Salman Rushdie, novelist who drew death threats, is stabbed in neck at New York lecture - The Straits Times

NEW YORK (REUTERS) - Mr Salman Rushdie, the Indian-born novelist who spent years in hiding after he was ordered killed by Iran in 1989 because of his writing, was stabbed in the neck as he was about to give a lecture in New York state on Friday (Aug 12), according to police and an eyewitness.

A man rushed to the stage at the Chautauqua Institution and attacked Mr Rushdie as he was being introduced to give a talk on artistic freedom to an audience of hundreds, an eyewitness said.

A State Trooper present at the event took the attacker into custody, police said.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul said Mr Rushdie was alive and “getting the care he needs.”

Mr Rushdie, 75, was taken by helicopter to a hospital but police said his condition was not yet known.

Police did not give a motive for the attack and it was not clear what kind of weapon was used.

The author fell to the floor when the man attacked him, and was then surrounded by a small group of people who held up his legs, seemingly to send more blood to his upper body, as the attacker was restrained, according to a witness attending the lecture who asked not to be named.

Mr Rushdie, who was born into an Indian Muslim family, has faced death threats for his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, which some Muslims said contained blasphemous passages.

The novel was banned in many countries with large Muslim populations upon its 1988 publication.

A year later, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Iran’s supreme leader, pronounced a fatwa, or religious edict, calling upon Muslims to kill the novelist for blasphemy.

Mr Rushdie went into hiding for many years. The Iranian government said in 1998 it would no longer back the fatwa, and Mr Rushdie has lived relatively openly in recent years.

Iranian organisations, some affiliated with the government, have raised a bounty worth millions of dollars for Rushdie’s murder. And Khomeini’s successor as Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said as late as 2017 that the fatwa was still valid.

Mr Rushdie published a memoir about his life under the fatwa called “Joseph Anton", the pseudonym he used while under police protection. His new novel Victory City is due to be published in February.

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2022-08-12 17:36:03Z
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'How can you listen to his screams and laugh': Naomi Neo called out for scaring son in TikTok ghost prank - AsiaOne

How much is too much?

Popular local influencer Naomi Neo has found herself in the crosshairs of netizens after posting a TikTok video of her and her husband pranking their four-year-old son Kyzo on Thursday (Aug 11), causing the child to go into a frenzied crying fit. 

The viral trend currently spreading on TikTok has parents pretending to do a dance video with their children, only to turn around and escape from the room, locking the door behind them as eerie music plays in the background.

As expected, the terrified child goes into a tizzy, banging and wailing at the door.

Netizens have called for parents to stop replicating the "cruel" prank, alleging that it can inflict long-term psychological and emotional trauma on kids.

In the video Neo posted, her adorable son Kyzo can be seen curiously staring into the camera as his parents slowly back away from view, slamming the door shut.

Confused at first, the little boy's expression changes in a split second to one of horror. He frantically runs to the door and all but jumps on the doorknob in his attempts to open it, but fails.

While the video doesn't contain any audio of the actual moment, one can almost hear his horrified wails. "I can hear his screams," wrote one commenter.

"How can you listen to his screams and laugh at it when he's truly scared?" asked another in response to the video, which has generated more than 15,000 comments as of writing.

While a handful of commenters seemed to take perverse pleasure in the video, requesting Neo to "do it again", it seemed more considered the prank in bad taste and could possibly prove damaging to a child's psyche.

"This isn't a funny 'prank', this can seriously have a big impact on a kid's mental health and lead to trauma," wrote a concerned netizen.

One woman shared a similar experience of being locked up in a "well-lit room" by her mother when she was three, adding that as an adult, she still has to "wake my husband up in the middle of the night to accompany me to the toilet".

Another woman who claimed to be 50 years old said she is still "traumatised" over an incident some 44 years ago where her parents left her alone in a room. 

Nanasilayro, a Filipino content creator with four million followers on TikTok, has also posted a video slamming the TikTok trend, sharing her opinion on why pranking children in this manner "for content" is a very bad idea.

@nanasilayro

STOP IT.

♬ original sound - Nana ✨

"This is not okay…. I'm not sure if people are aware of the consequences of the trend," said Nanasilayro, who professed to be an early childhood educator.

It's really sad to see that people are doing it for content," she said, adding that she hopes parents will be aware that "this will cause long-term trauma".

"Don't ever do this," she chided, stressing that "a lot can happen" in the few seconds when the child is alone in the room.

"The child can bang their head… pull wires, the child can have convulsions… faint," said Nanasilayro, and not to mention develop "very, very bad trust issues".

On her part, Neo has stated in the caption to the video that she has "apologised with tears" to her son, but has yet to respond to the criticisms.

However, it's not the first time the 26-year-old mum has pulled a prank on her son that reduced him to tears, either. In another video published in March, Kyzo was shown breaking down in tears after realising his mother was not around to pick him up from school [spoiler alert, she was].

AsiaOne has reached out to Neo for comment.

candicecai@asiaone.com

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2022-08-12 06:51:41Z
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China condemns new US law aimed at boosting domestic semiconductor manufacturing - South China Morning Post

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2022-08-11 09:19:55Z
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Ex-workers at Malaysia's Brightway sue Kimberly-Clark, Ansell over alleged labour abuse - CNA

KUALA LUMPUR: Migrant workers at Malaysian glove maker Brightway Holdings filed a lawsuit in the United States against Kimberly-Clark Corp and Ansell Ltd, accusing them of "knowingly profiting" from the alleged use of forced labour at the supplier, according to the complaint seen by Reuters.

