US ambassador to South Korea slashed by knife-wielding man

US Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert leaves after he was slashed in the face in Seoul.

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SEOUL, South Korea — US Ambassador Mark Lippert was in stable condition after being slashed on the face and wrist by a man wielding a 10-inch knife and screaming that the rival Koreas should be unified, South Korean police and US officials said Thursday.

Media images showed a stunned-looking Lippert staring at his blood-covered left hand and holding his right hand over a cut on the right side of his face, his pink tie splattered with blood.

The US State Department condemned the attack, which happened at a performing arts center in downtown Seoul as the ambassador was preparing for a lecture about prospects for peace on the divided Korean Peninsula, and said Lippert’s injuries weren’t life-threatening.
The U.S. Embassy said Lippert was in stable condition after surgery at a Seoul hospital.

YTN TV reported that the suspect — identified by police as 55-year-old Kim Ki-jong — screamed during the attack, “South and North Korea should be reunified.” The comments appear to reflect a bitter, lingering political division in South Korean society over the 1950-53 Korean War’s legacy and the continuing split of the Korean Peninsula along the world’s most heavily armed border.

A witness, Ahn Yang-ok, head of the Korean Federation of Teachers’ Associations, told YTN that Lippert had just been seated for breakfast ahead of the lecture organized by the Korean Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation when a man ran toward the ambassador from a nearby table. A separate, unidentified witness said that as Lippert stood up for a handshake, the suspect wrestled the ambassador to the ground and slashed him with a knife.

Yonhap TV showed men in suits and ties piled on top of the attacker, who was dressed in a modern version of the traditional Korean hanbok, and Lippert later being rushed to a police car with a blood-soaked handkerchief pressed to his cheek. The suspect also shouted anti-war slogans after he was detained, police said.

A police official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was still happening, said the suspect in 2010 threw a piece of concrete at the Japanese ambassador in Seoul. South Korean media reported that Kim Ki-jong was later sentenced to a three-year suspended prison term over the attack. Kim, who was protesting Japan’s claim to small disputed islands that are occupied by South Korea, missed the ambassador with the concrete and hit his secretary instead, the reports said.

Kim also reportedly tried to set himself on fire with gasoline while protesting in front of the presidential Blue House in October 2007. He was demanding a government investigation into an alleged 1988 rape in Kim’s office, according to news reports.

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry released a statement condemning the attack and vowing a thorough investigation and strengthened protection of embassies.

The suspect’s reported comments Thursday on Korean reunification point to continuing political turmoil linked to the Korean War, which is still technically ongoing because it ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. The US, which backed South Korea during the war against China-backed Pyongyang, still stations 28,500 troops in South Korea as a deterrent against North Korea, and some South Koreans see the US presence as a barrier to a reunified Korea — a view North Korea’s propaganda machine regularly pushes in state media.

Anti-US protesters in Seoul have recently demonstrated against annual US-South Korean military exercises that North Korea says are preparation for an invasion. Seoul and Washington say the drills, which will run until the end of April, are defensive and routine.

North Korea each year reacts with fury to the drills, which the impoverished country is forced to respond to with drills and weapons tests of its own. In 2013 it threatened nuclear strikes on Washington and Seoul, and on the first day of this year’s drills, Monday, it test-fired short-range missiles in a demonstration of anger.

Lippert, 42, became ambassador in October of last year and has been a regular presence on social media and in speeches and presentations during his time in Seoul. His wife gave birth here and the couple gave their son a Korean middle name. Lippert was formerly the US assistant secretary of defense for Asian affairs and a foreign policy aide to President Barack Obama when Obama was a US senator.

Obama called Lippert after the attack to express his prayers for a speedy recovery, the White House said.

“We strongly condemn this act of violence,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said. She had no other details.

Source: New York Post

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Harrison Ford injured in plane crash

Actor Harrison Ford was "battered but OK" Thursday after his vintage World War II training plane crash landed on a California golf course, authorities and family members said.

The 72-year-old actor, who was conscious and breathing when rescue crews reached him, was stabilized and taken to a hospital, where he was in fair to moderate condition, authorities said. Sources said he sustained cuts to his head. There was no word on other injuries or what caused the plane to crash about 2:20 p.m. (5:20 p.m. ET). It appeared he was flying solo.

Ben Ford, the well-known restaurateur and the actor's son, said on Twitter that his dad was "battered, but OK!" "We are very thankful that the passenger had [only] very moderate injuries," Los Angeles Assistant Fire Chief Patrick Butler said.

An eyewitness, Howard Teba, an employee at Penmar Golf Course, said he put a blanket under Ford's hip.

"There was blood all over his face," Teba said. "Two very fine doctors were treating him, taking good care of him."

The plane, a single-engine Ryan Aeronautical ST3KR, crashed on the golf course shortly after takeoff from Santa Monica Airport, said Patrick Jones, an investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board. The pilot reported a loss of engine power, clipped the top of a tree and was trying to return to the airport, Jones said.

Photo of the crashed plane in Mar Vista, California

"I'm sure the pilot was glad there was a golf course here," he said.

Mike Bonin, a Los Angeles City Council member, agreed, telling NBC Los Angeles: "Thank God that this incident happened on a golf course where there is a relatively open space."

Bonis has lobbied to close the airport as being inadequate. "This airport is remarkably close to residential areas and flight schools, which is very concerning," he said.

His injuries were originally described as "critical," but sources emphasized they are better characterized as serious, including lacerations to the head and possible fractures.

An avid flyer of both planes and helicopters, Ford was in a bad crash of a Bell chopper in 1999 Santa Clara, California. In 2008, he told National Geographic, "Well, there was a mechanical failure while we were practicing power recovery autorotations. It was more or less a hard landing. Luckily, I was with another aviation professional and neither of us was hurt — and both of us are still flying."

The Federal Aviation Administration is joining the NTSB investigation, Jones said. He said the investigation could take as long as a year because the plane was a vintage model that didn't have a "black box" data recorder.

Source: CNBC News

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WATCH: HK policeman punched nine times in attack caught on CCTV

Post by on.cc 東方報業集團網站.

A vicious attack in which a policeman was punched repeatedly in the face and head was captured by CCTV in Tsim Sha Tsui on Tuesday.

The officer was struck nine times before the attacker was subdued by his partner and a passerby in Chungking Mansions – a high-rise warren of cheap guest houses and South Asian restaurants – on Nathan Road.

The constable, who is attached to the patrol sub-unit of Tsim Sha Tsui police station, was on patrol with his partner in the building when the incident happened shortly after 10.15am.
When the officer noticed a dispute at a money exchange shop on the ground floor of the building, he went to investigate, according to a police spokeswoman.

A video clip shows the officer approached a man wearing a green and black jacket – later identified by police as a 35-year-old Hong Kong identity card holder – when he banged the shop’s glass security screen.

In the 27-second clip, the officer was assaulted after he grabbed the man’s shoulder from behind. The film shows the man then landed nine punches on the officer, whose hat fell off.

The video shows the officer clung onto the man’s jacket throughout the eight-second long attack.

The attack ended when the man was pushed to the ground by a man who was passing by and subdued by a security guard and the officer’s partner.

The injured policeman was treated for facial injuries at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Yau Ma Tei.

According to police, an initial investigation showed the suspect became emotional because he waited for a long time to exchange money at the shop.

The man was also accused of damaging the padlock of the security screen at the money exchange shop, a police spokeswoman said.

Police arrested him on suspicion of assaulting a police officer and criminal damage. At about 4pm, he was being held for questioning at Tsim Sha Tsui police station. He had not been charged.

Detectives from the Yau Tsim police district are investigating.

