A Japanese man upset by the death of his pet turned himself in after fatally stabbing a bureaucrat and his wife, Japanese police and media said yesterday.
Police were searching the house of Takeshi Koizumi, 46, who said he murdered a former deputy minister for health and welfare, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Department said.
Kyodo news said the man also admitted to the fatal stabbing of the 66-year-old bureaucrat’s wife, although the police spokesman was unable to confirm that.
Takehiko Yamaguchi and his 61-year-old wife, Michiko, were found dead at their home with stab wounds to the chest on Tuesday, Kyodo News said.
Also on Tuesday, the wife of another former health and welfare bureaucrat was seriously stabbed at the entrance to her home by a man pretending to be making a delivery, domestic media reported.
Her husband, who had also been deputy minister, was not home at the time, media reports said.
Japanese police and media originally believed the stabbings may have been a backlash against former employees of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, because of widespread resentment over the government’s handling of the national pension system.
However, the man who turned himself in to police said he was upset over the death a pet, Kyodo said.
“I was angry because my pet died in a public welfare center,” Kyodo quoted Koizumi as saying.
The police spokesman could not confirm the comment, but did say they found “several” survival knives after searching his car.
While Japan still has relatively low crime rates, the country has been shocked in recent years by several grisly stabbings.
In June, a man who said he was tired of life went on a stabbing rampage in Tokyo’s crowded Akihabara shopping district, killing seven people and wounding a dozen others.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese