TOKYO: A deaf composer dubbed “Japan’s Beethoven” confessed yesterday to hiring someone to write his best-known works, leaving duped broadcaster NHK red-faced, and casting a cloud over a figure skater set to dance to his music in Sochi.
Mamoru Samuragochi, 50, shot to fame in the mid-1990s with classical compositions that provided the soundtrack to video games including Resident Evil, despite having had a degenerative condition that affected his hearing.
Expert warns of ‘mutant’ virus
LONDON: The death of a woman in China from a strain of bird flu previously unknown in humans is a reminder of the ever-present potential pandemic threat from mutating animal viruses, scientists said yesterday.
The new strain, called H10N8, has so far infected only two people - a fatal case in a 73-year-old and another in a woman who is critically ill in hospital. But the fact it has jumped from birds to humans is an important warning, they said.
Ma keen to meet Xi at APEC
TAIPEI: Taiwan’s minister in charge of China affairs yesterday said he would support a meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Taiwanese counterpart Ma Ying-jeou, suggesting the APEC leaders’ summit as an ideal opportunity.
Wang Yu-chi, chairman of the island’s top China policy decision-making body Mainland Affairs Council, made the comments ahead of his historic trip to China next week -- the first official contact between the two former bitter rivals in more than six decades.
Agencies
