GREECE
Migrants locked up
About 1,000 refugees have been locked in a stadium on the island of Kos overnight without food and with very little water, as authorities struggle to contain the rising tide of migrants from war-torn countries, Doctors Without Borders spokeswoman Julia Kourafa said on Wednesday. Local authorities had swept through the island, clearing refugees — most of them from Syria and Iraq — from public squares and parks, where they had set up encampments while waiting to be issued travel documents that would allow them to move legally in Greece, Kourafa said. Riot police had been called in from Athens and had helped close the people inside the stadium, she said. Doctors Without Borders had a team in the stadium, Kourafa said.
GERMANY
Teen swimmer finds gold
A teenager swimming in Bavaria came upon a solid gold bar at the bottom of a lake and may get to keep it, local police said on Wednesday. The 16-year-old discovered the gold on Friday while swimming in the Koenigssee (King Lake), where she was on holiday, a police spokesman said. The 500g bar, which she found at a depth of 2m, was worth an estimated 16,000 euros (US$18,000), police said. She turned it over to the authorities, who were working to determine its origin. “If no rightful owner is found and the bar is not related to a crime, then the girl will probably be able to keep it,” the spokesman said.
UNITED STATES
Couple enslaves teen
A Florida couple turned a teen into their sex slave and sealed her off from the outside world for more than five years, police said after arresting the two. Rob Johnson, 44, and his wife, Marie Johnson, 43, of Port St Lucie, were arrested on Tuesday and charged with felony sexual assault charges. The Port St Lucie Police Department said the girl was sent at age 13 to live with the Johnsons after her mother died, and soon after her arrival was told she could only be part of their family by having sex with them. The girl, now 21, was homeschooled, not allowed to use the phone and forced to rehearse what to say to doctors if she was asked about sexual activity. She was able to leave the home after her grandmother purchased a plane ticket to bring her to Ohio, police said.
UNITED STATES
Uber sued for sex assault
A woman who says she was sexually assaulted by an Uber driver in Dallas, Texas, is suing the ride-hailing company and the suspect. The Dallas Morning News said she filed the lawsuit on Tuesday, seeking more than US$1 million for medical expenses and damages. The woman alleges Talal Ali Chammout attacked her on July 25. The man has been charged with sexual assault and is free on bond. Uber has said it mistakenly granted driver status to Chammout.
FRANCE
McDonald’s sorry over ban
McDonald’s has apologized for an incident in which workers in one of the US burger chain’s French franchises were threatened with the sack for feeding homeless people. A photograph circulating on social media showed a notice pinned up at the McDonald’s in Hyeres near Marseille in southern France, reading: “After an incident on July 25th, it is absolutely forbidden to provide food to vagrants... McDonald’s is not in the business of feeding all the hungry people in the land.” It added that “any diversion from the procedure cited above will result in sanction that could lead to dismissal.”
JAPAN
Rival’s penis flushed away
Police have arrested a man accused of bursting into a lawyer’s office and cutting off his penis with garden shears before flushing the organ down a toilet. Local media reports said Ikki Kodukai, a 24-year-old Tokyo graduate student, may have been acting out of revenge over his wife’s romantic involvement with the 42-year-old victim. Police said Kodukai, who was arrested shortly after the alleged attack, punched the unnamed lawyer several times before prying off his pants and then severing his “lower body part” with the shears. A Tokyo police spokesman confirmed the body part in question was the man’s genitals. Kodukai told police that he “flushed what was severed down the toilet,” he said, adding that the victim’s injuries were not life-threatening.
SOUTH KOREA
Japan protester burns self
An 80-year-old man was in life-threatening condition yesterday after setting himself on fire during an anti-Japan protest in Seoul, hospital officials said. The rally on Wednesday, attended by hundreds and held in front of the Japanese embassy, was staged ahead of the 70th anniversary of the Allied victory in World War II on Saturday that freed the Korean Peninsula from Japanese colonial rule. Choi Hyeon-yeol, who remains unconscious, suffered third-degree burns on his face, neck, upper body and arms and has been relying on a breathing machine after his lungs deteriorated, said an official at Seoul’s Hallym University Hangang Sacred Heart Hospital, who did not want to be named, citing office rules. A five-page statement found in his bag, apparently written by him, condemned Japan for its stance on issues related to its colonial rule of Korea and wartime conduct, according to Seoul police official Seo Hyeon-su. The rally continued after Choi was taken to the hospital.
JAPAN
Paratroopers drill in US
Two dozen members of the Ground Self Defense Force became the first paratroopers from their country to take part in a training jump from a US forces plane over US soil. The jump took place on Wednesday over interior Alaska as paratroopers from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson and Japan took part in the training exercise. As the troops landed at the Donnelly Training Area drop zone near Fort Greeley, Alaska, there was a simulated battle for control of a landing strip. The jump was the culmination of the training program between the two nations, dubbed Operation Arctic Aurora. The training is also part of the larger multinational Red Flag exercise being coordinated by the Alaska Command.
SOUTH KOREA
President pardons tycoon
President Park Geun-hye yesterday pardoned a tycoon convicted of embezzlement who heads the country’s third-largest business group. The justice ministry said in a statement that SK Group’s Chey Tae-won will be among about 6,500 people to be released from prison before the 70th anniversary on Saturday of the country’s liberation from Japan’s colonial occupation. It said the government decided on pardons for 14 businesspeople including Chey based on their contributions to the national economy. Chey was serving a four-year prison term that began in January 2013 after being found guilty of embezzling company funds to trade financial products. The move is likely to renew debate about unfair leniency toward the powerful and the economy’s reliance on conglomerates.
‘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