Together by French artist Alexandre Lavet, appears on first glance to be two discarded and dented beer cans. However, a closer look shows they are in fact meticulously hand-painted with acrylics and “required a lot of time and effort to create,” the museum said. However their artistic value was lost on a mechanic, who saw them displayed in an elevator and chucked them in the bin. Froukje Budding, a spokeswoman for the LAM museum in Lisse, said that artworks are often left in unusual places — hence the display in an elevator. Curator Elisah van den Bergh noticed that the cans had vanished. She recovered them from a bin bag just in the nick of time as they were about to be thrown out. She said there were “no hard feelings” toward the mechanic, who had just started at the museum. “He was just doing his job,” she said.
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
BORDER SERVICES: With the US-funded International Rescue Committee telling clinics to shut by tomorrow, Burmese refugees face sudden discharge from Thai hospitals Healthcare centers serving tens of thousands of refugees on the Thai-Myanmar border have been ordered shut after US President Donald Trump froze most foreign aid last week, forcing Thai officials to transport the sickest patients to other facilities. The International Rescue Committee (IRC), which funds the clinics with US support, told the facilities to shut by tomorrow, a local official and two camp committee members said. The IRC did not respond to a request for comment. Trump last week paused development assistance from the US Agency for International Development for 90 days to assess compatibility with his “America First” policy. The freeze has thrown
TESTING BAN: Satellite photos show a facility in the Chinese city of Mianyang that could aid nuclear weapons design and power generation, a US researcher said China appears to be building a large laser-ignited fusion research center in the southwestern city of Mianyang, experts at two analytical organizations said, a development that could aid nuclear weapons design and work exploring power generation. Satellite photos show four outlying “arms” that would house laser bays, and a central experiment bay that would hold a target chamber containing hydrogen isotopes the powerful lasers would fuse together, producing energy, said Decker Eveleth, a researcher at US-based independent research organization CNA Corp. It is a similar layout to the US$3.5 billion US National Ignition Facility (NIF) in northern California, which in 2022 generated
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