SOUTH KOREA
Airline bans power banks
Air Busan will not allow passengers to keep power banks in luggage stored in overhead cabin bins, in what it yesterday called a pre-emptive measure after one of its planes was engulfed in flames on Tuesday last week. An investigation led by South Korean authorities into the fire has begun, but no cause has yet been determined. Passenger carry-on bags inspected at boarding gates and found not to contain power banks would be tagged and then allowed in overhead luggage bins, in measures set to begin on Friday on trial routes, before expanding to all flights. Any power banks should be kept with passengers so any overheating, smoke or fire can quickly be spotted and dealt with.
NEPAL
Everest climbing fee raised
Tourism Director-General Narayan Prasad Regmi yesterday said that the cost of an Everest climbing permit is to rise by a third to help tackle pollution and boost safety on the world’s highest mountain. Fees for the peak spring climbing season are to rise from US$11,000 to US$15,000 for a permit to scale the 8,849m peak, he said, adding that the fee had remained constant for a decade. Costs of climbing at less popular — and more demanding — times of year, such as during winter or the monsoon rains, have also risen at similar rates, including from US$5,500 to US$7,500 during the autumn season. The funds are put toward cleaning trash from the mountain left by climbers, as well as search and rescue operations. Air Busan said the changes, which would also include additional crew fire training and fire containment equipment on board, were in response to an increase in the number of power banks overheating.
THAILAND
Power to border areas cut
The government yesterday said it would suspend electricity supply to some border areas with Myanmar in an effort to curb scam centers, amid growing pressure on the illegal compounds that have ensnared vast numbers of people of multiple nationalities. According to the UN, hundreds of thousands of people have been trafficked by criminal gangs and forced to work in scam centers and illegal online operations across Southeast Asia, including along the Thai-Myanmar border. “We must take action to cut off the electricity immediately,” Thai Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai told reporters, adding that authorities would instruct the Provincial Electricity Authority that supplies power to these areas to cut it off.
FRANCE
Director guilty of abuse
A Paris court on Monday found filmmaker Christophe Ruggia guilty of sexual assault of actor Adele Haenel when she was between 12 and 15 in the early 2000s, in the nation’s first big #MeToo trial. Ruggia was sentenced to two years under house arrest with an electronic bracelet plus a two-year suspended sentence. Ruggia had denied any wrongdoing. Haenel, now 35, was the first top actor in the nation to accuse the film industry of turning a blind eye to sexual abuse after the #MeToo movement broke out. In 2019, she accused Ruggia of having repeatedly touched her inappropriately during and after filming of the movie Les Diables (The Devils) in the early 2000s. Haenel appeared relieved, breathing deeply, as Monday’s verdict was being released. She was applauded by some women’s rights activists as she left the courtroom. Ruggia’s lawyer said her client would appeal.
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
A colossal explosion in the sky, unleashing energy hundreds of times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. A blinding flash nearly as bright as the sun. Shockwaves powerful enough to flatten everything for miles. It might sound apocalyptic, but a newly detected asteroid nearly the size of a football field now has a greater than 1 percent chance of colliding with Earth in about eight years. Such an impact has the potential for city-level devastation, depending on where it strikes. Scientists are not panicking yet, but they are watching closely. “At this point, it’s: ‘Let’s pay a lot of attention, let’s
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
CHEER ON: Students were greeted by citizens who honked their car horns or offered them food and drinks, while taxi drivers said they would give marchers a lift home Hundreds of students protesting graft they blame for 15 deaths in a building collapse on Friday marched through Serbia to the northern city of Novi Sad, where they plan to block three Danube River bridges this weekend. They received a hero’s welcome from fellow students and thousands of local residents in Novi Said after arriving on foot in their two-day, 80km journey from Belgrade. A small red carpet was placed on one of the bridges across the Danube that the students crossed as they entered the city. The bridge blockade planned for yesterday is to mark three months since a huge concrete construction
RSS