UNITED KINGDOM
Drug use rose after vote
Antidepressant use in England rose significantly compared with other prescription drugs in the wake of the 2016 vote to exit the EU, new research released yesterday found. Researchers at King’s College London looked at official monthly prescribing data for antidepressants for all 326 voting districts in England, comparing it with other classes of drugs in the run up to the June 23 referendum and the weeks that followed. They found that after the vote the volume of antidepressants prescribed increased 13.4 percent. “Job insecurity and worries about one’s future finances are associated with poorer health outcomes. Any event that triggers uncertainty and worries can have a negative effect,” said Sotiris Vandoros, senior lecturer in health economics at King’s College London and an adjunct professor at Harvard University.
UNITED STATES
Trump answers Mueller
President Donald Trump has turned over written answers to special counsel Robert Mueller’s questions about his knowledge of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, his lawyers said on Tuesday, avoiding at least for now a potentially risky sit-down with prosecutors. It is the first time he has directly cooperated with the long investigation. The step comes after months of negotiations over whether and when Trump might sit for an interview. The responses might help stave off a potential subpoena fight over Trump’s testimony if Mueller deems them satisfactory.
UNITED STATES
Judge blasts lawyers
Federal judge Jesse Furman on Tuesday issued a stinging rebuke to Department of Justice lawyers seeking yet again to delay his ruling over whether it is legal to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. “Enough is enough,” Furman said in New York City as he rejected what he said has become a weekly effort by the department’s lawyers to stop him from ruling on the merits of lawsuits accusing the Department of Commerce of improperly adding the question. “What makes the motion most puzzling, if not sanctionable, is that they sought and were denied virtually the same relief only weeks ago,” Furman said.
UNITED STATES
Ex-Michigan head charged
Former Michigan State University president Lou Anna Simon on Tuesday was charged with lying to police during an investigation of the handling of serial sexual abuser Larry Nassar, becoming the third current or former campus official other than Nassar to face criminal charges in the scandal. Simon is accused of making two false and misleading statements — that she was unaware of the nature of a sexual misconduct complaint that sparked the school’s probe of Nassar and that she only knew a sports medicine doctor, not Nassar himself, was under investigation at that time. If convicted of two felony and two misdemeanor counts of lying to a police officer, the 71-year-old Simon faces up to four years in prison.
DENMARK
Author shot after party
Former gang leader Nedim Yasar, who repented and wrote a book about his experiences, was shot on Monday night by a lone gunman in dark clothes and died in a Copenhagen hospital on Tuesday, police said. Joergen Ramskov, the chief editor of the Radio24syv radio station where Yasar had a talk show, says the 31-year-old was shot after he left a cocktail party for his book Roedder (“Roots”), which was released on Tuesday.
SOUTH KOREA
‘Comfort women’ entity shut
The government yesterday announced the formal shutdown of a controversial Japanese-funded foundation created to help former wartime sex slaves — a move that will further sour ties between the neighbors. It sparked a sharp reaction from Tokyo, which summoned the South Korean ambassador and urged Seoul to respect its “international promise.” The foundation was created as a result of a controversial 2015 bilateral deal, but the agreement angered some victims who described it as falling short of holding Japan responsible for wartime abuses.
CHINA
Civilian focus needed in Sea
More focus should be put on building civilian facilities on islands in the South China Sea and less emphasis on the military to better sooth regional fears about Beijing’s intentions, an influential state-run paper said yesterday. In a commentary, Study Times said there was a “potential risk of war” for areas surrounding the country such as the South China Sea. “Without the strong deterrence power of our military in the South China Sea, the protecting regional peace and stability is merely idle theorizing and falls short of what we would wish,” it said, but added that there must be a greater role for non-military actors in the South China Sea. That means there should be more focus on building lighthouses, civilian airports, maritime search and rescue, scientific research and weather forecasting, it added.
KENYA
Female lawmakers sought
Lawmakers on Tuesday debated a bill that would allocate one-third of all seats in parliament to women, with campaigners optimistic it would pass despite previous failures. Women hold 23 percent of seats in the lower and upper houses of parliament combined, says the Inter-Parliamentary Union — on a par with the global average, but lower than neighbors Rwanda, Ethiopia and Burundi. The 2010 constitution states that no more than two-thirds of any elected or appointed political bodies can be of the same gender, but does not set out a mechanism for attaining that goal. The new legislation would provide for special seats to be created if parliamentary elections fail to achieve the required numbers.
INDONESIA
Whale ate 6kg of plastic
A sperm whale has been found dead with 115 plastic cups and 25 plastic bags in its stomach, raising concern among environmentalists and throwing the spotlight on the country’s rubbish problem. The items were part of nearly 6kg of plastic waste discovered in the 9.5m carcass when it washed ashore in Wakatobi National Park on Monday. Other debris included flip flops and ripped tarpaulins, Wakatobi tourism head La Ode Saleh Hanan told reporters yesterday.
RWANDA
EU zoos to deliver rhinos
Wildlife parks in three European countries on Tuesday announced that they are joining forces to send critically endangered eastern black rhinos back to their natural habitat in Rwanda, where the entire rhino population was wiped out during the genocide in the 1990s. Three female and two male rhinos from the Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic, Flamingo Land in Britain and Ree Park Safari in Denmark would first meet in the Czech park to get used to each other and get ready for their transport to the Akagera National Park in eastern Rwanda in May or June. It would be the biggest single transport of rhinos from Europe to Africa, officials said.
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