Source: South China Morning Post

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Turkish Airlines flight TK 726 crash-lands on Nepal runway amid dense fog

Flight staff evacuated all 224 passengers on board

A Turkish Airlines flight skidded after overshooting a runway amid dense fog in Nepal, forcing staff to evacuate the plane, which was carrying 224 passengers.

Officials at Kathmandu's Tribhuwan International Airport said Flight TK 726 was coming from Istanbul when the accident happened.
The Airbus 330 circled for half-an-hour over Nepal before making a second attempt at landing after the seven-hour flight.

A Turkish Airline spokesperson said passengers sustained some minor injuries, but no-one was seriously hurt. The only international airport in Nepal remained closed on Wednesday morning after the accident.

Passengers leave a Turkish Airlines plane which skidded off the runway on landing

The front landing gear reportedly collapsed, causing it to nosedive on the slippery runway, The Telegraph reports.

"All of our passengers and crew have been safely evacuated and taken to the terminal," Turkish Airlines spokesman Ali Genc said in a statement. "Necessary precautions have been taken for towing the aircraft out of its current place and the relevant work on that issue have started."

Passengers evacuated the aircraft (AFP) Passengers evacuated the aircraft (AFP)

The airline said a technical investigation is being launched into the incident in a post on its official Twitter account.

"All of our passengers and flight crew evacuated safely," it added.

Source: The Independent

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This Xiaomi Action Cam beats a GoPro Hero on specs and only costs $64

Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi has today launched its first action camera. Aimed squarely at GoPro, it beats the Hero on specs and price—though it's not yet clear if you'll be able to buy one in the U.S..

The Yi, as it's called, features a 16-megapixel camera which can shoot 1080p video at 60 frames per second. That's better, at least in spec terms, than the $130 GoPro Hero (which shoots 1080p footage at 30 fps, or 720p film at 60 fps). The image sensor is from Sony, it can be used 40 meters underwater, and it comes loaded with 64GB of storage—twice as much as the Hero. There's also a corresponding apps and a bunch of accessories—such as a pet mount—available.



Of course, it's not clear that all those stats necessarily roll together to produce a final product that will perform better than the GoPro Hero. But it's still an impressive offering considers that the device is set to retail for 399 CNY—which is just $64. While you stand no chance of using a Xaiomi phone in the U.S., there is a glimmer of hope that you may, one day, be able to buy one of these. Xaiomi is due to open an online store in the U.S. later this year; it won't sell phone, but it will sell other products. With any luck, this may be one of them.

Source: Gizmodo

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ISIS militants trick mother into ‘eating her kidnapped son’

Islamic State brutes fed a distraught woman searching for her kidnapped son some meat and rice – and then told her she had just eaten her son, according to a British man who joined the fight against ISIS.

Yasir Abdulla, 36, of Yorkshire left his wife and four kids to battle the maniacal extremists in his Kurdish homeland, The Sun reported.

“I hate IS because of what happened to an old Kurdish woman from a nearby tribe,” he said. “Her son was captured by IS fighters and taken as a prisoner to Mosul. She was determined to find her son and went to IS headquarters and asked to see him.” He said the thugs told her to rest after her long journey and offered her the food before taking her to her son.

“They brought her cups of tea and fed her a meal of cooked meat, rice and soup. She thought they were kind,” he said.“But they had killed him and chopped him up and after she finished the meal and asked to see her son they laughed and said, ‘You’ve just eaten him,’” Abdulla told The Sun.

Abdulla decided to take on the murderous group after they came within six miles of his home in Kurdistan.

He said he bought combat fatigues online and an assault rifle in his Kurdish hometown – then joined other volunteers on the front lines.

“We want to attack IS and drive them out forever but we can’t unless the Peshmerga and the Americans say we can,” he said, referring to the military forces of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Abdulla described the jihadists’ terror tactics, including slaughtering prisoners in bonfires.

