JAPAN
Abductor suspect arrested
Police have caught a 23-year-old man wanted for allegedly abducting a teenage girl who escaped a day earlier after being held captive in his apartment for two years. Police yesterday said that the girl, now aged 15, escaped from suspect Kabu Terauchi’s apartment in downtown Tokyo on Sunday while he was out shopping and called home from a pay phone. She disappeared two years ago from her hometown in Saitama, near Tokyo. Saitama police said investigators captured Terauchi near a forest west of Tokyo. He was bleeding from the neck from a minor self-inflicted injury. Police plan to formally arrest him on charges of kidnapping. Terauchi graduated from university this month and even had a job offer while allegedly keeping the girl locked in his apartment.
UNITED STATES
Facebook sorry for glitch
Facebook apologized on Sunday for a bug that sent a “Safety Check” notification to users around the world following a deadly suicide bombing in Lahore. Facebook users from Honolulu to Brussels and Cairo to Hong Kong were baffled by the notification, a feature that lets users signal to friends that they are safe following an event in their area like a terror attack or natural disaster. “We activated ‘Safety Check’ today in Lahore, Pakistan, after a bombing that took place there. Unfortunately, many people not affected by the crisis received a notification asking if they were okay,” Facebook said in a statement. “This kind of bug is counter to our intent. We worked quickly to resolve the issue and we apologize to anyone who mistakenly received the notification,” it added. At least 65 people were killed and hundreds injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a crowded park in Lahore, where Christians were celebrating Easter Sunday.
SPAIN
Pilot arrested for hash hauls
Police have detained a helicopter pilot suspected of flying hauls of hashish to the nation from Morocco while on temporary release from prison, they said on Sunday. Officers arrested the pilot on March 6 after he allegedly landed a helicopter loaded with 750kg near Estepona. “The pilot was carrying out a sentence at a correctional center and took advantage of his weekend furloughs to carry out the drug flights,” a police statement said. The pilot was serving a sentence for an undisclosed crime at a jail in the seaside city of San Sebastian in the northern Basque Country. Police seized 1.5 tonnes of hashish as part of the operation along with 1,000 marijuana plants, two helicopters, 15 vehicles and 220,000 euros (US$245,711) in cash.
EL SALVADOR
Gangs offer end to killings
A video purportedly made by the nation’s main street gangs is offering an end to killings in the country, and asks the government not to continue an anti-gang offensive. The nation suffered growing gang violence since a 2012 gang truce fell apart. In the video broadcast by local media on Saturday, a masked man claimed to make the offer on behalf of the Mara Salvatrucha gang and two factions of the Barrio 18 gang. The video said killings were ordered stopped as of Saturday, to show the government it did not have to implement get-tough policies. The government has been considering a kind of limited state of emergency in some areas and is planning to release some non-gang inmates to free up prison space and liberate police to fight the gangs.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in 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
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was