FRANCE
Police accused of abuse
Police are regularly using pepper spray against migrants in Calais, Human Rights Watch said yesterday, an accusation denied by authorities. “Police use of pepper spray in Calais is so common that many asylum seekers and migrants had difficulty recalling precisely how many times they had been sprayed,” it said in a report. Of 61 migrants questioned by the group between the end of last month and early this month, 55 said they had been sprayed during the two weeks before the interview, and some said they had been sprayed every day, author Michael Garcia Bochenek said. Fabien Sudry, prefect for the Pas-de-Calais region, “categorically denied the false and defamatory allegations” in the report, which he said “have no evidential basis.”
THAILAND
1,066 turtles freed for king
Hundreds of people yesterday gathered at a beach to release 1,066 turtles into the sea as part of celebrations to mark the birthday of new King Maha Vajiralongkorn this week. The government has declared the king’s birthday tomorrow as a public holiday. At the Sea Turtle Conservation Center in Chonburi, members of the Royal Thai Navy, students and celebrities released the 1,066 turtles into the sea. The number 1,066 was chosen to symbolize the number 10 for King Rama X, as King Vajiralongkorn is known, and the number 66, one more than his age, to wish him longevity.
? AUSTRALIA
Aboriginal musician dies
A blind Aboriginal musician renowned for singing in his native Yolngu language with a heart-rending voice and a unique guitar-playing style has died at the age of 46. Darwin-based Skinnyfish Music said in a statement that Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, who is now referred to by local media as Dr. G. Yunupingu because of cultural sensitivities among northern Australian Aborigines around naming the dead, died on Tuesday after a long illness in a Darwin Hospital. Skinnyfish said Yunupingu is remembered as one of the most important figures in Australian music history who sold more than half a million copies of his albums across the world.
JAPAN
Woman ‘wrecks’ 54 violins
A woman has been arrested on suspicion of destroying 54 violins and 70 bows worth about US$950,000 owned by her ex-husband, police and media said yesterday. The 34-year-old was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly breaking into a man’s home in Aichi Prefecture and wrecking the instruments in 2014, with reports that the violins had been made or collected by her 62-year-old former partner. The collection included an Italian-made instrument worth ￥50 million (US$445,000), Jiji Press said. At the time of the incident, the couple were reportedly in the middle of a divorce, which was completed last year. The woman, identified as Tokyo resident Midori Kawamiya, traveled to China several times after the incident and was arrested upon her return to Tokyo, the tabloid Nikkan Sports said.
SWITZERLAND
Chainsaw suspect arrested
Police said the suspect in a chainsaw attack on a health insurer’s office that left five people wounded did not resist when he was arrested, but carried a bag with weapons on him. Prosecutor Peter Sticher said during a press conference yesterday that suspect Franz Wrousis, who was arrested on Tuesday evening in Thalwil, carried two loaded crossbows and two sharpened wooden slats. Police said they did not find the chainsaw.
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
In the week before his fatal shooting, right-wing US political activist Charlie Kirk cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia. Kirk, 31, who helped amplify US President Donald Trump’s agenda to young voters with often inflammatory rhetoric focused on issues such as gender and immigration, was shot in the neck on Wednesday at a speaking event at a Utah university. In Seoul on Friday last week, he spoke about how he “brought Trump to victory,” while addressing Build Up Korea 2025, a conservative conference
DEADLOCK: Putin has vowed to continue fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, while talks have been paused with no immediate results expected, the Kremlin said Russia on Friday said that peace talks with Kyiv were on “pause” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wanted to capture the whole of Ukraine. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus. Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there
North Korea has executed people for watching or distributing foreign television shows, including popular South Korean dramas, as part of an intensifying crackdown on personal freedoms, a UN human rights report said on Friday. Surveillance has grown more pervasive since 2014 with the help of new technologies, while punishments have become harsher — including the introduction of the death penalty for offences such as sharing foreign TV dramas, the report said. The curbs make North Korea the most restrictive country in the world, said the 14-page UN report, which was based on interviews with more than 300 witnesses and victims who had
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