FRANCE
Teacher retracts IS claim
A nursery-school teacher who said on Monday that he was stabbed in his classroom by an Islamic State (IS) group supporter has admitted to prosecutors that he invented the story. The 45-year-old teacher at a school in Aubervilliers, northeast of Paris, was hospitalized with light stab wounds in his side and throat. He had said that a man in overalls and a balaclava had arrived while he was preparing his class on Monday, grabbed a box cutter and scissors that were in the room, and attacked him. Prosecutors said they were still questioning the teacher, whose injuries were not considered life-threatening, over why he lied.
UNITED KINGDOM
EU referendum a step closer
A bill for a referendum on the nation’s EU membership cleared a key hurdle on Monday when the House of Lords narrowly rejected an opposition proposal to give younger voters the right to take part. “A key manifesto commitment delivered as the EU Referendum Bill clears Parliament. Voters will have an in/out choice before the end of 2017,” Prime Minister David Cameron said on Twitter after the debate. The vote was rejected by 263 votes to 246.
UNITED STATES
Truck sale sparks lawsuit
A Texas plumber whose company pickup truck — with the firm’s logo and name clearly visible — appeared in a photograph of a militant wielding an anti-aircraft weapon in Syria has sued the dealer he sold it to, saying the harassment it generated has damaged his business. Mark Oberholtzer, the owner of Mark-1 plumbing, said he sold the pickup in October 2013. The photograph was tweeted in December last year by a group called the Ansar al-Deen front, the lawsuit said. “By the end of the day, Mark-1’s office, Mark-1’s business phone, and Mark’s personal cell had received over 1,000 phone calls from around the nation,” the lawsuit said.
UNITED STATES
Cosby initiates countersuit
Comedian Bill Cosby on Monday sued seven women who had accused him of defaming them, saying they lied when they accused him of sexual assault. The countersuit, filed in US district court in Springfield, Massachusetts, contends that the women defamed his “honorable legacy and reputation” by accusing him of sexual misconduct. The countersuit seeks unspecified financial damages.
NIGERIA
Army raids Shiite sect
At least 60 people were killed last weekend when the army raided a minority Shiite sect and arrested its leader in the northern city of Zaria, the director of a local hospital said on Monday. The army said the Islamic Movement in Nigeria tried to assassinate Army Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai, with members of the sect blocking his convoy in Zaria on Saturday last week. On Sunday, the army raided several buildings connected to the sect and the home of its leader, Ibrahim Zakzaky. They arrested him and killed members of the group.
ARGENTINA
Bus crash kills 43 police
At least 43 police officers died on Monday and several more were injured when their bus plunged off a bridge and into a dry riverbed in the north of the country, authorities said. The cause of the accident is under investigation but officials believe a tire might have blown out and caused the bus to veer off the bridge before dawn, Salta Province emergency chief Francisco Marinaro said.
AUSTRALIA
Laundry day blocks funding
A Sydney youth, who was allegedly given US$9,000 to send to the Islamic State group, failed to transfer the money after his mother found the cash in his shorts while cleaning his bedroom. The male has agreed to testify against the two men accused of giving him the money, Omarjan Azari, 23, and Ali al-Talebi, 26, a court heard on Monday. Crown prosecutor Peter Neil told a committal hearing on Monday the pair had engaged a younger man they had met at the Parramatta mosque to take the cash to Western Union outlets in western Sydney in August and September last year and make the transfer. Two transfers were made in August, but an attempt the following month faltered when the young man balked at the fees. He took the money home, where his mother discovered it hidden it in his shorts as she was collecting laundry.
SOUTH KOREA
Tycoon’s sentence reduced
CJ Group tycoon Lee Jay-hyun was yesterday sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison following a court review of his trial on charges ranging from embezzlement to tax evasion. “The court finds it necessary to send a clear message that such economic crimes won’t go unpunished,” the high court in Seoul said in passing the sentence. It also handed down 25.2 billion won (US$21 million) in fines. Lee was granted a stay of sentence pending hospital treatment. He claims to suffer from multiple illnesses, including a degenerative neurological disease. He was initially sentenced last year to four years, but served just 50 days before being released for treatment.
MYANMAR
Opium production stabilizing
Opium production in the nation has stabilized for a third year, UN officials yesterday said in Bangkok. The country produced an estimated 587 tonnes of opium this year, second only to Afghanistan, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said in a new report. Jeremy Douglas, the office’s head in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, said the stabilization could not be called a “success.” “Production remains at high levels, and displaced farmers without alternatives may return to growing poppy,” he said.
ISRAEL
Driver hits bus stop group
A Palestinian man on Monday drove a car into a group of people at a Jerusalem bus stop, injuring 14 people before being shot dead, police and rescue services said. Police said the Palestinian assailant, 21-year-old Abdul Mohsen Hassouna from Beit Hanina in east Jerusalem, had died. Medical services said none of the victims’ injuries were life-threatening, but a baby aged just over a year was seriously hurt and taken to the Hadassah hospital.
NEW ZEALAND
Flag choice confirmed
A flag with a silver fern on a black-and-blue background was yesterday confirmed as the preferred option if the country decides to replace its current flag. The counting of late and overseas votes from a recent referendum confirmed the preliminary results released last week, electoral commission officials said. There were five options to choose from and an identical design in a slightly different color scheme was actually the most popular first choice. However, under the nation’s preferential voting system, where people ranked the five designs in order of favoritism, the silver fern flag with a black, white and blue background was the most popular overall. The winning design will go head-to-head with the existing flag in a second referendum in March.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not