JAPAN
US sailors jailed for rape
Two US sailors who raped a woman in Okinawa in October last year, sparking island-wide anger, have been jailed for nine and 10 years, a report said. The Naha District Court said Christopher Browning, 24, should be jailed for 10 years, while Skyler Dozierwalker, 23, should serve nine years, Jiji Press reported. Earlier this week the two men had admitted the offense, which led to a nationwide nighttime curfew on all US military personnel in the nation. Despite the curfew, misconduct involving US servicemen, much of it drunken, has continued to fuel anti-US sentiment in communities with bases.
IRAQ
Attacks kill 26 people
Bombings in and around Baghdad, including two car bombs near a soccer field, killed at least 23 people on Thursday, while three people were shot dead in the north of the country, security and medical officials said. With the latest violence, more than 210 people were killed and over 550 wounded in attacks last month, according to security and medical sources.
NEW ZEALAND
Court rules against Dotcom
US prosecutors won a Wellington court victory yesterday in their battle to extradite Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom and three colleagues accused of facilitating massive copyright fraud through the now-defunct online file-sharing site. The appeals court overturned an earlier ruling that would have allowed Dotcom and the others broad access to evidence in the case against them at the time of their extradition hearing, which is scheduled for August. The court ruled that extensive disclosure would bog down the process and that a summary of the US case would suffice.
SOUTH KOREA
Troops join joint exercises
Thousands of US troops converged on the nation yesterday for the start of annual joint military exercises, a report said, as tensions run high on the peninsula following North Korea’s third nuclear test. A joint air, ground and naval field training exercise known as Foal Eagle is to run until April 30, involving more than 10,000 US troops along with a far greater number of South Korean personnel. Separately, troops from both nations are to stage a computer-simulated drill named Key Resolve from March 11 to March 21. Pyongyang habitually denounces the drills as a rehearsal for invasion, but Seoul and Washington insist they are defensive in nature.
UNITED STATES
Vegas shooting suspect held
A multi-state manhunt came to an end when a self-described pimp was arrested near Los Angeles one week after a vehicle-to-vehicle shooting and spectacular, fiery crash that killed three people on Las Vegas’ main boulevard, police said. Ammar Harris, 26, surrendered on Thursday to police and federal agents, authorities said. Harris, whose Internet posts show him with fists full of money boasting of a high-rolling lifestyle with prostitutes, was the subject of a multi-state search after the Feb. 21 attack at a neon-lit intersection that is home to posh casino resorts. Court documents allege Harris was driving his black Range Rover SUV when he fired into a Maserati sports car, killing self-promoted rapper Kenneth Wayne Cherry Jr. The two men had argued minutes earlier in the valet area of an upmarket Las Vegas Strip resort.
A deluge of disinformation about a virus called hMPV is stoking anti-China sentiment across Asia and spurring unfounded concerns of renewed lockdowns, despite experts dismissing comparisons with the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago. Agence France-Presse’s fact-checkers have debunked a slew of social media posts about the usually non-fatal respiratory disease human metapneumovirus after cases rose in China. Many of these posts claimed that people were dying and that a national emergency had been declared. Garnering tens of thousands of views, some posts recycled old footage from China’s draconian lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in the country in late
French police on Monday arrested a man in his 20s on suspicion of murder after an 11-year-old girl was found dead in a wood south of Paris over the weekend in a killing that sparked shock and a massive search for clues. The girl, named as Louise, was found stabbed to death in the Essonne region south of Paris in the night of Friday to Saturday, police said. She had been missing since leaving school on Friday afternoon and was found just a few hundred meters from her school. A police source, who asked not to be named, said that she had been
VIOLENCE: The teacher had depression and took a leave of absence, but returned to the school last year, South Korean media reported A teacher stabbed an eight-year-old student to death at an elementary school in South Korea on Monday, local media reported, citing authorities. The teacher, a woman in her 40s, confessed to the crime after police officers found her and the young girl with stab wounds at the elementary school in the central city of Daejeon on Monday evening, the Yonhap news agency reported. The girl was brought to hospital “in an unconscious state, but she later died,” the report read. The teacher had stab wounds on her neck and arm, which officials determined might have been self-inflicted, the news agency
ISSUE: Some foreigners seek women to give birth to their children in Cambodia, and the 13 women were charged with contravening a law banning commercial surrogacy Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday thanked Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni for granting a royal pardon last year to 13 Filipino women who were convicted of illegally serving as surrogate mothers in the Southeast Asian kingdom. Marcos expressed his gratitude in a meeting with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, who was visiting Manila for talks on expanding trade, agricultural, tourism, cultural and security relations. The Philippines and Cambodia belong to the 10-nation ASEAN, a regional bloc that promotes economic integration but is divided on other issues, including countries whose security alignments is with the US or China. Marcos has strengthened
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