SEOUL – South Korea’s foreign minister said on Friday there was nothing wrong with erecting a statue in memory of women forced to work in Japanese brothels in World War Two, but its location outside a Japanese consulate was inappropriate.
The statue of the young “comfort woman” in the southern city of Busan has rekindled a feud over wartime history between South Korea and its past colonial ruler and prompted Japan to temporarily recall its ambassador.
The term “comfort women” is a euphemism for girls and women, from South Korea, China, the Philippines and elsewhere, forced to work in Japanese military brothels.
South Korean activists estimate that there may have been as many as 200,000 Korean victims.
“The issue of a girl statue in Busan is unfortunate,”Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se told lawmakers, referring to the southern city. “Our government is not against the instalment of a girl statue… but I think we need to pool our wisdom on the issue of location.”
He did not say if the statue would be moved.
The statue, which depicts a barefoot girl sitting in a chair, was erected near the Japanese consulate at the end of last year.
Japan said the statue violated an agreement to resolve the issue.
South Korean politicians, including expected presidential contenders, have called for renegotiation of the December 2015 agreement stating the comfort women issue would be “irreversibly resolved” if all conditions – including a Japanese apology and a fund to help the victims – were met.
In what is possibly a world’s first, India’s national carrier Air India will now be reserving seats for women.
Six seats in the front rows of domestic flights will be blocked without any additional cost, The Hindu reported.
For a while now, buses, trains and even auto-rickshaws in India have had special seats for women, but this is the first time that an airline is implementing it.
An Air India official has reportedly said, “We feel, as national carriers, it is our responsibility to enhance comfort level to female passengers.”
The policy will take effect on Jan. 18.
But Air India might have to first contend with unhappy Indian citizens, who have lambasted the airline on social media.
Dear @airindiain. As a woman, this is insulting. My gender doesn’t make me an invalid. This is what modern day sexism looks like https://t.co/BydLuz5vMt
Novak Djokovic is one of the world’s top tennis players, but don’t expect him to excel in all versions of the game just yet.
Djokovic tried out some wheelchair tennis for a charity event in Melbourne, Australia on Wednesday, playing against Australian wheelchair tennis pro and two-time gold medalist, Dylan Alcott.
While the Serbian champ has no such trouble hitting balls against Alcott while standing, the tables really turned when Djokovic tried playing from a wheelchair.
“Oh my god, I have to play tennis. How do you do it?” Djokovic asked, while trying to figure out how to turn his new chair.
No wonder Djokovic kept asking Alcott if he could play it down the middle.
If there was any doubt in your mind before, the video makes it pretty obvious – wheelchair tennis is hard as hell.
The action starts from 1:30 in the below clip.
The charity event was called “A Night with Novak Djokovic,” where Djokovic was helping to raise money for his foundation which supports preschool education for children.
Djokovic tried his hand at other sports too, like Australian rules football, netball, cricket and football (a.k.a. football) – where he so happens to be a left-footer. What a good sport.
Chair of Coordinating Committee of Special Procedures Yanghee Lee addresses the Human Rights Council 26th Special Session on the human rights situation in South Sudan, Geneva, Switzerland, December 14, 2016. REUTERS/Pierre Albouy
SITTWE, Myanmar – The ruling party in Myanmar’s Rakhine state government said Friday it refused to meet a UN envoy who is probing allegations of horrific abuse of Rohingya Muslims by security forces in the region.
Yanghee Lee, the UN special rapporteur on Myanmar, was expected to hold talks with members of the Arakan National Party in the state capital Sittwe, before travelling north to an area under military lockdown on Saturday.
Lee has faced threats and been branded a “whore” by Buddhist hardliners on previous visits for her criticism of how Myanmar treats the Rohingya, a stateless group that has suffered years of poverty and repression.
They have been targeted by security forces during a three-month crackdown in northern Rakhine that the UN said has seen at least 65,000 Rohingya flee across the border to Bangladesh.
“They offered to meet with us from their side but we have no plans to meet them,” the vice president of ANP, Khine Pyi Soe, said of Lee’s arrival.
“I don’t think that meeting with them is very important,” he added.
Lee’s spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment.
