BELGIUM
Doctors acquitted of murder
A jury yesterday cleared three doctors accused of murder in a euthanasia case in a landmark trial in a country that legalized assisted dying nearly two decades ago. The prosecution said that the doctors had not respected the conditions for euthanasia in the case of Tine Nys, a 38-year-old woman who asserted her right to die in 2010 because of severe mental suffering. The Belga news agency reported that the jury at the court in Ghent acquitted the doctors of poisoning Nys, prompting members of the public present to burst into sustained applause, drawing a rebuke from the judge. The accused are the doctor who gave Nys the lethal drip, as well as a general practitioner and a psychiatrist whose green light was needed for the assisted suicide. The case followed the complaints of two of Nys’ sisters, who deplored what they said was a hasty decision and who accused the suspects of “poisoning” their sister. The sisters claimed that not all treatments were tried for Nys following her diagnosis for autism two months before her death.
INDIA
Police kill hostage-taker
A man who held nearly two dozen children hostage at his daughter’s birthday party was shot dead by police before locals beat his wife to death as she tried to escape, authorities said yesterday. All 23 children — the youngest was six months old — were rescued as anxious parents gathered outside the house in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh late on Thursday. The man, identified as Subhash Batham, was demanding that murder charges against him be dropped, as well as a ransom of 10 million rupees (US$140,156) per child, police officer Amit Mishra told reporters. “He fired several rounds, injuring a few persons,” Mishra said. “We tried to negotiate with him, but to no avail. Concerned over safety of the children, we eventually broke open the rear door of the house and shot him.” The man, who was apparently celebrating his daughter’s first birthday, was out on bail over the murder charge. The wife was killed as she tried to run away.
JAPAN
One likely dead in avalanche
An avalanche at a ski resort on Hokkaido on Thursday hit a group of eight foreign skiers, likely killing at least one. The avalanche occurred when the group was skiing outside of a designated course near the Tomamu ski resort in central Hokkaido, the nearby Shimukappu village office said. One skier who escaped from the snow called police asking for help, village official Atsushi Tada said. The caller said that one of them, a Frenchman in his 40s, was feared dead, but six others survived, although further details of their conditions were not available. Rescuers from Hokkaido police were expected to head to the site to carry out a rescue operation.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion