Thu, Feb 18, 2016 page7

• World News Quick Take

  • Agencies
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  JAPAN

  Teen forced to eat goldfish

  A mother forced her teenage daughter to eat more than 30 of her pet goldfish as a punishment, police and media alleged, as the nation grapples with a record number of child abuse cases. Yuko Ogata and her boyfriend, Takeshi Egami, who have both been arrested, made the girl eat the dead fish in June last year, police said yesterday, adding that the daughter was allegedly abused on a daily basis. Local media said the couple, who live in Fukuoka Prefecture, killed the fish by pouring detergent into their tank. The girl was then forced to eat more than 30 of the fish one by one, Nippon Television Network reported. No damage to the daughter’s health has been reported, local media said. Ogata and Egami were reportedly indicted last year for tying the daughter to a bed with rope, punching her in the face and burning her tongue with a lit cigarette. The latest arrest was their fifth since last year in relation to abuse of the child, reports said.

  JAPAN

  Drone flyer convicted

  A court on Tuesday convicted a man of landing a drone containing a bottle of radioactive sand from Fukushima on the roof of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s office. The Tokyo District Court handed Yasuo Yamamoto, 41, a two-year jail term, suspended for four years, for forcibly obstructing the operation of Abe’s office. Though convicted, the sentence means Yamamoto avoids spending time in prison so long as he stays out of trouble for the next four years. Yamamoto has admitted flying the drone in April last year, but his defense lawyers denied the charge and argued that it was his way of expressing his opposition to the use of nuclear power, Jiji Press reported. The unemployed Yamamoto sent the drone with the contaminated sand on April 9 and it sat on the roof until found on April 22. A blog, reportedly by Yamamoto, chronicled how sand from Fukushima — where a nuclear reactor went into meltdown after an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 — was placed in the bottle with a card also attached to the drone voicing opposition to nuclear energy.

  PHILIPPINES

  Four killed in bombing

  Four people, including a six-year-old girl, were killed in a roadside bombing by suspected Muslim insurgents who wanted to attack military reinforcements, police said yesterday. The victims were in a van in Datu Saudi Ampatuan in Maguindanao province on Tuesday night when the improvised bomb went off. Norodin Macabangen, a municipal treasurer of a nearby town, died in hospital. His six-year-old daughter, a brother and another man died instantly, while his wife and their nine-year-old son were injured. A police report said that the explosives were believed intended for reinforcement troops.

  CHAD

  Nine arrested over rape

  Police have arrested nine people, including five suspected rapists, after photographs of a girl allegedly brutally gang raped spread on social media, the public prosecutor said on Tuesday. He also said a young man was killed when riot police violently shut down a protest by hundreds of young people in N’Djamena on Monday. The protesters said a girl named as Zouhoura was kidnapped at the weekend and gang raped by five young men from the families of senior police officers. The men then allegedly posted a video online showing the victim in tears. On Monday morning, pupils from Zouhoura’s high school and other protesters gathered outside the girl’s home and marched to the court to demand compensation for her.

  CANADA

  Murders mislabeled: minister

  Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Carolyn Bennett on Tuesday accused police of failing to investigate possibly thousands of murders of indigenous women that their families say were wrongly classified as suicide, accidental death or by natural causes. In a 2014 report that was updated last year federal police said 1,049 indigenous women were murdered and 172 went missing over the past three decades. However, “the tragedy is much wider,” Bennett said. One woman’s group suggested the number was as high as 4,000. Based on conversations with victims’ families ahead of a public inquiry into the deaths and missing persons cases, Bennett said a number of cases were labeled suicides, or the result of accidental overdose or natural causes. “There’s no question that the families want certain cases reopened,” she said. Bennett cited examples of a woman being shot in the back of the head and another who died while her hands were tied behind her back. Both deaths were classified as suicides, she said.

  COSTA RICA

  Machete murderer hunted

  Police on Tuesday were hunting a Nicaraguan man suspected of murdering an American resident, his Costa Rican female partner and three of their children with a machete. The bodies of the five were found at their home in the northwestern coastal region of Guanacaste, an area favored by foreign retirees and tourists. Two other children, one aged four and the other aged seven months, survived. The four-year-old was taken to hospital with severe wounds. The baby was unharmed. Minister of Public Security Gustavo Mata said that the family lived with the Nicaraguan man who was the chief suspect in the slaying. The US man was identified as Dirk Beauchamp, 57. His partner was named as Yemmi Duran, 38.

  COLOMBIA

  Acid-attack sponsor jailed

  A man who hired a homeless person to douse his live-in lover’s face with acid was sentenced to 40 years in prison on charges including torture, authorities on Tuesday said. The Fifth Criminal Circuit Court convicted Edgar Pinto of attempted homicide, felony assault and torture, and sentenced him to 40 years and 10 months, prosecutors said. “This is the first time we have had a conviction on a torture charge in a case related to an acid attack,” Special Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor Juan Hernando Poveda said. Pinto and his partner lived together between 2005 to 2010, during which he physically and verbally abused her repeatedly, prosecutors said. On Dec. 24, 2010, a street person hurled acid at the woman’s face at night on a Bogota street, after being paid to commit the crime by Pinto, authorities said.

  COLOMBIA

  Prostitution ring busted

  Deputy Minister of the Interior Carlos Ferro on Tuesday resigned after video footage came to light supposedly linking him and the national chief of police to a male prostitution ring, sources said. Ferro, 53, resigned after the video linked him to a network known as The Fellowship of the Ring, sources close to the case told reporters. The video, on Tuesday broadcast by local media, was reportedly recorded in 2008 when Ferro was a senator and shows a man alleged to be him discussing having sexual relations with prostitutes. State attorneys earlier on Tuesday said they were investigating allegations against National Police chief Rodolfo Palomino, who is suspected of running the network.
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