NORWAY
Breivik ruling appeal starts
The government yesterday started an appeal against a ruling that it treated mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik inhumanely by placing him in solitary confinement and restricting his movements. The Oslo District Court said that the isolation of the 37-year-old right-wing extremist, who killed 77 people in a bomb and shooting rampage in 2011, breached the European Convention on Human Rights. The government has maintained that Breivik, who is serving a 21-year sentence, is treated humanely despite the severity of his crimes and that he must be separated from other inmates for safety reasons. The appeals case opened yesterday in a makeshift courtroom in Skien prison, where Breivik is incarcerated. Six days have been reserved for the hearings.
SOUTH KOREA
Sex slave protester dies
A Buddhist monk has died days after he set himself on fire to protest the nation’s deal with Japan on former Korean sex slaves, Seoul National University Hospital said yesterday. The monk, 64, set himself ablaze on Saturday during rallies against impeached President Park Geun-hye. In his notebook found at the scene, he criticized Park’s 2015 agreement to settle an impasse over Korean women forced to be sex slaves for Japanese troops during World War II in return for an apology from the Japanese prime minister and a pledge of millions of US dollars. The monk was pronounced dead on Monday night of multiple organ failures caused by his burns, the hospital said.
SOUTH KOREA
Park’s friend snubs trial
President Park Geun-hye’s longtime friend at the center of a massive corruption scandal yesterday refused to testify at Park’s impeachment trial, with lawmakers alleging that it was a stalling tactic. The Constitutional Court had expected to hear from Choi Soon-sil, who is in jail and also on trial for allegedly using her connections with the president to extort money and favors from companies and unlawfully interfere with government affairs. However, Choi submitted documents to the court saying she was unable to testify. Two jailed former presidential aides who purportedly helped Choi also refused to testify, saying they needed to prepare for their own trials. Lawmakers, who function as prosecutors at the impeachment trial, raised suspicions that Park’s lawyers were controlling the witnesses as a stalling tactic.
IRAN
Tehran open to ‘hajj’ talks
Tehran is ready to “participate in bilateral talks” with Saudi Arabia about this year’s hajj pilgrimage, the IRNA news agency late on Monday quoted Ali Qaziaskar, a representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as saying. Like other Islamic nations, Iran has received an invitation letter from Riyadh to discuss the next pilgrimage, he said. Tehran boycotted last year’s hajj after a stampede and crush of pilgrims during the previous year’s pilgrimage killed at least 2,426 people, including 464 Iranians, according to an Associated Press count.
AUSTRALIA
Hicks charged with assault
David Hicks, the first prisoner held at the US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to be convicted by a military court, yesterday appeared in a court in Adelaide charged with assaulting his partner. Hicks, 41, appeared at a pretrial conference on a charge that he assaulted his partner in September. He has yet to plea to the charge, which carries a potential two-year sentence. He was released on bail to appear next on Feb. 28.
ISRAEL
Troops kill Palestinian
The Israeli military said troops have shot dead a Palestinian attacker who tried to stab soldiers in the West Bank. Israeli forces were on an arrest raid in the Fara Refugee Camp yesterday when the Palestinian charged toward them with a knife, they said. The troops shot him after he ignored warnings to halt. Palestinians said 32-year-old Mohammed al-Salhi was shot dead in his home.
UNITED STATES
Jolie Pitt and Pitt reach pact
Angelina Jolie Pitt and Brad Pitt have reached an agreement to handle their divorce in a private forum and will work together to reunify their family, the actors announced in a joint statement on Monday. Their statement released on Monday night to The Associated Press said that they will keep future details of their divorce confidential by using a private judge. “The parents are committed to act as a united front to effectuate recovery and reunification,” the statement said. Authorities investigated allegations that Pitt was abusive toward his 15-year-old son on a private flight, but sources familiar with the cases said the actor was cleared of any wrongdoing.
COLOMBIA
Suspension bridge fails
A suspension bridge popular with tourists in a rural area of central Colombia has failed, killing at least seven people and injuring 14 more. The bridge near Villavicencio is a major tourist attraction. Authorities said it might have turned upside down on Monday due to overload during a busy three-day holiday weekend. Those injured are being treated at a local hospital. Officials said they fear the death toll could rise because the injuries suffered by people spilled 80m into a gorge were severe. Firefighters at the rescue scene said the dead included five adults and two minors.
UNITED STATES
Chairlift accident probed
Electrical problems caused a chairlift at a small Colorado ski resort to hit a support tower and topple a Texas woman about 7.6m to her death, state investigators said on Monday. According to a report by the Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Board, problems with the chairlift’s electrical drive/control system “contributed to a rare dynamic event that occurred on the lift at the time of the incident.” The four-person chair carrying Kelly Huber, 40, and her two young daughters hit a support tower at Ski Granby Ranch on Dec. 29, causing the family to fall onto hard-packed snow. The woman died from a ruptured aorta and other traumatic injuries, an autopsy concluded. Her 12-year-old daughter was treated at a local hospital and released, while her 9-year-old daughter was flown to a hospital in Denver.
UNITED STATES
Arrest in ‘Hollyweed’ case
Zachary Cole Fernandez, 30, was arrested on Monday, just over a week after a prankster used white tarps to make the “Hollywood” sign read “Hollyweed,” the Los Angeles Police Department said in a statement. Fernandez turned himself in with his attorney and was booked on suspicion of misdemeanor trespassing, police said. The prankster was dressed in black and was recorded by security cameras in the area changing the sign early New Year’s Day. Fernandez, an artist, had already claimed credit for the stunt in a Vice magazine interview, but police had not confirmed his involvement. Fernandez said that he had heard someone pulled the same prank in the 1970s and he sought to repeat it to “bring positivity into the world.”
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
SUPERFAN: The Japanese PM played keyboard in a Deep Purple tribute band in middle school and then switched to drums at university, she told the British rock band Legendary British rock band Deep Purple yesterday made Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s day with a brief visit to their high-profile superfan as they returned to the nation they first toured more than half a century ago. Takaichi’s reputation as an amateur drummer, and a fan of hard rock and heavy metal has been well documented, and she has referred to Deep Purple as one of her favorite bands along with the likes of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. “You are my god,” a giddy Takaichi said in English to Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice, presenting him with a set of made-in-Japan
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