A members-only Japanese restaurant serving the banned and deadly delicacy “tiger blowfish” liver has been raided, police said Thursday.

Blowfish – also known as pufferfish or balloonfish in the West – derive the name from their ability to expand into a nearly roundish shape as part of a defence to ward off predators.

Japanese gourmands adore the fish for the savoury light taste of its white meat, but parts of the liver and ovaries carry enough toxins to kill not just their natural enemies but human beings as well.

Chefs in Japan who prepare blowfish need a special license but are banned from offering up particularly poisonous parts such as the liver – which some brave epicureans are still willing to eat despite the risk.

In 1975, revered Kabuki actor Mitsugoro Bando died after eating blowfish liver in Kyoto.

The restaurant raided in Osaka belongs to a chain of four outlets, and could not be reached for confirmation as the company’s phone numbers are unlisted and the website offers no contact information. New customers must be introduced by an existing member, according to the website.

The raid was conducted Monday, an Osaka prefectural police spokesman said, adding that no health problems have been reported at the restaurant.

But local food safety authorities have indefinitely banned the restaurant chain from serving blowfish, Osaka food safety officials said.

The poisonous substance in the fish, tetrodotoxin, causes dozens to fall ill every year, a few fatally, according to the Japanese Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry.

Police said that the Osaka restaurant served farmed blowfish, which some studies by Japanese marine researchers say does not accumulate poison in the body, but the legal restriction on serving up the potentially poisonous parts remains.

Five ride-hailing platforms in China, including Didi Kuaidi and Uber, have been called in by authorities in the southern city of Shenzhen over the lax process of screening drivers, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Some drivers were found to have committed various traffic violations and used licence plates from outside their jurisdiction to do business, Xinhua said late on Wednesday, citing findings from the Shenzhen transportation committee.

Other problems with the ride-hailing companies included untimely handling of passenger complaints and the obstruction of fair competition, according to the committee.

China is drawing up rules to regulate the booming ride-hailing industry, dominated by Didi Kuaidi and where U.S. firm Uber Technologies Inc has also expanded rapidly. The authorities and the traditional taxi industry have at times clashed with companies allowing people to provide unlicensed transport services.

Xinhua reported that inspections carried out by Shenzhen’s public security bureau also found some of the drivers working for ride-hailing firms had taken drugs in the past, suffered from mental illness and committed disciplinary violations.

When contacted by Reuters, a Didi Kuaidi spokeswoman noted the company’s response to the findings on its official microblog saying it had studied the Shenzhen authorities’ concerns and would comply with government requirements.

An Uber spokeswoman told Reuters that safety was the top priority and the firm had a screening process, rolling out facial-recognition technology for driver registration.

An initial inspection by Shenzhen’s public security department showed that among the pool of Shenzhen’s app drivers, 1,425 drivers had a criminal history of drug use, 1,661 had significant criminal records, and one driver was mentally ill and “caused trouble”, Xinhua said.

Shenzhen authorities said that it had information that a total of 756,000 traffic violations involving car app services occurred in 2015, and that many cases involved drivers working when tired or ill.

One case even involved a driver who died enroute while carrying passengers in the car, it said.

A flyover under construction in the bustling Indian city of Kolkata collapsed on to moving traffic below, killing at least 14 people with as many as 150 people feared trapped, police said.

Residents were using their bare hands to try to rescue people pinned under a 100-metre length of metal and cement that snapped off at one end and came crashing down in a teeming commercial district near Girish Park. “Monumental tragedy. Rescue ops on. Many feared dead,” Derek O’Brien, spokesman for the left-wing party that governs the state of West Bengal of which Kolkata is the capital, said in a tweet.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, seeking re-election in a regional poll next month, rushed to the scene to survey the damage. She faces tough questions over who was responsible.

A newspaper reported last November that Banerjee wanted the project – already years late – to be completed by February. Project engineers expressed concerns over whether this would be possible, The Telegraph said at the time.

Flyover collapses in Indian city, trapping many

Click on thumbnail to view photos. Source: 

Video screengrabs, Twitter

Television footage from the scene showed a bloody hand reaching out from under what appeared to be a girder. People were trying to hand bottles of water to survivors pinned underneath. “The concrete had been laid last night at this part of the bridge,” resident Ramesh Kejriwal told Reuters. “I am lucky as I was planning to go downstairs to have juice. When I was thinking about it, I saw that the bridge had collapsed.” A senior police officer on the scene said that 15 critically injured people had been rescued. “Most were bleeding profusely. The problem is that nobody is able to drive an ambulance to the spot,” said Akhilesh Chaturvedi, a senior police officer.

A 140-tonne crane brought to the scene was unable to lift the concrete slab under which many people were feared trapped, including passengers in a minibus.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh tweeted his concern and announced that rescue teams would be rushed to the scene.

Yet there was little sign of a coordinated rescue operation, with access for heavy lifting equipment restricted by the buildings on either side of the flyover and heavy traffic in the area.

The 2-km (1.2-mile) flyover has been under construction since 2009 and has missed several deadlines for completion.

Construction projects in India have long been plagued by lax safety standards and dubious ties between politicians and business.

Kolkata flyover collapse: Dozens trapped and many feared dead https://t.co/tm9CA1OJk2 pic.twitter.com/EfgUjrkFsI

— Telegraph News (@TelegraphNews) March 31, 2016

The disaster could play a role in the West Bengal state election, one of five being held from next month that will give a verdict on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nearly two years in power.

Indian company IVRCL is building the Vivekananda Road flyover, according to its web site. Its shares were down 6 per cent after falling as much as 11.8 per cent on news of the disaster.

Many of these vehicles had never appeared in public and a notable theme – one that to many eyes came as a big surprise – was the Army’s use of dramatic ‘digital’ camouflage patterns. The Chinese pageant featured columns of military vehicles covered in pixelated squares, some in shades of green and khaki, others in outlandish schemes of blue, white and black.

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The pattern, which resembles the blocky graphics from the computer game Minecraft, is a stark contrast to traditional variegated “organic” camo designs that militaries have employed since the 19th Century – schemes that use blotches of complementary colours to mimic foliage and other natural features.

The boldly pixelated camo, which despite some initial reluctance has seen increasing use by military forces around the world, seems counterintuitive; nothing in nature is so rigidly shaped. But it does work, and its vastly improved performance even came as a surprise to the man – a US Army officer – credited with developing it 40 years ago.

“Well when I looked at the data I think my observation was something on the order of ‘holy crap’,” recalled now-retired Lieutenant Colonel Timothy R O’Neill, PhD, when we asked him about early tests of the camo.

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