JAPAN
Teen allegedly killed mom
A teenager who allegedly killed his mother and chopped her body into pieces has told police he simply did not like her, and wanted to know more about dissection, reports have said. The 19-year-old allegedly dismembered his mother’s body in the bathroom of their apartment near Tokyo, cutting her into at least 15 pieces using kitchen knives, the Sankei Shimbun said on Saturday, citing unnamed police sources. The teenager then kept the body parts in the bathtub, which he filled with water, before starting to dump them piece by piece in plastic bags, the report said. He told police he “didn’t like her” and she was an “ordinary person,” the Sankei reported, quoting an unnamed investigator. He also said he was interested in the dissection of a human body, the Yomiuri Shimbun and Mainichi Shimbun reported. The suspect, who has not been named as he is still a minor under Japanese law, was arrested on March 14 after a relative visited the apartment and found some of the body parts. The murder is believed to have been committed about two weeks previously.
CHINA
Hailstorms kill 12
Hailstorms that hit Guangdong and Hunan provinces last week killed 12 people, injured hundreds more and caused tens of millions of dollars in damage. Xinhua news agency says nine people were killed in Dongguan in Guangdong after a Wednesday hailstorm. It says 272 others were injured in the storm, which caused economic losses of 357 million yuan (US$57.5 million). Three other people died from hailstorms that began on Tuesday in Hunan, where 1,900 houses have collapsed, Xinhua said on Saturday.
INDIA
Poachers kill rare rhinos
A gang of poachers killed a rare one-horned rhino at a wildlife park in the northeast, taking to 15 the number of such beasts slaughtered this year, an official said yesterday. Heavily armed poachers fired at the rhino late on Saturday inside Assam state’s Kaziranga National Park and its horn was gouged out, just a day after another was killed, a wildlife official said. “Two rhinos have been killed in two days and it is a matter of concern for all of us,” a park ranger said, requesting not to be named since the state government has gagged officials from speaking to the media. “Poachers used AK-47 and .303 rifles to shoot dead the rhino. We have recovered empty cartridges from the site of the incident,” the official said. Kaziranga has fought a sustained battle against rhino poachers who kill the animals for their horns, which fetch huge prices in some Asian countries.
VATICAN
Pope celebrates mass
Pope Francis celebrated his first Palm Sunday Mass in St Peter’s Square yesterday, encouraging people to be humble and young at heart, as tens of thousands joyfully waved olive branches and palm fronds. The square overflowed with about 250,000 pilgrims, tourists and Romans eager to join the new pope at the start of solemn Holy Week ceremonies, which lead up to Easter. Keeping with his spontaneous style, the first pope from Latin America broke away several times from the text of his prepared homily to encourage the faithful to lead simple lives. Palm Sunday recalls Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, but its Gospel also recounts how he was betrayed by one of his apostles and ultimately sentenced to death on a cross. Recalling the triumphant welcome into Jerusalem, Francis said Jesus “awakened so many hopes in the heart, above all among humble, simple, poor, forgotten people, those who don’t matter in the eyes of the world.”
ISRAEL
Machinegun destroyed
The government said its troops fired into Syria yesterday and destroyed a machinegun position in the Golan Heights from where shots had been fired at its soldiers in a further spillover of the Syrian civil war along a tense front. It was not immediately clear whether the government held Syrian troops or rebels responsible for what a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said had been a deliberate attack on military patrols in the occupied territory. Soldiers “destroyed a Syrian machine gun nest that fired twice in the last 24 hours on Israeli patrols operating to safeguard the border,” the spokesman, Ofir Gendelman, said on his Twitter page. Shells have fallen several times inside Israeli-controlled territory during Syria’s civil war. Some of the incidents have drawn return fire.
UNITED STATES
Two die skydiving in Florida
Two skydivers from Iceland, one an instructor and the other a student, were killed in a skydiving jump on Saturday in Florida, media reported. The two men were part of a group of 22 skydivers who jumped from a plane in Zephyrhills, about 50km northeast of Tampa, according to the Tampa Tribune newspaper. When only 20 of those who jumped returned, authorities launched a search and found the bodies of the two men a few hours later, media reports said. The two men were from Iceland, according to Skydive City, which planned the jump, the Tribune reported. Their identities were not released.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of