“They dig a trench, put dry tree branches and leaves in there, set it alight and then throw prisoners on so they burn alive,” he said. “IS are very good at making people scared. If they make one person scared then that person will make another person scared and soon everyone is scared of IS.”

“But the Kurds are not scared of them. Someone has to stand and fight. We have got thousands of people in many villages and towns behind us. If we fall then all of those places fall, and that can’t happen.”

Yasir, who returned to the UK last week, remains confident and vows to return to Iraq to help the rebels defeat the fanatics.

Source: NY Post

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Meet Samsung's Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge

Samsung Galaxy S6/Galaxy S6 Edge Screen Cap: Samsung/YouTube

Samsung wasn’t kidding when it said the Galaxy S6 would be unlike any other Galaxy smartphone on the market. Just about every feature on the device is an upgrade from the previous model; there is no confusing the Samsung Galaxy S6 with the Galaxy S5.

The sixth generation device is Samsung's attempt to recapture the market, in which it has suffered significant sales drops in the last year. After being criticized for releasing a host of smartphones that were too similar to one another, Samsung started from scratch, and code named the Galaxy S6 "Project Zero." That project, the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge was unveiled Sunday at the Galaxy Unpacked press event in Barcelona, Spain. The event precedes the World Mobile Congress, which starts Monday.
The competition among premium smartphones is at an all-time high. Having noticed the how crowded the smartphone market has become, the Korean manufacturer set out to make the "best in class smartphone with the best in class design," Samsung President and CEO J.K. Shin said. The Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge include a host of features, which Samsung said it hesitated to introduce until it was certain the features worked well and would be valuable to consumers.

Check out the preliminary details for both devices:

Samsung Exynos chip -- 20 percent faster performance
32GB, 64GB, 128GB internal storage options
5.1-inch Quad HD Super AMOLED Display, with Gorilla Glass 4
Metal design, 50 percent stronger than other metal smartphones
Fast charging: 10 minute charge for 4 hours of battery life
Charge from 0-to-100 in half the time than an iPhone 6
Built-in battery
Wireless charging compatible with both WPC and WMC charging standards
Thin: 6.8 mm breadth
16-megapixel rear camera with optical image stabilization
5-mega pixel front camera with real time HDR
Samsung Pay

The Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge will be available April 11 in 20 countries, with availability to other markets coming later.

The Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge will also be compatible with a new model of the Samsung Gear VR headset.

Source: IB Times

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Hong Kong woman who abused Indonesian maid jailed for six years

Former Indonesian maid Erwiana Sulistyaningsih is greeted by supporters outside the district court on Friday. Photo: Reuters

A Hong Kong mother of two was jailed for six years on Friday for abusing her Indonesian maid.

Law Wan-tung, 44, a former beautician, looked stunned as the sentence was passed after being found guilty of 18 of 20 abuse charges, Reuters reported. She was also ordered to pay a fine of HK$15,000 (US$1,934).

The charges included inflicting grievous bodily harm and criminal intimidation against Erwiana Sulistyaningsih.

Law looked emotionless as she was led out of court, according to the news agency. She had pleaded not guilty to the 20 charges but had admitted one of not buying insurance cover for her maid.

Judge Amanda Woodcock read out her verdict, saying “damning evidence” revealed “how little care and kindness the defendant showed” for Erwiana, who had told media she would forgive her former boss and her family.
The brutality meted out to Erwiana has sparked calls for Hong Kong to revise its policies on migrant workers. Around 30 supporters of Erwiana protested outside the court.

Erwiana, who arrived in Hong Kong in 2013, returned to Indonesia in January last year where doctors said burns on her body were caused by boiling water.

Photographs of a battered Erwiana posted online sparked outrage and Indonesia’s then president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, described her treatment as torture.

Hong Kong has about 330,000 foreign domestic helpers, most of them from the Philippines and Indonesia and nearly all women, who can earn more in the territory to send back to their families than they can at home.

