An 11-year-old girl slashed a female classmate to death with a razor knife yesterday in a shocking attack in an elementary school in southern Japan, police said.
The lunchtime assault happened in a classroom in Sasebo, 980km southwest to Tokyo, an official with the Nagasaki Prefectural police said on condition of anonymity.
Police in Sasebo said the victim suffered wounds to the neck and arms. She was stabbed with a small knife with a retractable razor used to cut paper, police said.
Police identified the victim as Satomi Mitarai, 12. The name of the attacker was not released, in accordance with Japanese legal protections for juvenile offenders.
Mitarai's bleeding body was discovered in a third-floor classroom by a teacher who called police. Agents quickly apprehended the young suspect, who was being questioned.
Prefectural police said the suspect had confessed, though they did not yet have a motive. TV footage showed police guarding the school and inspecting the classroom where the attack apparently happened.
The killing was committed during lunchtime, which in Japan is taken in the classroom. The stabbing, however, happened in a class where children were not eating.
Also yesterday, a 38-year-old Japanese woman repeatedly stabbed her teenage daughter with a kitchen knife and then slit her own wrist following an argument over going to school, police said yesterday.
Kazumi Isonishi, 38, was found barely conscious in her bathroom in Moriguchi, some 400km west of Tokyo, early yesterday after her 16-year-old daughter called police.
After breaking into the house, police found the bloodied daughter lying near her bed with nine stab and slash wounds to her back and chest.
"The mother told the daughter to go to school, it developed into an argument and then she stabbed the daughter and tried to kill herself," a Moriguchi city police spokesman said.
Increasing violence in Japan's schools and among youth has been a rising concern in recent years.
Last July, a 12-year-old boy was accused of kidnapping, molesting and murdering a four-year-old in the southern city of Nagasaki.
In the same month, a 14-year-old boy was arrested for beating a 13-year-old classmate to death in Okinawa.
South Korea’s air force yesterday apologized for a 2021 midair collision involving two fighter jets, a day after auditors said the pilots were taking selfies and filming during the flight and held them responsible for the accident. “We sincerely apologize to the public for the concern caused by the accident that occurred in 2021,” an air force spokesman told a news conference, adding that one of the pilots involved had been suspended from flying duties, received severe disciplinary action and has since left the military. The apology followed a report released on Wednesday by the South Korean Board of Audit and Inspection,
Young Chinese, many who fear age discrimination in their workplace after turning 35, are increasingly starting “one-person companies” that have artificial intelligence (AI) do most of the work. Smaller start-ups are already in vogue in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, with rapidly advancing AI tools seen as a welcome teammate even as they threaten layoffs at existing firms. More young people in China are subscribing to the model, as cities pledge millions of dollars in funding and rent subsidies for such ventures, in alignment with Beijing’s political goal of “technological self-reliance.” “The one-person company is a product of the AI era,” said Karen Dai
About 240 Indians claiming descent from a Biblical tribe landed at Tel Aviv airport on Thursday as part of a government operation to relocate them to Israel. The newcomers passed under a balloon arch in blue and white, the colors of the Israeli flag, as dozens of well-wishers welcomed them with a traditional Jewish song. They were the first “bnei Menashe” (“sons of Manasseh”) to arrive in Israel since the government in November last year announced funding for the immigration of about 6,000 members of the community from the states of Manipur and Mizoram in northeast India. The community claims to descend from
‘TROUBLING’: The firing of Phelan, who was an adviser to a nonprofit that supported the defense of Taiwan, was another example of ‘dysfunction’ under Trump, a US senator said US Secretary of the Navy John Phelan has been fired, a US official and a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, in another wartime shakeup at the Pentagon coming just weeks after US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ousted the Army’s top general. The Pentagon announced his departure in a brief statement, saying he was leaving the administration “effective immediately,” but it did not provide a reason or say whether it was his decision to go. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Phelan was dismissed in part because he was moving too slowly to implement reforms to
RSS