News Headlines - 28 March 2021
Japan may find itself in the firing line if mainland China attacks Taiwan because of the multiple US bases on its soil, analysts have said... “If Beijing decides to attack Taiwan, PLA generals will have a strong incentive to launch extensive missile strikes on US military bases in Okinawa and Japan, as these are the most powerful forces that could intervene and inflict heavy losses on PLA forces,” said Timothy Heath, a senior security expert from US think tank Rand.
▽Japan gov't employees party till midnight despite virus restrictions
A group of Japanese health ministry officials partied at a restaurant in Tokyo until around midnight while the metropolitan government's request was in place for eateries to shorten business hours to curb the spread of the coronavirus, a ministry official revealed Monday.
The alleged "farewell" dinner party on March 24 was attended by 23 employees from the Health and Welfare Bureau for the Elderly. Division chiefs were also present at the party held in the capital's glitzy Ginza district, according to the official who expressed remorse for the event.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is expected to penalize those in attendance after verifying the facts, with health minister Norihisa Tamura likely to announce an investigation into the matter at a press conference Tuesday.
▽Myanmar Air Strike On Thai Border, Troops Kill Dozens Including Children
Myanmar army fighter jets launched air strikes on Saturday on a village near the Thai border in territory controlled by an armed ethnic group, the group said, as fears grow of civil war following last month's military coup.
The Karen National Union (KNU), the armed ethnic group that controls the southeastern region, said fighter jets attacked Day Pu No in Papun district, an area held by its Brigade 5 forces, at around 8 p.m., forcing villagers to flee.
▽French philosopher Michel Foucault ‘abused boys in Tunisia’ | The Sunday Times
The philosopher Michel Foucault, a beacon of today’s “woke” ideology, has become the latest prominent French figure to face a retrospective reckoning for sexually abusing children.
A fellow intellectual, Guy Sorman, has unleashed a storm among Parisian “intellos” with his claim that Foucault, who died in 1984 aged 57, was a paedophile rapist who had sex with Arab children while living in Tunisia in the late 1960s.
▽Tantalizing Evidence: Is the Nearest Star Cluster to the Sun Being Destroyed?
Data from ESA’s Gaia star mapping satellite have revealed tantalizing evidence that the nearest star cluster to the Sun is being disrupted by the gravitational influence of a massive but unseen structure in our galaxy.
If true, this might provide evidence for a suspected population of ‘dark matter sub-halos’. These invisible clouds of particles are thought to be relics from the formation of the Milky Way, and are now spread across the galaxy, making up an invisible substructure that exerts a noticeable gravitational influence on anything that drifts too close.
