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.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
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
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in