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.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
DISASTROUS VISIT: The talks in Saudi Arabia come after an altercation at the White House that led to the Ukrainian president leaving without signing a minerals deal Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was due to arrive in Saudi Arabia yesterday, a day ahead of crucial talks between Ukrainian and US officials on ending the war with Russia. Highly anticipated negotiations today on resolving the three-year conflict would see US and Ukrainian officials meet for the first time since Zelenskiy’s disastrous White House visit last month. Zelenskiy yesterday said that he would meet Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the nation’s de facto leader, after which his team “will stay for a meeting on Tuesday with the American team.” At the talks in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, US
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