Author: afp

  • Brazil block on X comes into effect after judge’s order

    Brazil block on X comes into effect after judge’s order

    A block on Elon Musk’s X social network in Brazil started to take effect early Saturday after a Supreme Court judge ordered its suspension, according to AFP.

    Brazilian Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes on Friday ordered the platform’s suspension following a months-long standoff with the tech billionaire over disinformation in South America’s largest nation.

    Moraes handed down the ruling after Musk failed to comply with an order to name a new legal representative for the company.

    Early Saturday access to X, formerly known as Twitter, was no longer possible for some users in the South American country. They were presented with a message asking them to reload the browser if they were unable to log in successfully.

    Musk, who also owns Tesla and SpaceX, reacted with fury to the judge’s order, branding Moraes an “evil dictator cosplaying as a judge” and accusing him of “trying to destroy democracy in Brazil.”

    “Free speech is the bedrock of democracy, and an unelected pseudo-judge in Brazil is destroying it for political purposes,” the billionaire, who has become increasingly aligned with right-wing politics, wrote on X.

    The two have been locked in an ongoing, high-profile feud for months as Moraes leads a battle against disinformation in Brazil.

    Elon Musk has been locked in a months-long feud with the judge, Alexandre de Moraes, who is leading a battle against disinformation in South America’s largest nation. 

    Musk has previously declared himself a “free speech absolutist,” but since he took over the platform formerly known as Twitter in 2022 he has been accused of turning it into a megaphone for right-wing conspiracy theories.

    He is a vocal supporter of former US president Donald Trump’s bid to regain the White House.

    Moraes ordered the “immediate, complete and comprehensive suspension of the operation of” X in the country, telling the national communications agency to take “all necessary measures” to implement the order within 24 hours.

    He threatened a fine of 50,000 reais ($8,900) to anyone who used “technological subterfuges”, such as a VPN, to circumvent the block.

    The judge also demanded that Google, Apple, and internet providers “introduce technological obstacles capable of preventing the use of the X application” and access to the website, though he later rescinded that order.

    The social media platform has more than 22 million users in Brazil.

    Musk shut X’s business operations in Brazil earlier this month, claiming Moraes had threatened the company’s previous legal representative with arrest to force compliance with “censorship orders.”

    On Wednesday, Moraes told Musk he had 24 hours to find a new representative, or he would face suspension.

    Shortly after the deadline passed, X said in a statement that it expected Moraes to shut it down “simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents.”

    – ‘Who does Musk think he is?’-

    The standoff with Musk began when Moraes ordered the suspension of several X accounts belonging to supporters of Brazil’s former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who tried to discredit the voting system in the 2022 election, which he lost.

    Brazilian authorities are investigating whether Bolsonaro plotted a coup attempt to prevent current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from assuming office in January 2023.

    Online users blocked by Moraes include figures such as far-right ex-congressman Daniel Silveira, who was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2022 on charges of leading a movement to overthrow the Supreme Court.

    In April, Moraes ordered an investigation of Musk, accusing him of reactivating some of the banned accounts.

    On Thursday, Musk’s satellite internet operator Starlink said it had received an order from Moraes that froze its accounts and prevented it from conducting financial transactions in Brazil.

    Starlink alleged that the order “is based on an unfounded determination that Starlink should be responsible for the fines levied — unconstitutionally — against X.”

    The company said on X that it intended “to address the matter legally.”

    Musk is also the subject of a separate judicial investigation into an alleged scheme where public money was used to orchestrate disinformation campaigns in favor of Bolsonaro and those close to him.

    “Any citizen from anywhere in the world who has investments in Brazil is subject to the Brazilian Constitution and laws,” Lula told a local radio station on Friday.

    “Who does (Musk) think he is?”

    Read more: X to close its operations in Brazil

  • Angelina Jolie as the tormented ‘Divina’ Callas at Venice

    Angelina Jolie as the tormented ‘Divina’ Callas at Venice

    Angelina Jolie returns to the limelight at the Venice Film Festival on Thursday as Maria Callas, “La Divina”, whose rich voice, glamourous persona, and tragic love affair mesmerised audiences around the world.

    In “Maria”, the modern-day movie star will strive to capture the transcendent dramatic presence and tormented life of one of opera’s most resplendent divas in a biopic from Chilean director Pablo Larrain.

    The film that premieres on the Lido Thursday evening, on the festival’s second day, is the last in Larrain’s trilogy of movies about iconic real-life women — after 2021’s “Spencer” about Lady Di and 2016’s “Jackie” about Jacqueline Kennedy.

    The director has said only a larger-than-life star in her own right could play the role of the American-born Greek singer.

    Enter Jolie.

    “This is the greatest diva of the 20th century, and who could play that?” Larrain told Vanity Fair last week.

    “I didn’t want to work with someone that didn’t have that already. I needed an actress who would naturally and organically be that diva, carry that weight, be that presence. Angelina was there.”

    Absent from the screen since 2021, the 49-year-old American actress and director has kept a relatively low profile even as her lengthy, acrimonious divorce from Brad Pitt continues to make headlines.

    The public’s fascination with Jolie’s private life has parallels with Callas’s, whose stormy life and loves — including her relationship with the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, who left her for Jacqueline Kennedy — were similarly fodder for the tabloids.

    But while the paparazzi will be out in full force Thursday, Jolie — who was spotted in the Venice heat Tuesday cloaked in a Christian Dior trench coat — will not cross paths with Pitt during her visit.

    Pitt’s action comedy “Wolfs”, in which he and George Clooney play rival professional fixers, is playing out of competition on the Lido on Sunday, as purposely planned by festival organisers to avoid awkward encounters.

    – ‘Very scary’ –

    One of 21 films in competition for Venice’s prestigious Golden Lion prize, “Maria” centres on Callas’s final, isolated years in Paris in the 1970s, as she looks back at her life and career before her death at age 53 from a heart attack.

    Jolie reportedly studied six months for the role, training herself to mimic the singer’s cadences and tones as the film mixes in her own voice with that of the celebrated soprano.

    “You can’t make a movie like this with an actress that is not actually singing it,” Larrain told Vanity Fair.

    “This is the real thing — it was very scary for her, but she did it.”

    While some critics found flaws with Callas’s voice, it was nevertheless deeply expressive, able to impart dramatic intensity to any role, which combined with her beauty and majestic stage presence prompting frenzied standing ovations.

    A towering talent with a tireless work ethic, Callas was often portrayed as a “temperamental” star, a label she rejected, defending herself as a disciplined perfectionist with high standards.

    She single-handedly revived the 19th-century bel canto operas of Donizetti, Rossini and Bellini — whose “Norma” was one of Callas’s signature roles.

    Callas died in 1977.

  • Indonesia arrests man for selling Rhino Horn via social media

    Indonesia arrests man for selling Rhino Horn via social media

    Indonesian authorities arrested a man trying to sell elephant tusks and the horns of critically endangered rhinos via social media.

    The illegal wildlife trade remains rampant in Indonesia, where law enforcement is lax, but the arrested man could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted, the environmental ministry said in a statement late Wednesday.

    South Sumatra police began an investigation after seeing posts on Facebook earlier this year offering parts of protected wildlife for sale.

    A 60-year-old man, identified only by the initials “ZA”, was arrested last week during a transaction while trying to sell a rhino horn and a pipe made of an elephant tusk in Palembang, South Sumatra.

    Police found seven more rhino horns and at least four elephant tusks at his house.

    “It seems like he’s very experienced in wildlife trading,” the environmental ministry said.

    In June police arrested a gang of poachers suspected of killing 26 critically endangered Javan rhinos in Ujung Kulon National Park since 2018.

    They once numbered in the thousands across Southeast Asia, but have been hard hit by rampant poaching and human encroachment on their habitat, and the environment ministry says there are only around 80 of the beasts left in the wild.

    Sumatran rhinos have also been declared critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature or IUCN with fewer than 50 remaining.

  • Oasis announce 2025 worldwide reunion tour kicking off in UK

    Oasis announce 2025 worldwide reunion tour kicking off in UK

    British rock legends Oasis announced Tuesday they will reunite for a worldwide tour, as brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher ended an infamous 15-year feud.

    The band behind hit songs including “Wonderwall”, “Don’t Look Back In Anger” and “Champagne Supernova”, will play an initial 14 gigs next year in Cardiff, Manchester, London, Edinburgh and the Irish capital, Dublin, starting in July.

    Oasis also plan to play in “continents outside of Europe later next year,” according to a statement posted on their website.

    Formed in Manchester, northwest England, in 1991 and credited with helping create the Britpop era of that decade, Oasis’ reunion tour will be the Gallagher brothers’ first performances since 2009 after they fell out.

    “The guns have fallen silent. The stars have aligned. The great wait is over. Come see. It will not be televised,” Oasis said, as it announced the reunion alongside the first details of the tour.

    The announcement capped days of hints and heightened speculation the band was set to play again.

    However, there was no announcement regarding the release of any new music, while Oasis will reportedly not play next year’s Glastonbury festival despite widespread speculation.

    “Oasis today end years of feverish speculation with the confirmation of a long-awaited run of UK and Ireland shows forming the domestic leg of their Oasis Live ’25 world tour,” the online statement added.

    – ‘Hottest tickets’ –

    The tour will begin over two nights at the Principality Stadium in the Welsh capital Cardiff from July 4, 2025, followed a week later by four gigs at Heaton Park in their hometown, Manchester.

    Oasis will then play London’s Wembley Stadium — on July 25 and 26 as well as August 2 and 3 — before taking to the stage over two nights at Murrayfield Stadium in the Scottish capital Edinburgh.

    The UK and Ireland gigs will conclude with two performances at Dublin’s Croke Park in mid-August.

    “Their only shows in Europe next year, this will be one of the biggest live moments and hottest tickets of the decade,” the statement said.

    A press release said there had been “no great revelatory moment that has ignited the reunion — just the gradual realisation that the time is right”.

    It promised “a set full of wall-to-wall classics,” hailing the “charisma, spark and intensity that only comes when Liam and Noel Gallagher are on-stage together”.

    Tickets for the UK dates will go on sale from 9:00 am (0800 GMT) on Saturday, with Dublin tickets available from 8am (0700 GMT) the same day.

    Social media was abuzz with the news, with the band’s post racking up hundreds of thousands of likes and fans sharing their excitement.

    Manchester teaching assistant Michelle Locke, 45, told AFP she was “well excited” after hearing the “great news”.

    “We’ll be up early… trying to get tickets,” she said, posing in front of a mural to the Gallaghers in south Manchester.

    – ‘Best news’ –

    In Camden, the north London neighbourhood famous for live music and where Oasis were fixtures in the mid-’90s, others were equally enthused.

    “It’s the best news in the world… it’s what we need!” said Pauline Weir, 50, manager of the Modfather clothing store.

    Oasis has long been synonymous with Britpop music, when it enjoyed a fierce rivalry with London band Blur, co-founded by Damon Albarn.

    The Manchester outfit was also notorious for public fights between Liam and Noel.

    The sibling tensions came to a head during a spat at a 2009 Paris festival, when Liam broke one of Noel’s guitars.

    The brothers have not played together since — but both have still regularly played the band’s hits to sold-out crowds.

    Until now, they had largely communicated in public through taking swipes at each other on social media.

    The brothers have teased at a reconciliation before, with Noel last year saying “never say never”.

    The hints became firmer more recently, with social media accounts for the brothers and Oasis all trailing Tuesday’s much-anticipated announcement.

    The now-confirmed reunion will take place 30 years after Oasis’s 1995 album “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?”, which received international critical and commercial acclaim.

    Meanwhile, tracks from the first recording session for its debut album “Definitely Maybe”, released a year earlier, will be put out Friday — a day after its 30th birthday — Britain’s Press Association (PA) news agency said.

  • Eight stabbed, hundreds arrested at London’s Notting Hill Carnival

    Eight stabbed, hundreds arrested at London’s Notting Hill Carnival

    Eight people were stabbed, and police arrested hundreds during last weekend’s Notting Hill Carnival, one of the world’s largest street festivals held annually in west London.

    Updating on their policing operation late Monday, the capital’s Metropolitan Police said five people were stabbed on the final day of the world-renowned three-day celebration of British Afro-Caribbean identity.

    That followed three knifings on Sunday, with three of the victims of the violence over the long weekend left in a life-threatening condition, the force said.

    On Monday, officers made at least 230 arrests, including 49 for possession of an offensive weapon, in addition to scores of arrests the previous day.

    Three firearms were seized, and 35 officers were also injured during the event, which attracts around a million people annually over the August bank holiday weekend.

    The policing numbers were similar to last year, with ten stabbings and around 300 arrests

    Hundreds of thousands of revellers packed the streets of west London for the carnival, filling the Notting Hill neighbourhood and surrounding districts with colour, costumes, dancing and music.

    Around 7,000 officers were on duty for the event, which has repeatedly been marred by violence, in particular knife crime, but is enjoyed by the vast majority incident-free.

    However, the Met’s deputy assistant commissioner, Ade Adelekan, said he was “tired of saying the same words every year” after a woman attending the carnival with her child was among those stabbed.

    “We only very narrowly avoided a fatality,” he added, urging carnival-goers to report any crimes they witness.

    The celebration of British Afro-Caribbean culture traces its roots back to the 1950s when the first surge in arrivals from former British colonies post-World War II occurred.

    Feathered dancers, steel bands and earth-shaking sound systems feature in the vibrant yearly event.

  • SpaceX postpones historic mission featuring first private spacewalk

    SpaceX postpones historic mission featuring first private spacewalk

    SpaceX on Tuesday postponed once more its attempt to launch a daring orbital expedition featuring an all-civilian crew. The expedition aims to carry out the first-ever spacewalk by private citizens.

    The Polaris Dawn mission, organized by billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, was set to launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida during a four-hour window early Wednesday.

    But SpaceX announced Tuesday it was pushing back the launch plans “due to unfavorable weather forecasted in Dragon’s splashdown areas off the coast of Florida,” in a message on X.

    An earlier attempt on Tuesday was scrapped due to a helium leak on a line connecting the tower to the rocket.

    Riding atop a Falcon 9 rocket, the SpaceX Dragon capsule is set to reach a peak altitude of 870 miles (1,400 kilometres) — higher than any crewed mission in more than half a century since the Apollo era.

    Mission commander Isaacman will guide his four-member team through the mission’s centrepiece: the first-ever spacewalk carried out by non-professional astronauts, equipped with sleek, newly developed SpaceX extravehicular activity (EVA) suits.

    Rounding out the team are mission pilot Scott Poteet, a retired US Air Force lieutenant colonel; mission specialist Sarah Gillis, a lead space operations engineer at SpaceX; and mission specialist and medical officer Anna Menon, also a lead space operations engineer at SpaceX.

    The quartet underwent more than two years of training in preparation for the landmark mission, logging hundreds of hours on simulators as well as skydiving, centrifuge training, scuba diving, and summiting an Ecuadoran volcano.

    Polaris Dawn is set to be the first of three missions under the Polaris program, a collaboration between Isaacman, the founder of tech company Shift4 Payments, and SpaceX.

    Isaacman declined to reveal his total investment in the project, though reports suggest he paid around $200 million for the SpaceX Inspiration4 mission in September 2021, the first all-civilian orbital mission.

    Polaris Dawn will reach its highest altitude on its first day, venturing briefly into the Van Allen radiation belt, a region teeming with high-energy charged particles that can pose health risks to humans over extended periods.

    On day three, the crew will don their state-of-the-art EVA spacesuits — outfitted with heads-up displays, helmet cameras, and advanced joint mobility systems — and take turns to venture outside their spacecraft in twos.

    Each will spend 15 to 20 minutes in space, 435 miles above Earth’s surface.

    Also on their to-do list are testing laser-based satellite communication between the spacecraft and Starlink, SpaceX’s more than 6,000-strong constellation of internet satellites, in a bid to boost space communication speeds, and conducting nearly 40 scientific experiments.

    These include tests with contact lenses embedded with microelectronics to continuously monitor changes in eye pressure and shape.

    After six days in space, the mission will conclude with a splashdown off the coast of Florida.

  • South Asia air pollution fell in 2022, but remains major killer: report

    South Asia air pollution fell in 2022, but remains major killer: report

    A surprise improvement in air quality in South Asia in 2022 drove a decline in global pollution, with favourable weather a likely factor, a new report said Wednesday.

    But the region continues to breathe the world’s most-polluted air, with its residents losing more than 3.5 years of life expectancy on average, the annual Air Quality Life Index (AQLI) warned.

    Globally, most countries have either no pollution standards or are failing to meet what they have set, subjecting their citizens to air quality that causes a broad range of health problems.

    For two decades, air pollution has increased annually in South Asia, but satellite data for 2022 — the most recent year available — showed a surprise 18 percent fall.

    The declines were recorded in every country in the region apart from Sri Lanka, according to the report, produced by the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute (EPIC).

    “While it is difficult to conclusively determine what reduced PM2.5 levels across South Asia, it is safe to posit that favourable meteorological conditions may have played a part,” the report said, referring to tiny particulates that can travel deep into the body.

    The widespread nature of the decline, along with the above-average rainfall across the region in 2022, lend support to that theory.

    “Only time will tell whether policy changes are having an impact,” the report added, warning that people in South Asia are still breathing air eight times more polluted than the World Health Organization deems safe.

    “Continued observations, efforts towards policy enforcement and monitoring impacts of policy interventions will be critical for understanding and sustaining these reductions,” the report said.

    The decline in South Asia led to a nine percent global drop in air pollution, even as poor air quality spiked elsewhere, including in the Middle East and North Africa, with concentrations up 13 percent from a year earlier.

    The report warned an ongoing lack of air quality data on the ground is hampering policy-making and implementation.

    “Highly polluted countries that have little or no air quality data often fall into a bad feedback cycle where having little data leads to little attention or policy investment in the issue, which reinforces little demand for data,” said Christa Hasenkopf, director of EPIC’s Clean Air Program.

    Earlier this year, the centre launched a $1.5 million fund to finance the installation of air quality monitors that offer open data worldwide.

    Air pollution as a whole receives relatively little funding despite its outsized impact on human health.

    For example, in some of Africa’s most-polluted nations, air pollution “is a more serious threat to life expectancy than HIV/AIDS, tropical diseases, malaria or water, sanitation and handwashing”, the report said.

    There are bright spots, however, including China’s remarkably successful efforts to combat dirty air.

    It took measures including restricting the number of cars in big cities, reducing heavy industry capacity and banning new coal plants from certain regions.

    It has reduced air pollution by 41 percent since 2013, meeting its national standards and adding an average of two years of life expectancy for its citizens, AQLI said.

    Still, even in China, pollution remains more than five times higher than WHO guidelines, and the benefits of Beijing’s measures are unevenly spread.

    Air quality remains poor across several major provinces, and in some prefectures has actually increased since 2013.

  • Nearly 300,000 Bangladeshis in emergency shelters after floods

    Nearly 300,000 Bangladeshis in emergency shelters after floods

    Nearly 300,000 Bangladeshis were taking refuge in emergency shelters Saturday from floods that inundated vast areas of the low-lying South Asian country, disaster officials said.

    The floods were triggered by heavy monsoon rains and have killed at least 42 people in Bangladesh and India since the start of the week, many in landslides.

    “My house is completely inundated,” Lufton Nahar, 60, told AFP from a relief shelter in Feni, one of the worst-hit districts near the border with India’s Tripura state.

    “Water is flowing above our roof. My brother brought us here by boat. If he hadn’t, we would have died.”

    The nation of 170 million people is crisscrossed by hundreds of rivers and has seen frequent floods in recent decades.

    Monsoon rains cause widespread destruction every year, but climate change is shifting weather patterns and increasing the number of extreme weather events.

    Highways and rail lines were damaged between the capital Dhaka and the main port city of Chittagong, making access to badly flooded districts difficult and disrupting business activity.

    The flooding also comes just weeks after a student-led revolution toppled its government.

    Among the worst affected areas is Cox’s Bazar, a district home to around a million Rohingya refugees from neighbouring Myanmar.

    Tripura state disaster agency official Sarat Kumad Das told AFP that 24 people had been killed on the Indian side of the border since Monday.

    Another 18 had been killed in Bangladesh, according to disaster management ministry secretary Md Kamrul Hasan.

    “285,000 people are living in emergency shelters,” he said, adding that 4.5 million people in total had been affected.

    Recovering from unrest

    When the floods hit, Bangladesh was recovering from weeks of civil unrest that culminated in the August 5 toppling of autocratic ex-leader Sheikh Hasina.

    With an interim government led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus still finding its feet, ordinary Bangladeshis have been crowdfunding relief efforts.

    They have been organised by the same students who led the protests that sparked the ouster of Hasina, who remains in India after fleeing Dhaka.

    Crowds visited Dhaka University on Friday to offer cash donations as students loaded rice sacks and crates of bottled water onto vehicles for areas affected by the deluge.

    Much of Bangladesh is made up of deltas where the great Himalayan rivers, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, wind towards the sea after coursing through India.

    Several tributaries of the two transnational rivers were still overflowing.

    However, forecasts showed rain was likely to ease in the coming days.

  • New Coppola film trailer axed for using fake movie reviews 

    New Coppola film trailer axed for using fake movie reviews 

    A trailer promoting Francis Ford Coppola’s new film “Megalopolis” has been withdrawn after it was found to have incorporated fake movie reviews, reportedly generated by artificial intelligence.

    Coppola’s wildly ambitious, decades-in-the-making movie, which hits theaters next month and stars Adam Driver, has starkly divided critics.

    A trailer released this week drew parallels to earlier works by the revered Hollywood director that also initially left some professional reviewers cold before going on to become classics — suggesting “Megalopolis” can do the same.

    “True genius is often misunderstood,” a voiceover began, before quotes from famous critics calling “The Godfather” a “sloppily self-indulgent movie” and “Apocalypse Now” a “spectacular failure” were presented on the screen.

    The problem? None of those quotes were real.

    Instead, the trailer appears to have used AI-generated imitations of the type of withering put-downs associated with renowned reviewers such as Pauline Kael.

    In at least one case, a criticism appears to have been lifted from a review of an entirely different film

    The trailer was quickly recalled, with Hollywood studio Lionsgate offering “our sincere apologies to the critics involved and to Francis Ford Coppola” for an “inexcusable error in our vetting process.”

    “We screwed up. We are sorry,” said a statement.

    Lionsgate has since parted company with the marketing consultant behind the trailer, trade outlet Variety said Friday. Meanwhile Deadline reported that the quotes were generated by AI.

    The furor comes at a time when Hollywood is roiled by the encroaching impact of AI. Fears the technology could replace entertainment industry jobs — from actors to writers — were central to last summer’s devastating strikes.

    The trailer episode is just the latest controversy to hit “Megalopolis,” an already hugely divisive epic.

    Legendary director Coppola has said he spent $120 million of his own money to make the film, selling a stake in his California vineyard.

    But its much-hyped world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival left the industry confounded.

    Critics’ responses ranged from “a true modern masterwork” to a “catastrophe.”

    Driver stars as a seemingly magical architect whose efforts to rebuild a decaying city into a futuristic utopia are thwarted by its resentful mayor (Giancarlo Esposito).

    The movie also stars Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf and Dustin Hoffman.

    It receives its North American premiere at the Toronto film festival next month, before being released in US theaters on September 27.

    The controversy has provoked theories among some Hollywood observers that the entire unseemly debacle could have been staged to provoke headlines.

    Lionsgate did not respond to an AFP request for comment.

    But a source familiar with the marketing plan told AFP the studio did not deliberately fabricate the quotes, and removed the trailer as soon as it became aware of the situation.

  • BTS’ Suga ‘reflecting’ on disappointing fans with drunk e-scooter incident

    BTS’ Suga ‘reflecting’ on disappointing fans with drunk e-scooter incident

    A member of K-pop mega group BTS arrived at a South Korean police station Friday for questioning, telling reporters he was “very sorry” for driving an electric scooter while drunk.

    Suga, 31, was found by police lying on the ground next to his e-scooter late at night on August 6, with a blood alcohol level well over the legal limit.

    Wearing a black suit, Suga bowed in front of journalists outside the police station in Seoul’s fashionable Yongsan district.

    “I’m sorry, I’m very sorry. I sincerely reflect on the fact I caused disappointment to many fans and people. I will cooperate fully with the investigation. I am sorry again,” he said before entering the station.

    He did not answer reporters’ questions on the details of the case.

    The singer, currently performing mandatory military duties as a social service agent, has already revoked his driving licence and been fined.

    But he still needs to answer police questions as officers said he was too drunk to respond at the time of the incident.

    Suga has admitted to driving drunk and apologised to fans on social media.

    Experts said the punishment would depend on what kind of e-scooter he was driving.

    If he was riding a sophisticated e-scooter rather than a simple kick-board, Suga “could be punished for violating the Road Traffic Act”, lawyer Cha Hong-soon said.