UKRAINE
Irpin examines 269 bodies
Investigators have examined 269 dead bodies in Irpin, near Kyiv, since the town was taken back from Russian forces late last month, a police official said on Monday. At a cemetery on the outskirts of Irpin, dozens of new graves have been dug and heaped with wreaths. Under the watch of a few tearful mourners, workers hurriedly shoveled the sandy earth into one grave on Monday. “As of now, we have inspected 269 dead bodies,” said Serhiy Panteleyev, first deputy head of the police’s main investigation department, at an online briefing. He said forensic work was ongoing to determine the cause of death for many of the victims, sharing photographs of charred human remains.
SPAIN
Separatists claim spying
Catalan separatists on Monday accused Spain of spying on dozens of its leaders’ mobile phones with Pegasus spyware, after details came to light in a report by a Canadian organization. At least 65 Catalan separatists were targeted, including the region’s current leader, according to the report by Citizen Lab research center at the University of Toronto cited by Spanish daily El Pais. Nearly all the phones were allegedly hacked between 2017 and 2020. The kind of espionage Madrid is accused of is illegal in the country. “We have been spied on in a huge and illegal manner through software that only states can possess,” former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont wrote on Twitter.
UNITED KINGDOM
Lang Lang to set up ‘labs’
Chinese piano virtuoso Lang Lang (郎朗) is bringing music to British public schools in an ambitious project that would set up state-of-the-art “piano labs” across the nation. Each lab is to have 20 to 30 keyboards. The scheme is inspired by his programs in the US and China, in which he has invested tens of millions of pounds. The first British school to benefit is Winns primary school in Waltham Forest, London’s 12th-most deprived borough. It is to receive 30 keyboards within the next few weeks.
UNITED STATES
Biden not going to Kyiv
President Joe Biden is not planning to visit Kyiv, the White House said Monday. “There’s no plans for the president to go. Let me just reiterate that,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters. A string of European leaders have made the trip to Kyiv and met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, but a Biden visit would present a more complex security challenge. The Biden administration has said it instead wants to send a high-ranking official, most likely Secretary of State Antony Blinken or Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Last week, Biden said “we’re making that decision,” although he muddied the waters by responding “yeah” when asked by a reporter whether he might go.
UNITED STATES
Infowars declares bankruptcy
Alex Jones has declared bankruptcy for his far-right Web site Infowars, documents seen on Monday showed. Jones, 48 — the deeply controversial figure on the US’ right-wing fringe and promoter of multiple debunked conspiracy theories — has been sued for years by parents of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut. Jones had claimed the massacre, which left 26 people dead, including 20 children, was a fake event staged by anti-gun activists, although he has since acknowledged that the murders were real.
FIJI
Superyacht to be seized
Authorities yesterday applied to block a superyacht reportedly owned by Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov from leaving its waters, as the US moved to seize it. The director of public prosecutions filed an application with the High Court seeking to hold the Amadea, which berthed in Lautoka last week. It asked for the Amadea to be “restrained from leaving Fijian waters,” while warrants to seize the property by local and US authorities were being prepared. A hearing date for the application has not been set. Last week, police confirmed they were investigating the luxury yacht, which sailed from Latin America before allegedly arriving in Fiji without customs clearance.
CHINA
Seven more die in Shanghai
The government reported seven more deaths from COVID-19 in Shanghai yesterday. City authorities revealed the first deaths of this outbreak on Monday, with yesterday’s fatalities bringing the official toll to just 10. Shanghai logged more than 20,000 new and mostly asymptomatic COVID-19 cases yesterday, defying officials’ efforts to stamp out the disease.
JAPAN
Sexist beef bowl VP sacked
Major beef bowl firm Yoshinoya Holdings Co yesterday sacked a managing director who made derogatory comments about getting naive young women “hooked” on the company’s products, saying that his conduct was “completely unacceptable.” Masaaki Ito, a managing director at the company — known for its inexpensive bowls of beef on rice — made the remarks at a marketing lecture at Tokyo’s Waseda University over the weekend. Yoshinoya, which in the past few years has made efforts to expand the appeal of its dishes to women, said that it had stripped Ito of all his positions with the company, effective Monday. The topic was trending on Twitter, with many posters expressing outrage. “Let’s deconstruct this remark — he showed contempt for women, young people, people from rural areas and his own company’s products,” one poster wrote. “In short, he pretty much insulted most of his company’s customers.”
AFGHANISTAN
Blasts rock boys’ school
Explosions targeting educational buildings in Kabul yesterday killed at least six people, including students, and injured 11, police said. The three blasts, which occurred in rapid succession, were being investigated and more casualties were feared, according to a Kabul police spokesman and the city’s Emergency Hospital. The explosions occurred near Abdul Rahim Shaheed High School for boys and inside an education center, where exams are taken in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood.
UNITED NATIONS
Houthis say no child soldiers
Yemen’s Houthi rebels have agreed to rid their ranks of child soldiers, who have fought by the thousands during the country’s seven-year civil war, the UN said on Monday. The Houthis signed what the UN described as an “action plan” to end and prevent recruiting or using children in armed conflict, killing or maiming children, or attacking schools and hospitals. UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the rebels committed releasing any children within six months. A top Houthi diplomat, Abdul Eluh Hajar, signed the agreement. Representatives from the UN Children’s Fund posed with Houthi officials for the media at a ceremony to mark the agreement in Yemen’s capital, Sana’a.
Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of teenage diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, has died. She was 96. The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Schloss was honorary president, said she died on Saturday in London, where she lived. Britain’s King Charles III said he was “privileged and proud” to have known Schloss, who cofounded the charitable trust to help young people challenge prejudice. “The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
Cambodia’s government on Wednesday said that it had arrested and extradited to China a tycoon who has been accused of running a huge online scam operation. The Cambodian Ministry of the Interior said that Prince Holding Group chairman Chen Zhi (陳志) and two other Chinese citizens were arrested and extradited on Tuesday at the request of Chinese authorities. Chen formerly had dual nationality, but his Cambodian citizenship was revoked last month, the ministry said. US prosecutors in October last year brought conspiracy charges against Chen, alleging that he had been the mastermind behind a multinational cyberfraud network, used his other businesses to launder
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