MYANMAR
WFP to cut food aid to 1m
The World Food Programme (WFP) yesterday said it would be forced to cut off 1 million people in the war-torn nation from its vital food aid because of “critical funding shortfalls.” The US last year provided US$4.4 billion of the WFP’s US$9.7 billion budget, but US President Donald Trump’s administration has slashed international aid funding. The WFP said more than 15 million people in the country of 51 million are unable to meet their daily food needs, while the UN last year warned that Rakhine state in the west faces an “imminent threat of acute famine.” “More than one million people in Myanmar will be cut off from WFP’s lifesaving food assistance starting in April due to critical funding shortfalls,” the WFP said a statement. “These cuts come just as increased conflict, displacement and access restrictions are already sharply driving up food aid needs,” it added. Without immediate new funding, the “WFP will only be able to assist 35,000 of the most vulnerable people,” including children under five, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and people with disabilities.
JAPAN
Ishiba criticized over gifts
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is under fire for distributing gift certificates to 15 first-year lawmakers in his party in a scandal shaking his already weak grip on power. Ishiba has denied breaking political funding laws and said he would not resign. However, opposition lawmakers and rivals in his own party have said the gifts were excessive and showed Ishiba was out of touch, especially after the governing Liberal Democratic Party had a disastrous election loss last year due to its earlier political funding irregularities. Local media reported earlier this week that Ishiba’s aide delivered gift certificates worth ￥100,000 (US$672) to the offices of the 15 lawmakers prior to their private dinner with the prime minister.
CHINA
Two deported for mooning
Two Japanese tourists in their 20s were detained for two weeks and then deported for taking photos showing one of the traveler’s exposed buttocks at the Great Wall, local media reported. The incident at the World Heritage site near Beijing concerned a man who showed his bottom and a woman who took photos, NTV and other Japanese media outlets reported on Thursday. The embassy of Japan confirmed in a statement yesterday that the two Japanese were detained on Jan. 3, then released and returned to Japan the same month. Exposing the lower half of the body in a public place is against the law in China, reports said. The tourists reportedly told the Japanese embassy they did it as a prank. “Out of protection for individual privacy,” the Japanese embassy declined to comment on specific details, including whether the tourists would be barred from traveling to China or face additional punishment such as fines or jail time.
AUSTRALIA
Wombat snatcher leaves
A US influencer who outraged Australians by snatching a baby wombat from its apparently distressed mother flew out of the country yesterday, the government said. In a now-deleted video posted to Instagram this week, the woman can be seen picking up and running with the hissing wild animal before declaring to the camera: “I caught a baby wombat.” The marsupial’s mother is seen in the nighttime images chasing her joey. The woman — identified in local media as US outdoors influencer Sam Jones — then places the wombat back on the side of the road. “There’s never been a better day to be a wombat in Australia,” Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke said of the influencer’s departure. The minister earlier said that the woman’s tourist visa was under review in light of the video. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemned the influencer for pestering the rotund, burrowing marsupial. “To take a baby wombat from its mother, and clearly causing distress from the mother, is just an outrage,” he told reporters on Thursday. “I suggest to this so-called influencer, maybe she might try some other Australian animals. Take a baby crocodile from its mother and see how you go there.”
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
In front of a secluded temple in southwestern China, Duan Ruru skillfully executes a series of chops and strikes, practicing kung fu techniques she has spent a decade mastering. Chinese martial arts have long been considered a male-dominated sphere, but a cohort of Generation Z women like Duan is challenging that assumption and generating publicity for their particular school of kung fu. “Since I was little, I’ve had a love for martial arts... I thought that girls learning martial arts was super swaggy,” Duan, 23, said. The ancient Emei school where she trains in the mountains of China’s Sichuan Province
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