GERMANY
Pollution jail time mooted
The daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung yesterday reported that judges are considering jailing senior Bavarian officials for failing to take action against air pollution in Munich, home to automaker BMW. The newspaper said that the state’s administrative court believes jailing officials might be the most effective way to force the Bavarian government to enforce emissions-cutting measures. Munich topped the ranks of 65 cities in the nation that exceeded levels of harmful particles last year. Bavarian officials have refused to impose measures in Munich, such as limited bans on driving diesel vehicles, despite heavy fines. Bavarian judges want to seek legal guidance from the European Court of Justice on whether jailing officials would be permissible, the paper said.
UNITED STATES
Tesla hits fire truck
Authorities say a Tesla driver, who said he thought his car was in Autopilot mode, crashed into the back of a fire truck in San Jose, California. The California Highway Patrol said the Tesla rear-ended a fire engine that was stopped with its emergency lights activated along the US Highway 101 at about 1am on Saturday. The 37-year-old driver, Michael Tran, told officers: “I think I had Autopilot on.” Tran was later arrested on suspicion of drunk driving. The two firefighters in the fire truck were not injured. Tran and a female passenger were taken to San Jose Regional Medical Center with minor injuries.
IRAN
Aid worker’s release ends
A detained British-Iranian aid worker sentenced to five years in jail was returned to prison on Sunday after a request to extend her three-day temporary release was rejected, her husband said. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested in April 2016 at a Tehran airport as she was heading back to Britain with her two-year-old daughter after a family visit. She was convicted of plotting to overthrow the government, a charge denied by her family and the foundation. Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, who is in Britain, said in a statement that she returned to prison in Tehran to continue serving her sentence.
UNITED KINGDOM
Ice creams fail tests
A Which? investigation of supermarket and branded vanilla ice-creams found a number of them were lacking some key ingredients, such as vanilla, cream or fresh milk. One in five of the ice-creams examined by the consumer watchdog had none of the three ingredients; only half of the 24 surveyed contained all three. Vanilla ice-cream is traditionally made from fresh milk, cream, egg yolks, sugar and vanilla. In a number of the products Which? looked at, cream and milk were substituted with partially reconstituted dried skimmed milk, and in some cases, whey protein. Vanilla was often replaced with a general “flavoring.” There are no requirements that manufacturers have to meet before a product can be called ice-cream.
AUSTRIA
Panda’s art on sale
Vienna Zoo is luring visitors with a new attraction: a painting panda. Yang Yang, a female that gave birth to twins two years ago, has learned to use a brush to paint, and 100 of the small pieces are being sold online for 490 euros (US$560) each to raise funds to produce a picture book about the zoo’s pandas. Yang Yang’s abstract works are black splotches on white paper.
AFGHANISTAN
Aircraft bombs border area
A Tajik or Russian aircraft bombed a district near the border with Tajikistan during a clash between gunmen and Tajik border guards that left several people dead, officials said yesterday. Khalil Asir, a spokesman for Takhar provincial police, said it was not clear who conducted the bombing, but eight Taliban were killed and six wounded. A spokesman for the provincial governor said six gunmen, who were drug smugglers, were killed. Two border guards were also killed. Moscow has denied involvement, the Russian Information Agency said, citing the Russian Ministry of Defense.
JAPAN
N Korea expels tourist
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga yesterday said that they were trying to ensure the safety of a tourist whom North Korea said it had expelled after detaining him on unspecified charges for two weeks. The man reportedly arrived in China yesterday. The Korean Central News Agency late on Sunday reported that Tomoyuki Sugimoto had been “kept under control” for questioning about “his crime,” without specifying what he had been accused of. The agency said the authorities decided “to leniently condone him” and expel him on the principle of humanitarianism. Suga told reporters that Tokyo was doing its “utmost,” but refused to give further details. Sugimoto had apparently been caught filming a military facility in Nampo while on a group tour, media reports said.
JAPAN
Abe seeks LDP re-election
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday announced his candidacy for the Sept. 20 Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leadership election, which he is expected to win over ex-minister of defense Shigeru Ishiba. A win would put Abe on track to becoming the nation’s longest-serving prime minister. “It is my responsibility to respond to the mandate of the people,” he told reporters.
JAPAN
Train track training backed
JR West rail company yesterday defended a safety exercise that requires employees to sit beside tracks in tunnels as bullet trains speed by at 300kph, saying it has no plans to alter the exercise despite complaints from some employees. About 190 staff working on safety maintenance have undergone the training, which is aimed at showing workers just how fast the train moved and how seriously they need to take their jobs, a spokesman said. The training was started in 2016 after a 2015 accident in which part of a bullet train’s exterior fell off.
SOUTH KOREA
Working-age numbers fall
The number of people of working age in the nation fell for the first time ever last year, Statistics Korea said yesterday. In an annual census, the working-age population, defined as those aged 15 to 64, fell by 116,000 last year to 36.2 million, the agency said. The total population rose to 51.4 million, up 0.3 percent, with 14.2 percent of people aged 65 and over.
ISRAEL
Erez crossing reopened
The only crossing to the Gaza Strip for people reopened yesterday, a week after it was shut over violence along the border with the Palestinian enclave. A Ministry of Defense spokeswoman said the crossing was opened in the morning. An average of about 1,000 Gazans cross through Erez each day, mostly those in need of medical care but also businesspeople, students and others.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of