CANADA
Murder trial pushed to 2020
A man facing murder charges in the deaths of eight men with ties to Toronto’s gay village is not to stand trial until January 2020. Bruce McArthur said little in a brief court appearance on Friday and avoided looking at the family members of his alleged victims. Early this year, police found the remains of seven of the men in large planters at a property where the 67-year-old worked as a landscaper. The remains of the eighth alleged victim were found in a ravine behind the same property in midtown Toronto. The prosecution said that it was ready to start the trial in September next year, but the defense said it would not be available until January 2020. The trial was then scheduled to begin on Jan. 6, 2020.
UNITED STATES
Brangelina ink custody deal
Hollywood superstars Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have reached an amicable agreement on the custody of their six children, avoiding a potentially messy public trial, US media reported on Friday. Pitt and Jolie announced their separation in September 2016 after two years of marriage and 11 years together. Three of their children are their biological children and the other three are adopted. “A custody arrangement was agreed two weeks ago, and has been signed by both parties and the judge,” Jolie’s lawyer, Samantha Bley DeJean, said in a statement. “The agreement, which is based on the recommendations of the child custody evaluator, eliminates the need for a trial.” The couple had been set for a trial on Tuesday. Jolie originally wanted to have sole custody of the children, while Pitt asked for shared custody. The terms of the agreement are confidential, DeJean said. The couple is still working out the details of their divorce, with the distribution of assets reportedly proving especially thorny.
UNITED STATES
TV networks to probe Tyson
TV networks Fox and National Geographic are to investigate renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson after allegations of sexual misconduct were leveled against him. Patheos.com on Thursday published accounts from two women who said that Tyson behaved in a sexually inappropriate manner with them. Tyson was host of Cosmos on Fox in 2014 and a new edition of the series was to air on National Geographic next year. Tyson has not commented publicly and an e-mailed request for comment to his representative was not immediately returned. In a statement, the producers of Cosmos said: “The credo at the heart of Cosmos is to follow the evidence wherever it leads. The producers of Cosmos can do no less in this situation.” They said that they would conduct a thorough investigation. Fox and National Geographic on Friday evening said that they only recently learned of the allegations and were reviewing the allegations.
VENEZUELA
Do not give gold: opposition
Key opposition leaders have urged the Bank of England not to hand over US$550 million of gold reserves requested by President Nicolas Maduro. A letter sent on Friday to the bank said that Maduro’s government would steal the 14 tonnes of gold or use it to oppress and kill Venezuelans. The letter was from former National Assembly president Julio Borges and opposition party leader Carlos Vecchio, who are both living in exile. Critics have said Maduro is draining the country’s gold reserves to make up for plummeting crude production. The government has been repatriating gold reserves since 2012. The letter highlighted that the UK and the US consider Maduro’s government illegitimate.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
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