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.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
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