Parts of northern Rakhine have been under military control since October as the army launches “clearance operations” to find Rohingya insurgents allegedly behind deadly raids on police border posts.
The crisis has drawn a storm of international criticism for the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, which took power in March.
Lee has slammed the lockdown as “unacceptable” and called for an international investigation into claims troops have raped, murdered and tortured civilians from the Muslim minority.
Ahead of her trip, she said violence in Rakhine had contributed to “disquiet regarding the direction that the new government is taking in its first year”.
Muslim-majority Malaysia has lashed out at Nobel laureate Suu Kyi for not stopping the violence, and next week will host foreign ministers from the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation for talks on the crisis.
Bangladesh has urged Myanmar’s government to end the violence and take back the thousands of refugees that have entered already overcrowded camps along the border.
“Bangladesh has demanded (the) quick restoration of (a) normal situation in Rakhine state so that Myanmar nationals… can quickly go back home,” foreign minister A.H. Mahmood Ali said after meeting Myanmar’s special envoy in Dhaka this week.
Myanmar’s foreign ministry said the two sides had “agreed to commence consultations for verification and repatriation” of those who had fled the lockdown.
The sea walls around one of Singapore’s Southern Islands are now thriving with marine life – life that would otherwise have been snuffed out by works to build a new port in Tuas four years ago.
Of the 213 corals that were grown in nurseries and then transplanted onto sea walls on Lazarus Island, south of the mainland, scientists recorded a survival rate of more than 90 per cent.
The corals lying in the path of port development works were given a second lease of life, after the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) took steps to save them.
In 2013, the agency engaged marine biologists from the National University of Singapore’s Tropical Marine Science Institute (TMSI) to collect small coral fragments from Sultan Shoal, located south of Tuas, to be grown in nurseries.
Each barely the length of a human finger, the hope was to nurse the fragments into larger, fist-size colonies that could be used to rehabilitate reefs. It was a novel method that proved successful.
The findings were published last November in the science journal Ecological Engineering.
The method also helped improve the coral cover at the three transplant sites on Lazarus Island. One of the sites saw hard coral cover increase from 3 to 20 per cent.
The results were encouraging, as it showed that man-made structures, such as sea walls, could be conducive for marine life, reducing the impact of coastal development and loss of marine biodiversity, said Dr Toh Tai Chong, a research fellow at TMSI who led the project.
Healthy coral reefs are important as they not only draw marine life, but are also effective buffers against strong waves and can help filter pollutants from the water, said coral expert Chou Loke Ming, who supervised the project.
The transplant sites were selected for their similarities to the source site at Sultan Shoal, in terms of water temperature, underwater currents and level of sedimentation in the waters. This ensured they were conducive to coral growth in the first place, said Dr Toh.
The coral nursery project is just one of the initiatives funded by MPA to save marine life in the way of the Tuas port development.
Between September 2013 and August 2014, MPA also relocated more than 2,000 coral colonies from Sultan Shoal to the waters off St John’s Island and Sisters’ Islands.
About 50 volunteers helped out in activities such as harvesting coral fragments and transplantation.
For the coral nursery project, the inclusion of volunteers in fieldwork and data analyses could help lower the cost of the project by up to 23 per cent, Dr Toh noted.
He said: “The savings in manpower expenses can reduce the high costs of rehabilitation projects and could encourage companies to undertake such efforts. More importantly, the engagement of volunteers promotes environmental awareness and stewardship.”
An MPA spokesman said: “MPA has always believed that while developing our ports to meet future demands, environmental protection should not be compromised and MPA would adopt a similar approach for our future projects.”
This article was first published on Jan 13, 2017. Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.
The two leaders, he said were at the President’s house for 45 minutes.
Abe arrived in the country on Thursday afternoon for a two-day official visit.
He is the first head of state to visit the Philippines under the Duterte administration and also the highest ranking foreign public official to ever set foot in Davao City.
A DBS bank officer sensed something was amiss when a woman went to its HarbourFront Centre branch last year to transfer US$1,670 (S$2,400) to a personal account in Thailand.
Senior customer service executive Kelvin Low found out that the customer did not speak Thai and had never lived in Thailand.
He told assistant customer service manager Alyssa Low about his suspicions.
The woman told Ms Low that the amount was a “service fee” for a monetary transaction.
