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.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not