In the suit, filed late on Tuesday (Aug 9) in the United States, 13 former workers claimed damages from US personal care company Kimberly-Clark and Australian personal protective equipment supplier Ansell in the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia.

According to the complaint, the workers paid high recruitment fees to middlemen, worked long hours with few or no rest days, had their passports taken by the company.

The complaint says public reports on Brightway and other Malaysian glove makers, and violations found by labour audits, were evidence of the two companies' knowledge of the alleged abuses.

Kimberly-Clark did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside of regular US business hours.

Ansell and Brightway said they did not have an immediate comment.

"These companies cannot deny that they had knowledge of forced labour at Brightway," said Terrence Collingsworth, a lawyer from International Rights Advocates representing the workers.

Collingsworth said that before filing the lawsuit, he had proposed mediation with Kimberly-Clark and Ansell to obtain compensation for the workers, but both companies declined.

The United States banned Brightway products from entering the country in December 2021 over suspected forced labour practices, saying it had found 10 of 11 International Labour Organization indicators of forced labour.

Allegations of misconduct at Brightway had been public for at least a year before that.

In December 2020, Malaysian officials found Brightway workers living in shipping containers, and a minister likened the squalid conditions as "modern slavery" after a raid.

Reuters reported in May 2021 that labour audits of Brightway had detailed 61 violations of global ethical standards and 50 violations of Malaysian labour laws, even though the auditors concluded that they did not find forced labour.

Ansell told Reuters at the time that the audits, when it inspected them, had "revealed several non-compliances with labour standards".

Both companies then said Brightway had fixed some of these problems since the government raid in December.

Buyers such as Kimberly-Clark and Ansell use labour audits to monitor their supply chain.

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2022-08-10 04:02:00Z
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Xi's Anger Over Chip Industry Failure Triggers Corruption Probe in China - Bloomberg

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Xi's Anger Over Chip Industry Failure Triggers Corruption Probe in China  BloombergView Full coverage on Google News
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2022-08-09 10:50:49Z
CAIiEAsE8-6eMIfcS42RV6rTU90qGQgEKhAIACoHCAow4uzwCjCF3bsCMIrOrwM

Myanmar ambassador to China died on Sunday - Reuters

A man walks past a paramilitary police officer keeping watch outside the Myanmar embassy in Beijing, China August 8, 2022. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

BEIJING, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Myanmar's ambassador to China died suddenly on Sunday in the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming, according to an obituary in Myanmar state media and diplomatic sources in Beijing.

The obituary for Ambassador U Myo Thant Pe by Myanmar's foreign ministry in a state newspaper on Monday did not specify his cause of death.

Diplomats in Beijing and a Chinese language Myanmar media report said the cause was likely to be a heart attack.

U Myo Thant Pe was last seen on Saturday meeting a local official in the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan which borders Myanmar, according to a local news report.

The Myanmar embassy in China did not immediately respond to a query for comment.

U Myo Thant Pe was appointed ambassador to China in 2019 and stayed in his post after Myanmar's military took power in a coup in February 2021.

He was the fourth ambassador to die in China in the past year.

German ambassador Jan Hecker, 54, died in September, less than two weeks into his Beijing posting. Ukraine ambassador Serhiy Kamyshev, 65, died in February during or shortly after a visit to a Beijing Winter Olympics venue. read more

Philippines ambassador Jose Santiago "Chito" Sta. Romana, 74, died in quarantine in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui in April.

Reporting by Yew Lun Tian and Reuters staff; Editing by Lincoln Feast

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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2022-08-08 06:48:00Z
CBMiY2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnJldXRlcnMuY29tL3dvcmxkL2FzaWEtcGFjaWZpYy9teWFubWFyLWFtYmFzc2Fkb3ItY2hpbmEtZGllZC1zdW5kYXktc291cmNlcy0yMDIyLTA4LTA4L9IBAA

Commentary: World's first 'synthetic embryo' - why this research is more important than you think - CNA

THE TINIEST CLUSTER

What’s particularly interesting about the newly published model is its very complex structure; not only does it mimic the cell specification and layout of an early-stage body plan – including precursors of heart, blood, brain and other organs – but also the “support” cells like those found in the placenta and other tissues required to establish and maintain a pregnancy.

The earliest stages of pregnancy are difficult to study in most animals. The embryos are microscopic, tiny clusters of cells, difficult to locate and observe within the uterus.

But we do know that at this stage of development, things can go awry. For example, environmental factors can influence and interfere with development, or cells fail to receive the right signals to fully form the spinal cord, such as in spina bifida. Using models like this, we can start to ask why.

However, even though these models are a powerful research tool, it is important to understand they are not embryos.

They replicate only some aspects of development, but not fully reproduce the cellular architecture and developmental potential of embryos derived after fertilisation of eggs by sperm – so-called natural embryos.

The team behind this work emphasises they were unable to develop these models beyond eight days, while a normal mouse pregnancy is 20 days long.

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2022-08-07 22:08:32Z
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