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.
PARLIAMENT CHAOS: Police forcibly removed Brazilian Deputy Glauber Braga after he called the legislation part of a ‘coup offensive’ and occupied the speaker’s chair Brazil’s lower house of Congress early yesterday approved a bill that could slash former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence for plotting a coup, after efforts by a lawmaker to disrupt the proceedings sparked chaos in parliament. Bolsonaro has been serving a 27-year term since last month after his conviction for a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 election. Lawmakers had been discussing a bill that would significantly reduce sentences for several crimes, including attempting a coup d’etat — opening up the prospect that Bolsonaro, 70, could have his sentence cut to
A powerful magnitude 7.6 earthquake shook Japan’s northeast region late on Monday, prompting tsunami warnings and orders for residents to evacuate. A tsunami as high as three metres (10 feet) could hit Japan’s northeastern coast after an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.6 occurred offshore at 11:15 p.m. (1415 GMT), the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said. Tsunami warnings were issued for the prefectures of Hokkaido, Aomori and Iwate, and a tsunami of 40cm had been observed at Aomori’s Mutsu Ogawara and Hokkaido’s Urakawa ports before midnight, JMA said. The epicentre of the quake was 80 km (50 miles) off the coast of
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
A passerby could hear the cacophony from miles away in the Argentine capital, the unmistakable sound of 2,397 dogs barking — and breaking the unofficial world record for the largest-ever gathering of golden retrievers. Excitement pulsed through Bosques de Palermo, a sprawling park in Buenos Aires, as golden retriever-owners from all over Argentina transformed the park’s grassy expanse into a sea of bright yellow fur. Dog owners of all ages, their clothes covered in dog hair and stained with slobber, plopped down on picnic blankets with their beloved goldens to take in the surreal sight of so many other, exceptionally similar-looking ones.
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