They earn a small fraction of the minimum wage and are forced to live with their employers, often in tiny apartments.

Human rights groups say they often suffer physical and emotional abuse, including sexual assault.

Source: Ejinsight

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WATCH: Video shows Los Angeles police shooting homeless man

Warning: This video contains images some viewers may find distressing

A video has emerged of police in Los Angeles shooting dead a mentally ill homeless man during a struggle.

The graphic film of the shooting was posted on Facebook and showed a man fighting with six police officers before five shots were fired.

It was the latest in a series of controversial US police shootings after other recent deaths in New York and Ferguson, Missouri, led to widespread protests.

Police in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. Credit: Facebook / Anthony Blackburn

Several witnesses claimed the man, known as “Africa” had already been restrained when he was shot. The video showed a small group angrily shouting at officers, particularly the single black officer at the scene, immediately afterwards.

One shouted: “Why did you shoot that man? You got (him) tased. Why did you shoot that man?” Another yelled: “Ain’t nobody got no gun!” Larry Jackson, a witness, said: “Instead of handcuffing the guy they straight out shot him.”


Anthony Blackburn, the bystander who filmed the video, claimed the young black officer was among those who opened fire.

He told KABC-TV: “I had my phone out videotaping the whole thing because we’ve been hearing on the news about police brutality. I just wanted to film it and just make sure everything was all right. But I ended up seeing a tragedy.”

The video was viewed 4.3 million times in the 12 hours after it was posted on the internet.

The shooting happened on Skid Row, an area of downtown Los Angeles populated by homeless people in tents and makeshift cardboard shelters.

Witnesses said Africa had been there up to five months and had “a lot of mental issues”.

One said he had recently been released after 10 years in a mental health facility. Another told the Los Angeles Times he had refused to remove his tent from the pavement, adding: “This man got shot over a tent.”

The Los Angeles police department said an independent investigation would be launched and the officers who opened fire would be removed from field duty during it. At least one officer was wearing a body camera.

A spokesman said officers responded to a suspected robbery. The suspect then began swinging his arms at them and they used a stun gun but that was “ineffective.”

In a struggle on the ground the suspect tried to grab one of the officer’s guns and they opened fire, the spokesman said..

During the video, “drop the gun!” can be heard. Police said they would amplify the sound to determine exactly what warning was given.

Steve Soboroff, Los Angeles police commission president, said: “I would encourage people not to rush to judgment. It’s not fair to anybody.”

Source: The Telegaph

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WATCH: Ronda Rousey beat Cat Zingano in 14 seconds

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

On Saturday night at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Ronda Rousey fought Cat Zingano as the main card in the highly-anticipated UFC 184. Both MMA stars put their undefeated records on the line in the contest.

And who came out on top? Rousey. In a mere 14 seconds. And how’d she do it? With an armbar, of course. Watch below:


Source: USA Today

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WATCH: Fan-made Dragon Ball Z better than Hollywood ever could

Fans of the classic "Dragon Ball Z" may want to check out a modern live-action take on their favorite show, the pilot episode of which went online this week.

Dubbed "Dragon Ball Z: Light of Hope," the short film produced by RobotUnderdog2 follows the premise of the original—Goku and friends defending Earth from powerful foes.

"'Dragon Ball Z: Light of Hope' is a non-profit, live-action Dragon Ball Z web series. It’s made by fans, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the official license holders. Our goal is to bring the Dragon Ball world to life in a way that's never been done before, while staying true to the characters and story," Epicstream quoted Robot Underdog as saying.
It said Robot Underdog already posted a teaser for the web-based series last year.

The producers had hoped to gain support to make more episodes.

"We want to use this episode as leverage to make more episodes for this web series and other projects. So please help us out by sharing, commenting and liking! The more support we have, the more likely we are to do more Dragon Ball Z. We want to keep making DBZ content, and that’s only possible with your help!" it quoted Robot Underdog as saying.

