SOUTH KOREA
US trying to persuade North
The US is “very actively” trying to persuade North Korea to come back to negotiations, the national security adviser said yesterday, as a year-end North Korean deadline for US flexibility approaches. Seoul was taking the deadline “very seriously,” Chung Eui-yong told reporters, at a time when efforts to improve inter-Korean relations have stalled. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in April gave the US a year-end deadline to show more flexibility, and North Korean officials have warned the US not to ignore the date.
RUSSIA
Man found carrying arms
Saint Petersburg police on Saturday arrested a prominent historian on suspicion of murdering a former student after he was hauled out of a river with a backpack containing a woman’s arms, authorities said. Local media reported that university professor Oleg Sokolov was drunk and fell into the river as he tried to dispose of body parts. Police then went to Sokolov’s home, where they reportedly discovered the decapitated body of Anastasia Yeshchenko, 24, with whom he had coauthored a number of works. The historian is the author of books on Napoleon Bonaparte and had acted as a historical consultant on several films.
EL SALVADOR
Body of advocate found
The body of a transgender advocate missing since Tuesday has been found in the northeast, authorities said. Jade Camila Diaz, 27, is the second transgender woman killed in the country in the past 15 days, said advocacy group Comcavis Trans, which told local media that there have been at least seven LGBT-related murders this year. “We regret to inform you that Jade Diaz’s body was found in the waters of the Torola River,” the Attorney General’s Office said on Twitter on Saturday. Diaz had been dead for three or four days, it said. Diaz’s body was found with her “hands tied and weighted with a bag of stones,” Comcavis Trans president Bianka Rodriguez said.
ITALY
Man admits to deadly scam
A heavily indebted man seeking to make a false insurance claim has confessed to setting off explosions at a farmhouse he owned that killed three firefighters, a prosecutor said on Saturday. Giovanni Vincenti told investigators that he meant to blow up his farmhouse in the northwestern region of Piedmont by setting off gas canisters, but he made a mistake with a timer connected to the canisters and triggered two explosions, Prosecutor Enrico Cieri said. Firefighters went to the farmhouse after the initial explosion early on Tuesday and were then struck by a second, stronger blast.
UNITED STATES
Inmate’s ‘death’ claim denied
An Iowa prisoner serving a life sentence has argued he had paid his debt to society after “dying” momentarily in hospital. Benjamin Schreiber was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison in 1996. In March 2015, he developed severe complications from kidney stones and went into septic shock. He lost consciousness in his cell and was taken to hospital. Once there, he momentarily “died” in doctors’ care before being revived. According to his attorneys, his momentary “death” meant he had completed his life sentence and his return to prison was therefore illegal. A lower court found the argument “unpersuasive and without merit.” Schreiber took the matter further, but appeals court judges were also not convinced.
Nauru has started selling passports to fund climate action, but is so far struggling to attract new citizens to the low-lying, largely barren island in the Pacific Ocean. Nauru, one of the world’s smallest nations, has a novel plan to fund its fight against climate change by selling so-called “Golden Passports.” Selling for US$105,000 each, Nauru plans to drum up more than US$5 million in the first year of the “climate resilience citizenship” program. Almost six months after the scheme opened in February, Nauru has so far approved just six applications — covering two families and four individuals. Despite the slow start —
North Korean troops have started removing propaganda loudspeakers used to blare unsettling noises along the border, South Korea’s military said on Saturday, days after Seoul’s new administration dismantled ones on its side of the frontier. The two countries had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who is seeking to ease tensions with Pyongyang. The South Korean Ministry of National Defense on Monday last week said it had begun removing loudspeakers from its side of the border as “a practical measure aimed at helping ease
DEADLY TASTE TEST: Erin Patterson tried to kill her estranged husband three times, police said in one of the major claims not heard during her initial trial Australia’s recently convicted mushroom murderer also tried to poison her husband with bolognese pasta and chicken korma curry, according to testimony aired yesterday after a suppression order lapsed. Home cook Erin Patterson was found guilty last month of murdering her husband’s parents and elderly aunt in 2023, lacing their beef Wellington lunch with lethal death cap mushrooms. A series of potentially damning allegations about Patterson’s behavior in the lead-up to the meal were withheld from the jury to give the mother-of-two a fair trial. Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale yesterday rejected an application to keep these allegations secret. Patterson tried to kill her
CORRUPTION PROBE: ‘I apologize for causing concern to the people, even though I am someone insignificant,’ Kim Keon-hee said ahead of questioning by prosecutors The wife of South Korea’s ousted former president Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday was questioned by a special prosecutor as investigators expanded a probe into suspicions of stock manipulation, bribery and interference in political party nominations. The investigation into Kim Keon-hee is one of three separate special prosecutor probes launched by the government targeting the presidency of Yoon, who was removed from office in April and rearrested last month over his brief imposition of martial law on Dec. 3 last year. The incident came during a seemingly routine standoff with the opposition, who he described as “anti-state” forces abusing their legislative majority to obstruct
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