A 50-year-old tourist from Singapore was attacked by a Komodo dragon in West Manggarai, East Nusa Tenggara, on Wednesday morning.

Lon Lee Alle, who was in the area to visit the Komodo National Park, was severely injured by a bite on his left leg.

According to the park’s head, Sudiyono, Alle was initially watching several Komodos eating pigs and goats belonging to villagers. He approached the animals to take pictures, ignoring locals’ warning that he should not go too close.

“He must have been too close. A Komodo doesn’t like to be disturbed when eating,” Sudiyono told The Jakarta Post.

“He must have been too close. A Komodo doesn’t like to be disturbed when eating.” -Sudiyono, head of Komodo National Park.

Locals immediately helped pull Sudiyono away from the crowd of Komodos and rushed him to the nearby medical centre where he got first aid. Alle was then taken to the Siloam General Hospital using a military speed boat.

“This is the first incident of human being bitten by a Komodo dragon in the past five years,” Sudiyono said.

He added that the Singaporean had stayed with locals for three days to save costs.

“The incident took place away from the area set by us where tourists are allowed to observe Komodos. I also appeal to all tourists to take guides with you when wandering around to see Komodo dragons. Never risk your safety by staying with locals and watching Komodos without an official guide only for the sake of your budget,” Sudiyono said.

NEW DELHI – An Indian village has banned women from using mobile phones in public in an attempt to restrict their contacts with men and plans hefty fines for violators, police said Wednesday.

Village elders ruled that women found using a mobile phone outside their homes would be fined 21,000 rupees (S$457) – a sum it would take most rural Indians several months to earn.

The ruling was issued on Tuesday in Madora, a mainly Muslim village in the conservative northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

“We have received reports about the Khap ordering the ban on women using mobile phones,” local police chief Arun Kumar Singh told AFP, referring to the informal village councils known as khap panchayats in India.

“Such orders are against the constitution and we will take action.” The council believes that mobile phones are helping unmarried women to elope and that a ban will limit their interaction with men.

The council also imposed fines on people caught slaughtering cows – illegal in most Indian states – or smuggling liquor.

“We do support their measures against illegal activities but won’t allow them to curb the freedom of women,” Singh said.

Khap panchayats are mostly run by male village elders. Although illegal, they have considerable influence in rural north India.

They are known for issuing diktats aimed at upholding the socially conservative traditions that have long held sway and resisting modernisation – such as banning women from wearing jeans.

But they have also been blamed for ordering serious crimes, including the so-called “honour killing” of couples who marry outside caste or religion.

Critics accuse them of acting like kangaroo courts and handing down public beatings and other punishments for perceived crimes.

BANGKOK – There were moments when Naruedee Jotsanthia thought she’d never smile again.

The Thai schoolgirl says she was left facially disfigured last year after a teacher threw a mug at her head.

The attack, which went viral and sparked renewed debate about the country’s deeply hierarchical education system, locked one side of her face in a downward droop and left her unable to close her left eye.

“When I saw my face, I just couldn’t accept it,” the 18-year-old from Thailand’s impoverished northeastern Korat province told AFP. “I thought about hurting myself. I really just could not believe it.” Naruedee had always dreamed of becoming an air hostess, but felt there was little chance an airline would ever consider hiring her.

Yet eight months on she is smiling again thanks to months of costly medical therapy and daily exercises funded by strangers.

“I might not be 100 per cent normal,” she said, a hint of paralysis still visible on her left side. “But I am very satisfied already on what I have achieved so far. At least I can smile again.” The attack was one of a number of recent events that have sparked intense public anger over how authority figures treat underlings in a country where questioning your superiors is taboo.

Last year video footage went viral of a student forced to grovel at her teacher’s feet following a disagreement over whether she was allergic to egg-tofu soup.

A Thai Air Asia stewardess was also forced to prostrate herself on the floor before a disgruntled passenger, prompting an apology from airline boss Tony Fernandez.

Military values

Teachers are near sacrosanct in Thai culture, afforded huge respect and deference.

But many education reform advocates argue such extreme kowtowing discourages critical thinking in students, pointing out that school standards in the comparatively wealthy nation have been slipping for years.

Education for Liberation of Siam, a group advocating schooling reform, said the authorities should do more to “make schools free from violence, change attitude about punishment and take quick action in cases like these.” Yet Thailand’s culture of deference has become more intense since the military seized power in 2014.

Junta chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha has ordered all school children to recite his “twelve values” daily, which include respecting parents, teachers, elders and “maintaining discipline”.

