IRAN
Japanese freed on bail
A Japanese national who had been detained in Iran since Jan. 20 has been released on bail, Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara told reporters in Tokyo said yesterday. Japanese Ambassador to Iran Tamaki Tsukada met the person, who was released on Monday, and confirmed that he was in good health without providing further details, Kihara said. The person is believed to be a journalist at NHK public television. Another Japanese, who was detained in Iran in June last year, was freed and returned to Japan last month.
Photo: AFP
AUSTRALIA
Nanny to be extradited
A former nanny yesterday lost a final court fight to avoid extradition to Chile on allegations of kidnapping in the 1970s during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Adriana Elcira Rivas Gonzalez, in her early 70s, was arrested in Sydney in February 2019, following an extradition request from Chile. She had been working part-time as a nanny and cleaner in the city’s Bondi suburb. Chile has accused Rivas of seven counts of “aggravated kidnapping” of figures who disappeared in the 1970s when she was an alleged member of Pinochet’s feared secret police.
PHILIPPINES
Filipina killed in airstrike
The Middle East war has claimed its second Philippine victim, when a missile struck the home of a Filipina living in Israel, the Department of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. The woman was killed in the city of Haifa on Sunday “alongside her Israeli husband and elderly parents-in-law,” it said, without naming the victims. Israeli rescue services on Monday said that the bodies of four people had been recovered from the rubble of a residential building after it was struck by an Iranian missile the previous day. Israeli news outlets identified the Filipina victim’s given name as Lucille-Jean. “The Philippine Embassy in Tel Aviv has informed the family and is providing all necessary assistance, including arrangements for the earliest possible repatriation of her remains,” the department said.
FRANCE
TGV driver killed in collision
The driver of a high-speed TGV train was killed and 27 people injured yesterday when the train collided with a truck, officials said. The accident occurred at a level crossing between the towns of Bethune and Lens in the northern region of Pas-de-Calais at about 7am, the rail operator SNCF said. “I am heading to the scene with the chief executive of the SNCF, Jean Castex,” Minister of Transport Philippe Tabarot said on X. Neither the SNCF nor the prefecture were able to provide details of the circumstances of the accident. Rail services were to be suspended between Bethune and Lens until at least late yesterday, the SNCF said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Doctors begin six-day strike
Resident doctors in England yesterday started a six-day walkout after rejecting an offer the government said would not get better, with the British Medical Association (BMA) saying it fell short of reversing years of pay erosion and staffing pressures. The strike action during the Easter holiday period is due to run until the morning of Monday next week after a 48-hour ultimatum from Prime Minister Keir Starmer passed without agreement. The government has withdrawn a pledge to fund 1,000 additional specialty training posts that it said had been contingent on the deal being accepted. The BMA represents about 55,000 of the so-called resident doctors who make up nearly half of the medical workforce.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
SUPERFAN: The Japanese PM played keyboard in a Deep Purple tribute band in middle school and then switched to drums at university, she told the British rock band Legendary British rock band Deep Purple yesterday made Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s day with a brief visit to their high-profile superfan as they returned to the nation they first toured more than half a century ago. Takaichi’s reputation as an amateur drummer, and a fan of hard rock and heavy metal has been well documented, and she has referred to Deep Purple as one of her favorite bands along with the likes of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. “You are my god,” a giddy Takaichi said in English to Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice, presenting him with a set of made-in-Japan
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