News Headlines - 12 December 2020

▽Iran executes dissident journalist accused of inciting unrest | The Guardian

Iran has executed a dissident journalist, a year after he was seized by the country’s elite Revolutionary Guards in Iraq and forcibly repatriated to face trial.
Ruhollah Zam, 47, was hanged early on Saturday morning, Iranian state media reported. His family visited him the previous day, but prison and judicial authorities had not told them or him about the scheduled execution, Amnesty International said... During the 2017 protests, he shared the timings and other details of demonstrations, as well as embarrassing information about officials and direct challenges to Iran’s Shia theocracy... In October 2019, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said it had trapped Zam in a “complex operation using intelligence deception”. It did not say where the operation took place, but rights groups said he was in Iraq at the time.

▽Chinese authorities detain citizen who works for Bloomberg news | The Guardian

Chinese authorities have detained a citizen who works for Bloomberg news in Beijing on suspicion of endangering national security, in the latest incident to increase pressure on foreign media outlets in China.
Haze Fan was seen being escorted from her apartment by plainclothes officials on Monday, the news agency said. Her last contact with a Bloomberg colleague that day had been at 11.30am. China’s foreign ministry confirmed her arrest and the charges on Friday.

▽Woman Dies after Taking Tainted Onychomycosis Drug - JIJI PRESS

A woman in her 70s died in Japan Thursday after taking an onychomycosis drug tainted with a sleep-inducing component, the maker of the medication, Kobayashi Kako Co., said Saturday.
The woman died at a hospital in the Tokyo metropolitan area after taking the itraconazole tablet 50 MEEK antifungal medication, according to the pharmaceutical company, based in Awara, Fukui Prefecture, central Japan.
Kobayashi Kako said it will investigate the causal relationship between the death and the drug. It was the first death linked to the drug. The company is voluntarily recalling the medication.

▽Joby Aviation takes over Uber's air taxi business, Elevate | Reuters

Joby Aviation, an electric passenger aircraft developer, said on Tuesday it would take over Uber Technologies Inc’s flying taxi unit, Elevate, the second cash-burning business the ride-hailing company has sold off in two days.
Joby did not disclose the terms of the deal, but said Uber had also agreed to invest a further $75 million in the Santa Cruz, California-based company, bringing its total investment to $125 million. Joby has raised more than $720 million in funding since it was founded in 2009, most of it from Toyota Motor Corp.

▽Award-winning S.Korean director Kim Ki-duk dies in Latvia - The Mainichi

South Korean director Kim Ki-duk, who won the top award at the Venice Film Festival in 2012 but later faced allegations at home of hitting an actress and trying to force her into shooting off-script sexual scenes while making another movie, has died in Latvia. He was 59.
The Baltic News Service cited Latvia-based Russian documentary filmmaker Vitaly Mansky, president of an international documentary film festival in Riga, as saying Kim died after falling ill with COVID-19. Mansky was not immediately reachable for comment.