So far Naruedee’s medical treatment has cost as much as three times the annual income her family brings in as cassava farmers in Thailand’s impoverished northeast.

The bill has been picked up by the Pavena Foundation, which assists women trying to escape abuse and also helped Naruedee find a new school.

“It’s taken five months, we can see Naruedee looking normal again, she can now shut her mouth and eyes,” Pavena Hongsakula, a former politician who founded the foundation, said.

The school admits the teacher attacked Naruedee but disputes whether the paralysis, which emerged the day after the assault, was caused by the mug.

The school director said they paid the family 50,000 baht (S$2,021) compensation and that the teacher was transferred to another school.

Police have charged him with assault but the attorney general’s office has yet to push ahead with a prosecution.

Naruedee now wants to focus on chasing her dream of becoming an air hostess.

“I don’t know if I’m dreaming too high or not,” she said, breaking out into a wide grin.

JINDO, South Korea – Pointy-eared and short-haired, the Jindo dog is a symbol of South Korea, where breeders and authorities keep its bloodline even purer than one of the world’s least diverse societies.

The medium-sized hunting dog comes from the island of the same name, a remote rural community off the peninsula’s south coast.

Visitors are greeted by signboards and statues of the eponymous canine, known for its fierce loyalty, and live ones stand guard outside homes or peek out from doghouses.

But its bucolic appearance belies the rigid canine apartheid it imposes on the animals.

Any dog that cannot prove its pedigree, or that fails to come up to standard, is immediately exiled, and any coming onto the island – even a returning Jindo – must have official permission, and be neutered.

“We protect the breed by not letting registered dogs off the island and not allowing others in without a government permit,” said Cha Jae-Nam, who heads the Jindo Dog Research and Test Centre.

The dogs have been bred for centuries, and Seoul classified them as a National Treasure in 1962.

Now Cha’s state-run centre spends two billion won (S$2.4 million) a year on what he calls a “systematic and scientific” preservation of purebred Jindos.

“It’s not common for people to conduct a paternity test on their newborns, but we do for all puppies at birth,” he told AFP.

“They are given a birth certificate if they match the DNA of their parents, but if they don’t, they must leave the island.”

The emphasis echoes widespread notions about racial purity in South Korea, an unusually homogenous society where the population is around 96 per cent ethnically Korean, and mixed-race relationships are frowned upon in some quarters.

But even unquestionable genetics do not ensure survival for the dogs.

When a puppy reaches six months of age, it must undergo a strict assessment of the shape of its ears, legs, tail and head to be microchipped and join the 6,000-odd registered National Treasure status Jindos on the island.

Any that fail are removed.

The rigorous controls enable Cha to declare confidently: “All Jindo dogs in Jindo county are purebred.”

Animal dignity

Jindos have been adored by South Korean leaders, with Kim Dae-Jung giving a breeding pair to the North during his “Sunshine Policy” of the early 2000s, and others enjoying pampered lives at the Blue House under the country’s two most recent presidents Lee Myung-Bak and Park Geun-Hye.

But Park came under fire when she was ejected from office by a court order in March and notoriously left her nine dogs behind – bringing more attention to the rules surrounding them.

Critics such as Chae Il-Taek,director of the Korean Animal Welfare Association, say preservation of the breed should not come at the cost of “discrimination that undermines the dignity of the animals”.

The obsession over the “pure” Jindo bloodline meant some breeders abandon puppies that fail to meet the criteria – which often end up on meal tables, he said.

South Koreans are believed to consume somewhere between 1.5 and 2.5 million dogs every year, according to animal rights groups, although the number is in decline with dwindling demand among the younger generation.

“A large number of the dogs kicked out from Jindo are sold off to dog meat farmers,” Chae said.

‘Deformities in humans’

In a fluorescent-lit lab at the test centre, researcher Kim Jong-Seok proudly opens a double-door fridge containing rows of blood vials.

Officials say the facility has DNA samples of all Jindo dogs born on the island and Kim, who has studied the breed for two decades, believes the meticulous controls are necessary to keep the Jindos clean and healthy.

“The inbreeding of royal families has led to many deformities in humans,” Kim said. “As such, we are preventing various diseases and deformities.”

The measures are welcomed by Jindo breeders, who can sell purebred puppies for around US$1,000 (S$1,395) each.

“Procedures like the screening are inconvenient and tedious at times but we don’t complain because it leads to production income,” said Lim Tae-Young, who heads an association of some 70 Jindo breeders on the island.

“It’s not to say the dogs kicked off the island are bad and the ones that remain are good,” he said, a handful of playful puppies wagging their tails at his feet.

“But here, we only have purebred Jindos.”