SOUTH KOREA
Airport barriers changing
Authorities yesterday said that they would change the concrete barriers used for navigation at some airports across the country after the Jeju Air crash that left 179 people dead. The Boeing 737-800 was flying from Thailand to Muan on Dec. 29 carrying 181 passengers and crew when it belly-landed at Muan airport and exploded in a fireball after slamming into a concrete barrier. Questions have been raised about why the concrete barricade, known as a localizer and used to help planes navigate their landings, was at the end of the runway. The Ministry of Land said in a statement that “a special safety inspection revealed that improvements are needed for localizers at seven airports around the country.”
THAILAND
Uighur returns denied
Authorities yesterday denied that there was an immediate plan to send back to China 48 Uighurs held in the country’s detention centers, after UN experts warned that the group could face torture if they return. The Uighurs fled China more than a decade ago. Rights groups have said that the government plans to return them imminently and on Tuesday UN experts urged authorities to “to immediately halt” the possible transfer. However, authorities have repeatedly denied such a plan. “The decision will be made by the National Security Council, so far there is no order” to send them back,” said a senior official from the immigration department, who declined to be named.
UNITED STATES
Razzies picks announced
Joker: Folie a Deux on Tuesday was nominated for seven Razzies, leaving the sad clown atop the annual tongue-in-cheek list of the worst movies of the year. Joaquin Phoenix — who won best actor at the Oscars in the first Joker film — was nominated for worst actor, alongside Lady Gaga for worst actress. The parody prizes awarded six nods to Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis and Dakota Johnson’s much-mocked superhero spin-off Madame Web.
UNITED STATES
Elephants case fails
Five elephants at a Colorado zoo might be “majestic,” but as they are not human, they do not have the legal right to pursue their release, the Colorado Supreme Court said on Tuesday. A ruling in favor of the animals would have allowed lawyers for the elephants at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs — Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou and Jambo — to pursue a long-held legal process for prisoners to challenge their detention and possibly be sent to live in an elephant sanctuary instead. The court said its decision “does not turn on our regard for these majestic animals. Instead, the legal question here boils down to whether an elephant is a person, and because an elephant is not a person, the elephants here do not have standing to bring a habeas corpus claim.”
EL SALVADOR
Ex-president Funes dies
Former president Mauricio Funes died on Tuesday in Nicaragua, where he fled in 2016 after being accused of corruption in his country, the Nicaraguan government said. He was 65. Funes, who led El Salvador from 2009 to 2014, died at 9:35pm “as a result of a serious chronic ailment,” the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health said in a statement, without specifying the cause of death. Accused of embezzling US$351 million from state coffers, among other corruption charges during his administration, Funes fled to Nicaragua in 2016, where he was granted asylum and nationality.
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
‘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 —
PINEAPPLE DEBATE: While the owners of the pizzeria dislike pineapple on pizza, a survey last year showed that over 50% of Britons either love or like the topping A trendy pizzeria in the English city of Norwich has declared war on pineapples, charging an eye-watering ￡100 (US$124) for a Hawaiian in a bid to put customers off the disputed topping. Lupa Pizza recently added pizza topped with ham and pineapple to its account on a food delivery app, writing in the description: “Yeah, for ￡100 you can have it. Order the champagne too! Go on, you monster!” “[We] vehemently dislike pineapple on pizza,” Lupa co-owner Francis Wolf said. “We feel like it doesn’t suit pizza at all,” he said. The other co-owner, head chef Quin Jianoran, said they kept tinned pineapple
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