JAPAN
Man kept wife in freezer
An 80-year-old man was being questioned yesterday on suspicion of strangling his wife and keeping her body in the freezer for up to 10 years, police and media reports said. Masaichi Yamada, who runs a fish-processing company, was arrested in the northern port of Kushiro early on Tuesday when the frozen corpse — still fully clothed — was uncovered. “The suspect maliciously strangled the victim with a string-like object at their home and abandoned her body in the freezer at his working place,” a spokesman for police in Hokkaido said. It was not immediately known when the murder took place, the official said, adding the woman would have been 71 years old if she were alive today. Yamada reportedly confessed to the police he killed his wife during an argument at their home “sometime between 2002 and 2006.”
SOUTH KOREA
Engineers charged in fire
Five senior engineers were charged yesterday with trying to cover up a potentially dangerous power failure at the country’s oldest nuclear plant, prosecutors said. The five, including a 55-year-old chief engineer at the Gori-1 reactor, were accused of violating a law on nuclear safety. The reactor, built in 1978 near the southern city of Busan, briefly lost mains power on Feb. 9 and the emergency generator failed to kick in. The power-cut caused cooling water to stop circulating. While the power was off for 12 minutes before resuming, officials said fuel rods did not start to overheat. Although the incident resulted in no radioactive leaks, it sparked an uproar over safety. Prosecutors said the engineers had agreed to cover up the incident because of expected punishment and public criticism. They also accuse the five of failing to fix the generator for four days after the incident even though they were removing nuclear fuel at the time.
AUSTRALIA
Forced marriage outlawed
The country yesterday moved to criminalize forced marriage, forms of slavery prevalent in the sex industry and the trafficking of organs. Attorney-General Nicola Roxon said such practices had no place in a democratic nation as she introduced the new laws, which she said covered “a spectrum of human misery,” into parliament for debate. “Tragically, nineteenth century slavery has not been abolished,” she said. “It has simply taken other forms.” Roxon cited young women being forced into marriages against their consent, and people trafficking for sexual and domestic servitude, and for the intention of using their organs. “While many people may think of slavery and people trafficking as international problems, the reality is that Australia is not immune to these diabolical practices,” she said.
AUSTRALIA
Man accused of marital rape
An 81-year-old man yesterday lost a bid to have charges that he raped his wife in the 1960s dropped on the grounds that forcing a spouse into sex was not a crime at the time. The man, known only as PGA, had asked the High Court to dismiss the case brought by his wife, arguing that prior to 1976 a woman could not refuse sexual intercourse with her husband. His lawyers had submitted that, at the time of the alleged rape in 1963, the nation was a “very unenlightened and socially backward country by modern standards.” They said that at the time homosexuality was a crime, there was no such thing as sexual harassment, Aborigines were not full citizens and racial discrimination was legal, with the so-called “White Australia policy” in full force.
QATAR
Five arrested after mall fire
The country ordered the arrest of five people on Tuesday who were involved in the management of a Doha shopping mall ravaged by a fire in which 19 people, mainly children, were killed, the state news agency reported. Warrants have been issued for the mall owner and others involved in running the shopping facility including the owner of the nursery which bore the brunt of the fire and where 13 children and four teachers died.
UNITED KINGDOM
Couple seized over blaze
Police arrested the parents of six children on Tuesday who died in a fire at their home. The two are being treated as murder suspects. Derbyshire police say a 55-year-old man and a 31-year-old woman were arrested, whom local media have identified as Mick Philpott and his wife, Mairead. The children who died in the suspicious May 11 fire in the central English city of Derby ranged from ages five to 13. Police allege the fire broke out after fuel was poured through the front door mail slot. Philpott has 17 children and has appeared on a local reality television program about his unusually large family.
VENEZUELA
Chavez on TV for hours
President Hugo Chavez defied speculation about his health with a four-hour-long televised appearance on Tuesday, his longest since being diagnosed with recurring cancer in March. The government has disclosed few details about Chavez’s well-being, leading to intense speculation over the political future of Latin America’s most prominent leftist leader, who is seeking re-election to a third consecutive six-year term as president of the oil-rich nation. The 57-year-old former soldier sought to reassure supporters by chairing the four-hour televised Cabinet meeting just weeks after returning from a visit to close ally Cuba, where he has undergone several rounds of chemotherapy and radiation. The flamboyant leader has yet to disclose what kind of cancer he is suffering from, but has vowed to route opposition candidate Henrique Capriles in the Oct. 7 election.
MEXICO
Gunmen slain at checkpoint
Soldiers on Tuesday shot dead 12 suspected criminals who refused to stop at a military checkpoint in the eastern state of Veracruz, state officials said. The gun battle erupted outside Xalapapa, the capital of Veracruz state, located about 430km east of Mexico City. The alleged criminals were traveling aboard several vehicles and when soldiers ordered them to halt, they continued to drive and opened fire, the statement said. The soldiers fired back “and shot down the 12 alleged criminals,” it added. Veracruz is in the grip of a turf battle between the Zetas drug gang — set up by former commandos-turned-hitmen in the 1990s — and their former employers, the Gulf drug cartel. The Zetas are also at war with the powerful Sinaloa cartel of billionaire fugitive Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
UNITED STATES
Quake shakes California
A small earthquake jolted the Southern California coast on Tuesday, but there were no reports of damage or injuries. The US Geological Survey (USGS) said in a preliminary report that the magnitude 4.0 quake struck in the Channel Islands region. The USGS says the earthquake was 48km southwest of Malibu and was felt throughout the Los Angeles area, especially in West LA, Santa Monica and the San Fernando Valley.
‘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
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in