Thanks to the DBS officers, she soon realised that she had been duped and informed the police.
The duo were among 42 people from 14 organisations who were recognised with awards from the Commercial Affairs Department on Wednesday. They had helped prevent victims from falling prey to scams involving more than a million dollars last year.
Other organisations whose staff received certificates of appreciation at the Police Cantonment Complex include Maybank, UOB and remittance company Hanshan Money Express.
DBS Bank’s managing director and distribution head Susan Cheong told The Straits Times that its staff managed to foil about 100 scams at its branches last year.
She added: “Our branch staff stay alert when performing their duties and will always seek to obtain more information from customers who may be victims of scams.
“This may include inquiring about the reasons for any large cash withdrawals which are not in line with their normal transaction patterns, or for dubious fund transfers where the beneficiary is unknown to the customer.”
Ms Cheong told ST that employees will alert their colleagues whenever they become suspicious.
She said: “We regularly conduct training for our branch staff on the various ways of detecting scams.”
The police said members of the public can visit Scamalert.sg to find out more about the latest scams.
They can also share their experiences on the website.
To seek advice, they can also call the National Crime Prevention Council’s anti-scam helpline on 1800-722-6688.
This article was first published on Jan 13, 2017. Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.
LOS ANGELES – Spine-tingling teaser footage for “The Bye Bye Man” has delighted fans of horror with its offering of all the delicious tropes of a great spooky story.
Ahead of its US release on Friday, its trailers have been serving up a bloodcurdling blend of slash, splatter, jump scares, terrified teenagers and a havoc-wreaking ghoul at the centre of it all.
But it departs from the average run-of-the-mill ghost story in one significant way – the gender of its director, Stacy Title.
Women flock to horror movies – in greater numbers than men, according to various box office surveys – yet until recently a female director was as rare a sight in the genre as a working cellar light or a cell phone with a signal.
Over the last few years, however, a small but exhilarating new wave of critically-acclaimed breakout hits made by women have subverted expectations about what high quality horror should look like.
From Jennifer Kent’s “The Babadook” to “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night,” directed by Ana Lily Amirpour, women are elevating the genre beyond the scope of the traditional male-directed slasher.
The worldwide film industry has churned out many thousands of horror movies since Frenchman Georges Melies directed “Le Manoir Du Diable” (“The Devil’s Castle”) in 1896.
Yet the gender balance remains so out of whack that most user-generated lists of horror films directed by women since the early 20th century on the Internet Movie Database mention fewer than 100.
“There’s a lost generation of very talented women that aren’t working because unfortunately, or fortunately for men, it’s a sexist business,” Title told AFP.
Set in 1990s Wisconsin, her movie follows three students who move into an old, off-campus house, where they find themselves preyed on by “The Bye Bye Man,” a malevolent supernatural entity that terrorised unsuspecting victims decades earlier.
The story comes from occult historian Robert Damon Schneck’s 2005 compendium of the spooky and downright weird, “The President’s Vampire: Strange-but-true Tales of the United States of America.” Schneck claims his story recalls the real-life experiences of a friend in Wisconsin, who told the author about encountering the menacing supernatural being after playing with a Ouija board.
The film boasts established stars like Faye Dunaway and Carrie-Anne Moss, but it is carried by Douglas Smith (“Ouija,” “Terminator Genisys” and “Miss Sloane”) playing an insecure teenage genius who investigates the Bye Bye Man myth.
“I didn’t seek out the movie because there was a female director but it was an interesting angle once I was already interested and in the audition process,” Smith told AFP.
“She was really artistically respectful. She really wanted to rehearse and just have long conversations and get our opinions.” .
The 47-year-old Title started out as an editor and investigative journalist, and was the youngest woman ever nominated for an Oscar for directing a short movie.
She directed Cameron Diaz and Courtney B. Vance in 1996 black comedy “The Last Supper” and cultivated her horror chops directing “Snoop Dogg’s Hood of Horror.” “I hate to say it, but you close your eyes and imagine the president, it’s a man. Whatever you think of Hillary Clinton, you know that she got hit a lot harder than a guy would’ve got hit,” Title told AFP.
“That extends to directing. It’s hard for people to imagine a woman in that job. Aspirationally, for some men, they mentor men. It’s a way of identifying with someone younger, maybe even reliving their earlier life. Women don’t fit into that role either.” Title was hired by veteran producer Trevor Macy, who has worked on more than a dozen movies including “Safe House,” with Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds, and “Oculus,” directed by horror specialist Mike Flanagan.
“Usually in a successful horror movie it’s about 60/40 female in terms of the audience. And it’s sort of silly that we don’t have more female voices behind the camera,” he told AFP.
“(Title) brings something to the party as a woman, not only being able to speak to that audience in a way that works, but a ferocious groundedness in character that I think is great for making a scary movie relatable.”
Murky waters are the bane of scuba divers, but for corals, the sedimentation could be an unlikely ally in the struggle against warming seas.
A new study has found that murky waters could reduce the impact of sea temperature rises on corals – though only in the short term.
Corals depend on symbiotic algae called zooxanthellae to make food. Bleaching occurs when abnormally high sea temperatures cause corals to expel the zooxanthellae living in them, turning them white and causing them to lose a food source.
Sediment suspended in water helps to reduce the amount of solar irradiance – radiant energy per unit area – affecting the corals, said coral expert Chou Loke Ming, an adjunct research professor at the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Tropical Marine Science Institute, who was on the team that did the study.
“This helps to reduce sunlight energy through the water. Although the water temperature is elevated, the reduced sunlight energy helps to lower the impact,” he said.
This could explain why corals growing in shallow areas here survived two major bleaching incidents in 1998 and 2010.
An analysis of corals at 15 sites over 27 years from 1986 – when Prof Chou’s laboratory started quantitative reef monitoring – to 2012 showed that coral cover at depths of 3m to 4m could recover to the way they were within a decade.
At these shallow sites, coral cover over the years ranged between 25 per cent and 49 per cent, with the highest cover recorded when monitoring first started. The greatest decline occurred between 1988 and 1998 – due to the El Nino weather phenomenon that was linked to prolonged warm weather here.
But the corals recovered within the next decade. By 2008, mean coral cover had recovered to about 40 per cent, where they were in 1993, noted the study led by Dr James Guest, now a postdoctoral research fellow at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology.
Scientists from NUS and the National Parks Board (NParks) also contributed to the study, which was recently published in the journal Scientific Reports.
“The most interesting finding was that the shallow reefs appeared to recover well after major bleaching in 1998. This is all the more surprising when you consider how impacted Singapore’s marine environment is,” Dr Guest told The Straits Times.
However, Prof Chou warned that in the long run, murky waters could do the corals more harm than good.
“Overall, turbid waters interfere with the filter feeding of corals and reduce the sunlight energy required by the symbiotic algae. Over the long term, turbid waters can negatively affect the health of coral communities.”
The picture of coral recovery at deeper sites of 6m to 7m was less rosy, with no recovery to historical levels observed. Overall, the 30 per cent coral cover decline at deeper sites was more than twice that of the 12 per cent decline at shallow sites.
No sign of bleaching on a small colony of ring favid corals on Cyrene Reef. The study found that at deeper sites, the coral cover decline was 30 per cent, more than twice that of the 12 per cent decline at shallow sites.Photo: The Straits Times
Prof Chou said the sharper decline could be due to the presence of coral rubble, which accumulates at the bottom of a reef slope. “Even if coral larvae manage to settle on rubble pieces, they would not be able to survive because the rubble can turn over and bury larvae that settle on the surface.”
The finding has implications on measures to safeguard corals during bleaching incidents, such as the one last year.
Moving corals to deeper waters was initially considered by NParks as a strategy to protect corals during bleaching, but NParks decided against doing so last year. Instead, it closed the dive trails at Sisters’ Islands Marine Park, reopening them only last month, to allow more time for the corals to recover.
Dr Karenne Tun, director of the coastal and marine division at the NParks’ National Biodiversity Centre, said: “The findings from this study add to our existing knowledge of spatial and temporal trends of Singapore’s reefs over the past three decades.”
Added Dr Tun, who was also part of the study: “It also reflects how proactive management measures, like reef restoration and species recovery programmes, can enhance reef recovery following stress events.”
This article was first published on Jan 13, 2017. Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.