Source: GMA News

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What color is this dress: Gold and white or blue and black?

It's the dress that's beating the Internet black and blue. Or should that be gold and white?

Friends and co-workers worldwide are debating the true hues of a royal blue dress with black lace that, to many an eye, transforms in one photograph into gold and white. Experts are calling the photo a one-in-a-million shot that perfectly captures how people's brains perceive color and process contrast in dramatically different ways.

"This photo provides the best test I've ever seen for how the process of color correction works in the brain,'" said Daniel Hardiman-McCartney, the clinical adviser to Britain's College of Optometrists. "I've never seen a photo like before where so many people look at the same photo and see two sets of such dramatically different colors."

The photo, taken earlier this month before a wedding on the remote Scottish island of Colonsay, also illustrates the dynamics of a perfect social-media storm. Guests at the wedding could not understand why, in one photo of the dress being worn by the mother of the bride, the clearly blue and black-striped garment transformed into gold and white. But only in that single photo, and only for around half of the viewers.
The debate spread from the wedding to the Internet, initially from friend to perplexed friend on Facebook.

One such wedding guest, musician and singer Caitlin McNeill, posted the photo Thursday night to her Tumblr account with the question: "Guys please help me. Is this dress white and gold, or blue and black? Me and my friends can't agree and we are freaking the (expletive) out." She's consistently seen gold.

One of her friends, Alana MacInnes, saw gold and white for the first hour, then black and blue.

Buzzfeed sensed clickbait heaven and, amid its own newsroom argument, was among the first to call McNeill. It posted more than a half-dozen stories on the image and the tsunami of reaction.

On Twitter, #TheDress and variants surged to the top of trending lists globally within hours.

The entertainment elite then chimed in.

Taylor Swift saw the dress was "obviously" blue and black. "What's the matter with u guys, it's white and gold," countered Julianne Moore. Kim Kardashian, never one to miss a trending topic, reported she was seeing gold but to husband Kanye West, it was solidly black and blue. "Who is color blind?" Kardashian asked the twitterati.

The answer, says Hardiman-McCartney, is that every viewer seeing either set of colors is right.

He says the exceptional bar-code style of the dress, combined with the strongly yellow-toned backlighting in the one photo, provides the brain a rare chance to "choose" which of the dress' two primary colors should be seen in detail.

Those who subconsciously seek detail in the many horizontal black lines convert them to a golden hue, so the blue disappears into a blown-out white, he said.

Others whose brains focus on the blue part of the dress see the photo as the black-and-blue reality.

"There's no correct way to perceive this photograph. It sits right on the cusp, or balance, of how we perceive the color of a subject versus the surrounding area," he said. "And this color consistency illusion that we're experiencing doesn't mean there's anything wrong with your eyes. It just shows how your brain chooses to see the image, to process this luminescence confusion."

The photo produced a deluge of media calls Friday to the Tumblr reporter, 21-year-old McNeill, who calls the seemingly endless phone calls "more than I've received in the entirety of the rest of my life combined." She says the photographer, who is also the mother of the bride, never wanted the publicity.

There's one clear winner: English dress retailer Roman Originals, which has reported a million hits on its sales site in the first 18 hours following the photo's worldwide distribution.

"I can officially say that this dress is royal blue with black lace trimming," said Michele Bastock, design director at Roman Originals.

She said staff members had no idea that the dress, when shot in that singularly peculiar light, might be perceived in a totally different color scheme. Not until Friday anyway, when they arrived at work to field hundreds of emails, calls and social media posts. They, too, split almost 50-50 on the photo's true colors.

All agreed, however, the dress for the Birmingham, England-based retailer was likely to become their greatest-ever seller. The chain's website Friday headlined its product as "#TheDress now back in stock — debate now."

"Straightaway we went to the computers and had a look. And some members of the team saw ivory and gold. I see a royal blue all the time," she said. "It's an enigma ... but we are grateful."

Source: Yahoo! News

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