Three people, including two students on their way to take university entrance exams, were yesterday stabbed near the entrance of a test venue in Tokyo, police said, adding that authorities had arrested a 17-year-old student at the scene on suspicion of attempted murder.
The victims — two 18-year-old high-school students and a 72-year-old man — were all conscious and their injuries were not life-threatening when they were rushed to a hospital for treatment, police said.
However, the elderly victim was later in serious condition, local media reported.
Photo: Reuters
Police said the alleged attacker, who was identified only as a high school student from the central Japanese city of Nagoya because he is a minor, slashed the three people in their back on a street just outside of the University of Tokyo’s main campus, one of the venues for Japan’s two-day nationwide entrance exams this weekend.
Police said they are investigating the alleged attacker’s motives, adding that he was not taking the exam.
Police are also looking into a small fire at a nearby subway station that occurred just before the attack.
The suspect also claimed to be responsible for the subway station fire, local media reported.
The alleged attacker told police that he was struggling with his academic performance and that he wanted to kill himself after committing the crimes, NHK public television reported.
About 3,700 students attended yesterday’s exams at the University of Tokyo, which began as scheduled, despite the attack.
Violent crimes are rare in Japan, but there have been a series of random knifing and arson attacks in the past few months.
Last month, 25 people were killed in an arson attack at a mental health clinic in Osaka, in which a suspect was badly injured and later died.
In October, a 24-year-old man dressed in a Joker costume from the Batman movies stabbed an elderly man and started a fire on a crowded train car in Tokyo, injuring more than a dozen passengers.
In August, a 36-year-old man wounded about 10 people in a knife attack on another Tokyo commuter train.
STEPPING UP: Diminished US polar science presence mean opportunities for the UK and other countries, although China or Russia might also fill that gap, a researcher said The UK’s flagship polar research vessel is to head to Antarctica next week to help advance dozens of climate change-linked science projects, as Western nations spearhead studies there while the US withdraws. The RRS Sir David Attenborough, a state-of-the-art ship named after the renowned British naturalist, would aid research on everything from “hunting underwater tsunamis” to tracking glacier melt and whale populations. Operated by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the country’s polar research institute, the 15,000-tonne icebreaker — boasting a helipad, and various laboratories and gadgetry — is pivotal to the UK’s efforts to assess climate change’s impact there. “The saying goes
Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in the biggest crackdown on Christians since 2018. The detentions, which come amid renewed China-US tensions after Beijing dramatically expanded rare earth export controls last week, drew condemnation from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on Sunday called for the immediate release of the pastors. Pastor Jin Mingri (金明日), founder of Zion Church, an unofficial “house church” not sanctioned by the Chinese government, was detained at his home in the southern city of Beihai on Friday evening, said
Floods on Sunday trapped people in vehicles and homes in Spain as torrential rain drenched the northeastern Catalonia region, a day after downpours unleashed travel chaos on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. Local media shared videos of roaring torrents of brown water tearing through streets and submerging vehicles. National weather agency AEMET decreed the highest red alert in the province of Tarragona, warning of 180mm of rain in 12 hours in the Ebro River delta. Catalan fire service spokesman Oriol Corbella told reporters people had been caught by surprise, with people trapped “inside vehicles, in buildings, on ground floors.” Santa Barbara Mayor Josep Lluis
The Venezuelan government on Monday said that it would close its embassies in Norway and Australia, and open new ones in Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe in a restructuring of its foreign service, after weeks of growing tensions with the US. The closures are part of the “strategic reassignation of resources,” Venezueland President Nicolas Maduro’s government said in a statement, adding that consular services to Venezuelans in Norway and Australia would be provided by diplomatic missions, with details to be shared in the coming days. The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it had received notice of the embassy closure, but no