UNITED STATES
Alleged urinater arrested
A manager at an Arby’s fast food restaurant in Washington state has been accused of urinating into a milkshake mix that might then have been served to dozens of people. Police in Vancouver, just across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon, said they uncovered footage of the 29-year-old man peeing into a bag of milkshake mix as they were executing a search warrant on his phone as part of a child pornography investigation, the Columbian newspaper reported. The manager made one court appearance on Wednesday last week on child porn allegations and another on Friday, for a new allegation of second-degree assault with sexual motivation, after police said they found the 16-second urination video. The manager said he was working alone in the restaurant that night and that he did it for sexual gratification.
UNITED KINGDOM
Monkeypox cases rise
Health authorities are investigating four more cases of rare viral monkeypox infection that have been diagnosed in England, taking the total confirmed cases since May 6 to seven. The Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said investigations were under way to establish links between the latest four cases, who appear to have been infected in London and do not have known connections with the other three cases. Monkeypox is a rare viral infection similar to human smallpox, which was eradicated in 1980. Although monkeypox is much milder than smallpox, with most infected people recovering within a few weeks, it can in rare cases be fatal. All four of the new cases self-identify as gay, bisexual or other men who have sex with men, the UKHSA said. They have the west African clade of the virus, which is mild compared with the Central African one, it said.
EL SALVADOR
Gang arrests hit 30,000
More than 30,000 suspected gang members have been arrested since President Nayib Bukele in March launched his “war on criminal groups” terrorizing the country, police said on Monday. Bukele announced a state of emergency in late March following a bloody weekend in which 87 people were killed in gang-related violence. Since then, the police and military have been rounding up suspected gang members using emergency powers that have done away with the need for arrest warrants. The nation has also increased sentences for gang membership five-fold, to up to 45 years. The national civil police force wrote on Twitter that “536 terrorists were arrested on Sunday May 15, the date at which we reached 50 days since the beginning of the state of emergency,” adding: “The total number captured since the beginning of the war on gangs is 30,506.”
FRANCE
Grenoble authorises ‘burkini’
Grenoble on Monday authorized the wearing of the so-called “burkini” by Muslim women in state-run swimming pools, reigniting one of France’s most contentious debates on religous dress. The all-in-one swimsuit, used by some Muslim women to cover their bodies and hair while bathing, has become a controversial talking point during the holiday season in the past few years. Seen as a symbol of creeping Islamism by its critics and an affront to France’s secular traditions, some people would like to ban it outright. It is prohibited in most state-run pools — for hygiene, not religious reasons — where strict swimwear rules apply to all, including men, who are required to wear tight-fitting trunks.
NORTH KOREA
US warns on IT staff
US officials have warned businesses against inadvertently hiring IT staff from North Korea, saying that rogue freelancers were taking advantage of remote work opportunities to hide their true identities and earn money for Pyongyang. In an advisory, the US said the effort was intended to circumvent US and UN sanctions, and bring in money for North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. “There are thousands of DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] IT workers both dispatched overseas and located within the DPRK, generating revenue that is remitted back to the North Korean government,” the advisory said. Many North Korean workers pretended to be from South Korea, Japan or other Asian nations, the advisory added.
JAPAN
Tour groups to return
The government is to allow small groups of tourists on package tours into the nation this month on an experimental basis. Travelers from the US, Australia, Thailand and Singapore who have received three COVID-19 vaccination shots and have medical insurance are to be allowed in as small groups on package tours, the Japan Tourism Agency said in a statement yesterday. Groups would need preset itineraries and must be accompanied by travel agency staff, it said. While peers such as Singapore and South Korea have opened their borders to vaccinated tourists, only about half of Japanese are in favor of plans to ease border controls, a poll conducted by Yomiuri Shimbun showed.
SAUDI ARABIA
Conjoined twin dies
One of two conjoined twins from war-torn Yemen has died after a “complicated” 15-hour operation to separate them, state media reported on Monday. The 19-month-old boys, Yussef and Yassin, were “conjoined in several organs,” and 24 doctors were involved in the operation, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said. On Monday morning the SPA hailed the procedure as a success, but a follow-up report on Monday night said that one of the twins had died. Doctors “faced great difficulties and challenges during the separation process, which made the deceased’s condition critical after the operation,” the report said, adding that the surviving twin was in a stable condition.
GUINEA-BISSAU
Parliament dissolved
President Umaro Sissoco Embalo on Monday dissolved parliament and said early elections would be held this year to resolve a long-running political crisis. Embalo cited “persistent and unresolvable differences” with parliament, which he described “a space for guerrilla politics and plotting.” “I have decided to give the floor back to Guineans so that this year they can freely choose the parliament they wish to have,” he said. A presidential decree said elections would be held on Dec. 18.
MALI
Countercoup thwarted
The government headed by a two-time coup leader on Monday announced that security forces had thwarted a countercoup attempt that it said was supported by an unnamed Western government. The news release did not name the nation it was accusing, but relations with former colonizer France have deteriorated significantly under Colonel Assimi Goita’s rule. “The government of the Republic of Mali condemns with the utmost rigor this outrageous attack on state security, the purpose of which is to hinder ... substantial efforts to secure our country and return to a constitutional order,” a statement said.
A plan by Switzerland’s right-wing People’s Party to cap the population at 10 million has the backing of almost half the country, according to a poll before an expected vote next year. The party, which has long campaigned against immigration, argues that too-fast population growth is overwhelming housing, transport and public services. The level of support comes despite the government urging voters to reject it, warning that strict curbs would damage the economy and prosperity, as Swiss companies depend on foreign workers. The poll by newspaper group Tamedia/20 Minuten and released yesterday showed that 48 percent of the population plan to vote
PARLIAMENT CHAOS: Police forcibly removed Brazilian Deputy Glauber Braga after he called the legislation part of a ‘coup offensive’ and occupied the speaker’s chair Brazil’s lower house of Congress early yesterday approved a bill that could slash former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence for plotting a coup, after efforts by a lawmaker to disrupt the proceedings sparked chaos in parliament. Bolsonaro has been serving a 27-year term since last month after his conviction for a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 election. Lawmakers had been discussing a bill that would significantly reduce sentences for several crimes, including attempting a coup d’etat — opening up the prospect that Bolsonaro, 70, could have his sentence cut to
A powerful magnitude 7.6 earthquake shook Japan’s northeast region late on Monday, prompting tsunami warnings and orders for residents to evacuate. A tsunami as high as three metres (10 feet) could hit Japan’s northeastern coast after an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.6 occurred offshore at 11:15 p.m. (1415 GMT), the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said. Tsunami warnings were issued for the prefectures of Hokkaido, Aomori and Iwate, and a tsunami of 40cm had been observed at Aomori’s Mutsu Ogawara and Hokkaido’s Urakawa ports before midnight, JMA said. The epicentre of the quake was 80 km (50 miles) off the coast of
RELAXED: After talks on Ukraine and trade, the French president met with students while his wife visited pandas, after the pair parted ways with their Chinese counterparts French President Emmanuel Macron concluded his fourth state visit to China yesterday in Chengdu, striking a more relaxed note after tough discussions on Ukraine and trade with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) a day earlier. Far from the imposing Great Hall of the People in Beijing where the two leaders held talks, Xi and China’s first lady, Peng Liyuan (彭麗媛), showed Macron and his wife Brigitte around the centuries-old Dujiangyan Dam, a World Heritage Site set against the mountainous landscape of Sichuan Province. Macron was told through an interpreter about the ancient irrigation system, which dates back to the third century
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