ITTF World Table Tennis Championships kicks off in Busan
The opening ceremony for the International Table Tennis Federation World Team Table Tennis Championships takes place at the Busan Exhibition and Convention Center in the southeastern port city of Busan, on Feb. 17, 2024, as provided by the organizing body. (Yonhap)
This whole story sounds like something out of the Onion:
For five years, a man managed to live rent-free in a landmark New York City hotel by exploiting an obscure local housing law.
But prosecutors say Mickey Barreto went too far when he filed paperwork claiming ownership of the New Yorker Hotel building in midtown Manhattan — and tried to charge another tenant rent.
This month, he was arrested and charged with filing false property records. But Barreto, 48, says he was surprised when police showed up at his boyfriend’s apartment with guns and bulletproof shields. As far as he is concerned, it should be a civil case, not a criminal one.
“I said, ‘Oh, I thought you were doing something for Valentine’s Day to spice up the relationship until I saw the female officers,’” Barreto recalled telling his boyfriend.
LA Times
This guy was getting free rent at a $200 a day hotel through a legal loophole for five years and still got greedy and tried to claim ownership of the entire hotel:
Manhattan prosecutors acknowledge that the housing court gave Barreto “possession” of his room. But they say he didn’t stop there: In 2019, he uploaded a fake deed to a city website, purporting to transfer ownership of the entire building to himself from the Holy Spirit Assn. for the Unification of World Christianity, which bought the property in 1976. The church was founded in South Korea by a self-proclaimed messiah, the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon.
Barreto then tried to charge various entities as the owner of the building, “including demanding rent from one of the hotel’s tenants, registering the hotel under his name with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection for water and sewage payments, and demanding the hotel’s bank transfer its accounts to him,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
“As alleged, Mickey Barreto repeatedly and fraudulently claimed ownership of one of the city’s most iconic landmarks, the New Yorker Hotel,” said Manhattan Dist. Atty. Alvin Bragg.
You can read more at the link, but essentially a gay guy uses incompentent New York government to live rent free in a landmark New York hotel for five years and then tries to steal hotel from a notorious religious cult.
This is pretty ridiculous that these doctor trainees are vowing to go on strike because of the government’s increase in medical students in order to address a shortage of doctors:
Prime Minister Han Duck-soo (R) speaks at an emergency meeting with ministers at the government complex in central Seoul on Feb. 19, 2024. (Yonhap)
Trainee doctors began submitting their letters of collective resignation Monday in protest against the government’s plan to boost the number of medical students, while the health ministry ordered all of them to keep providing medical treatment.
Worries mounted as doctors warn of a large-scale strike and other responses in opposition to the government’s decision to add 2,000 to the country’s medical school enrollment quota next year, marking a sharp rise from the current 3,058 seats.
Although the government had initially played down the possibility of doctors’ collective action, it is feared the nation will suffer substantial disruptions to its medical service, with some patients already experiencing delays in surgeries and other treatments in hospitals.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but the ROK government is ordering the trainees to continue to provide medical services. If they do walkout it will be interesting to see if the government revokes their medical licenses thus ending their careers in medicine.
If North Korea quit making threats and provocations there wouldn’t be a need to conduct aerial surveillance of their country:
North Korea on Saturday accused South Korea and the United States of heightening tensions on the Korean Peninsula with aerial reconnaissance activities.
In a commentary carried by the Korean Central News Agency, the North said that Seoul and Washington have been stepping up their “spying activities” this month, calling such a move a “stern provocation” against the country.
The North claimed the countries attempted to secure information on the North’s inner regions by conducting surveillance activities with the U.S. RC-135 Combat Sent and RC-135W Rivet Joint and South Korea’s advanced high-altitude unmanned aircraft Global Hawk and E-737 Peace Eye early warning aircraft.
The North said it is closely monitoring such military activities and threatened that it is ready to destroy its enemies anytime.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.
Of all the stupid things to have a physical fight over, you would not thing going to play ping pong would be one of them:
Woes for South Korean men’s national soccer team continued as its members were found to have gotten into a physical fight with each other before the big match, and the country’s soccer governing body reportedly contemplating whether to request resignation of head coach Jurgen Klinsmann.
The Korea Football Association confirmed Wednesday earlier reports by UK media that the team captain Son Heung-min got into an altercation with midfielder Lee Kang-in ahead of the team’s semifinals match against Jordan in the Asian Cup 2023, resulting in Son dislocating his finger. The row occurred as the team captain tried to stop Lee and younger members of the team from going out to play ping-pong before the crucial match.
The Klinsmann talked things over with both players after the incident, but Son and other veterans reportedly asked the coach to remove Lee from the starting lineup. The coach did not agree and started Lee in the match, which ended in a disappointing 2-0 loss and another lost opportunity for the country to win an Asian Cup.
Korea Herald
You can read more at the link.
