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.
SPEAKING OUT: After Siranudh Scott’s allegations surfaced, celebrities and public figures took to social media to share their own experiences of sexual misconduct and abuse A high-profile alleged sexual abuse case within a wealthy Thai beer brewing family has prompted a wave of painful accounts from survivors of unconnected abuse in the conservative nation. Siranudh Scott, a member of the billionaire Thai family that founded the ubiquitous Singha beer brand, posted an emotional video this month accusing his elder brother Sunit of repeatedly abusing him when he was a teenager. Sunit, who is in his 30s, later denied the allegations in a video posted online, but Singha parent Boonrawd dismissed him from his executive role with the company on Tuesday last week. “I felt I needed to speak
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
A Hong Kong astronaut is to join a Chinese space mission for the first time as part of a three-person crew launching today, as Beijing edges closer to its goal of landing people on the moon. The Tiangong space station — crewed by teams of three astronauts that are typically rotated every six months — is the crown jewel of China’s space program, boosted by billions in state investment in a bid to catch up with the US and Russia. The Shenzhou-23 mission is to blast off at 11:08pm from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China, carrying three astronauts to
UPGRADED ALERT: The risk inside DR Congo is now considered ‘very high,’ while neighboring countries face a ‘high’ threat as the outbreak continues, the WHO said Ebola is spreading faster than responders can track it in eastern Congo, where health workers managed to follow up with barely one in five identified contacts in a single day. Authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) reported 83 confirmed infections, 746 suspected cases and 1,603 identified contacts as of Thursday, but health workers were able to follow up on only 342 contacts that day — about 21 percent of the total under monitoring — data released by the DR Congo Ministry of Public Health on Friday showed. The figures suggest the response is falling behind the outbreak itself,
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