GERMANY
Police find dangerous snakes
Police on Sunday said they discovered more than 110 dangerous snakes on a farm, after a woman who lived there sought medical treatment for a poisonous bite. The 35-year-old woman drove to a hospital in Salzgitter early on Sunday, and told doctors that one of her rattlesnakes bit her finger. While the woman’s condition deteriorated and authorities hastily ordered an antidote from a specialist institute in Hamburg, police found dozens of snakes on the farm. Police said that specialists determined the snake collection included constrictors and poisonous varieties, which were not housed in appropriate terrariums.
POLAND
Leader slams LGBTQ values
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, head of the ruling Law and Justice party, on Sunday pushed back against what he described as Western views on LGBTQ rights. He described a theoretical situation in which a person named Wladyslaw, which is traditionally a male name, asks to be called Zosia, a traditionally female name, at work. “And according to what we are recommended from the West that everyone should obey it,” Kaczynski told a rally in Grudziadz. “We do not intend to look into anyone’s bedroom, but at the same time we want to maintain normality.” A day earlier, he told a group that it was time to return to “some rules of decency” and “normal language.”
GERMANY
G7 leaders mock Putin
G7 leaders on Sunday mocked the macho image of their absent adversary Russian President Vladimir Putin, at a meeting in Germany dominated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. As the leaders sat down for their first meeting of the three-day summit in the sweltering Bavarian Alps, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson asked if they should remove their jackets — or if they should even disrobe further. “We all have to show that we’re tougher than Putin,” Johnson said, to laughter from some of his colleagues. “Bare-chested horseback riding,” shot back Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “Oh yes,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. “Horseback riding is the best.”
UNITED STATES
Child’s body found in freezer
A Detroit woman has been charged in the death of her three-year-old son after police found the boy’s decomposing body in a basement freezer. The 31-year-old woman is charged with first-degree murder, child abuse and torture, and concealing the death of an individual, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said on Sunday. “The alleged facts in this case have astounded even the seriously jaded,” Worthy said. Detroit police and Child Protective Services on Friday discovered the body during a welfare check at the home, Detroit Police Chief James White said. It was not immediately clear how or when the boy died, or how long his body had been in the freezer. Five other children living at the home were placed in the custody of Child Protective Services, White said.
MEXICO
Six killed in shoot-out
Six police officers were on Sunday killed and four others wounded in the northern border state of Nuevo Leon after they were ambushed by a presumed drug gang equipped with 10 homemade armored vehicles and heavy weaponry. State police said the patrol was outnumbered in the predawn attack on a highway leading to the Colombia border crossing. There was no immediate information on the identity of the attackers.
AUSTRALIA
Bees placed on lockdown
The Varroa destructor was detected at the Port of Newcastle, prompting New South Wales authorities to throw up a biosecurity zone. Beekeepers inside the 50km biosecurity zone cannot move hives, bees, honey or honeycomb until further notice. Varroa destructors, tiny red-brown mites, attack and feed on honey bees — killing entire colonies, although not those of the country’s native bees. However, the country’s honey industry relies primarily on non-native species.
NORTH KOREA
US’ ‘Asian NATO’ decried
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has accused the US of setting up a military alliance like NATO in Asia. “While blatantly holding joint military exercises with Japan and South Korea, the United States is making a full-fledged move to establish an Asia-style NATO,” the ministry said in a statement on its Web site on Sunday. “This proves the hypocrisy of the US rhetoric of ‘diplomatic engagement’ and ‘dialogue without preconditions,’” it said. “The reality ... makes us feel the need to make all-out efforts to develop even stronger power to be able to subdue all kinds of hostile acts by the United States,” it added. The criticism came a day before South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol left to attend a NATO summit in Spain, the first South Korean leader to do so.
HONG KONG
Police adopt ‘goose step’
Police on Friday are to officially swap British-style marching for the “goose step” used in China. “To promote patriotism and enhance the awareness of national identity, the Hong Kong Police Force will fully adopt Chinese foot drills from July 1,” the territory’s Police Force said in a statement. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army last year trained the territory’s police cadets on the goose-step style, where soldiers conduct foot drills without bending their knees. Since then, the style has been used at events to promote national security and adopted by the Customs Department. The switch is to take place on the 25th anniversary of the territory’s return to China.
CHINA
Shanghai lockdown ‘correct’
Chinese Communist Party Committee Secretary of Shanghai Li Qiang (李強) declared victory in defending the city against COVID-19, describing a two-month lockdown that confined millions of people to their homes and spurred sporadic unrest as “completely correct.” Shanghai “broke the repeated stalemate of the epidemic, realized and consolidated the fruits of dynamic clearance in society, and won the battle to defend Shanghai,” Li told the city’s party congress on Saturday.
NORTH MACEDONIA
Police hold two traffickers
Police said they discovered 24 migrants hiding in a van on a major highway in the country’s south on Sunday and arrested two men as suspected people smugglers. Police identified the two male suspects, aged 50 and 47, only by their initials, B.A. and A.D., adding that they were local residents. Police think the people inside the van entered the country illegally from Greece, with plans to continue on to Serbia and then to wealthier European countries. They were transferred to a migrant reception center in the border town of Gevgelija, pending deportation to Greece. Police said they have intercepted a number of people in the past few weeks as the so-called “Balkan route,” which runs through the country, has become more active following the lifting of COVID-19 travel restrictions.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing