GERMANY
Man attacks bakery workers
Police in the city of Fulda say they shot and killed a man who was attacking workers outside a bakery. Fulda police responded to a call at 4:30am that a man was attacking people outside the business in the city about 100km northeast of Frankfurt, they said in a statement yesterday. When they arrived, they say the man attacked them with stones and some sort of a truncheon. They say they shot and killed the man, whose name and age were not released. Police say the bakery was not open at the time of the incident, and that the victims attacked by the suspect were employees and a delivery driver. Some of their injuries were considered serious. Hesse state police and Fulda prosecutors are investigating.
TURKEY
Soldiers tied to cleric detained
Prosecutors ordered the detention of 70 serving army officers over alleged links to the US-based preacher accused of orchestrating an attempted coup in 2016, the Milliyet daily said yesterday. Police launched simultaneous operations in 34 provinces across Turkey in a probe led by state prosecutors in the central Turkish province of Konya, Milliyet said. It said the suspects were targeted based on statements by soldiers previously detained over ties to the cleric Fethullah Gulen and were believed to have been responsible for student houses for Gulen’s movement. The UN Human Rights Council last month said Turkish authorities had detained 160,000 people and dismissed nearly the same number of civil servants since the failed coup in July 2016, which Ankara blames on Gulen. He denies any involvement. Among those detained, more than 50,000 have been formally charged and kept in jail during their trials. The nation’s Western allies have criticized the crackdown. Ankara says the measures are necessary to combat threats to national security.
UNITED STATES
Buffalo launches ‘wing trail’
Buffalo, New York, is inviting tourists to eat their way through a new “wing trail” featuring a dozen chicken wing hot spots. Tourism officials unveiled the Buffalo Wing Trail on Thursday at the Anchor Bar, where the Buffalo wing took flight in 1964. While just about every restaurant in the city has wings on the menu, the restaurants chosen for the trail each put a unique spin on how they cook, season and serve the appetizer. Visit Buffalo Niagara says it polled its 86,000 Facebook followers, looked at online reviews and consulted with National Buffalo Wing Festival founder Drew Cerza before settling on the final list.
UNITED STATES
‘Fight club’ teacher charged
A former substitute teacher is charged with supervising a student “fight club” at a Connecticut high school. Police say cellphone videos show 23-year-old Ryan Fish encouraging students as they slap each other in the middle of a classroom at Montville High School. Fish pleaded not guilty on Thursday to charges including reckless endangerment and risk of injury to a minor. He has denied facilitating the fights and says he thought that the students were just being “rambunctious.” Fish was fired in October last year. Police began investigating in December after a student told a social worker that he had been beaten at school. Superintendent Brian Levesque told the Day newspaper that he did not alert police after firing Fish because he knew of only one fight and thought that it was an isolated incident.
JAPAN
Diaoyutai patrols stepped up
The military is to beef up airborne patrols of disputed islands in the East China Sea, an official said yesterday in response to increased Chinese activity in the area. New crew members will operate two additional airplanes that will be deployed over the next 12 months to strengthen patrols around the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), which are also claimed by Taiwan, a Japan Coast Guard spokesman said. “We’ll boost our aviation crew by bringing in 60 more members,” the spokesman told reporters. Japan is to deploy two Falcon 2000LXS jets this fiscal year and one more plane next year to allow a “24-hour patrol system” to monitor the disputed islands, known in Japan as the Senkaku Islands. Japan early this year spotted a Chinese nuclear-powered submarine in disputed waters.
VANUATU
Volcano prompts evacuation
Villagers on the island of Ambae were yesterday facing their second evacuation in seven months after a volcano rumbled back to life and rained ashes on their homes. Authorities have declared a state of emergency on the northern island, where 11,000 people were forced to leave in September last year. Many have only just returned home, but the Vanuatu Meteorology and Geo-Hazards Department said that the Manaro Voui volcano was undergoing a level-three eruption, the mid-point on a five-level scale. Vanuatuan Ministry of Climate Change Director-General Jesse Benjamin said that an evacuation would be more orderly than the one carried out last year, when a flotilla of small vessels were pressed into service to rush people off the island. “Last year’s evacuation was conducted in haste, amidst fears of a major eruption,” he told the Daily Post newspaper. “This time we will be evacuating people from the severely affected communities first.”
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