JAPAN
Scaffold collapse kills two
A 12-story scaffold collapsed on Tuesday, killing two workers and leaving one missing, local media reported. The 40m structure gave way during the dismantling of a crane at a JFE Steel construction site in Kawasaki, public broadcaster NHK reported. Aerial footage showed a large, water-filled hole at the portside complex, with fire engines and rescue crews at the scene and divers conducting searches. Five people fell when the scaffold collapsed, NHK said, citing police and fire officials. Initial reports said that three of them were unconscious in critical condition, while one was conscious and another remained missing, but local media later reported that two of the workers had died. The site is in a part of the Kawasaki waterfront where work was under way to dismantle cranes used for unloading cargo from ships, NHK said.
Photo: Kyodo News via Reuters
AUSTRALIA
Ex-soldier to remain in jail
Military veteran Ben Roberts-Smith did not apply for bail when war crime murder charges against him were listed in a Sydney court yesterday. The charges relate to the deaths of five Afghans who died in 2009 and 2012 while Roberts-Smith served in Afghanistan as an elite Special Air Service Regiment corporal. Police on Tuesday said he had been charged with five counts of war crime murder, but the charges laid in court yesterday were two counts of war crime murder and three counts of aiding or abetting a war crime murder. All charges carry the same potential maximum sentence of life in prison. Roberts-Smith, 47, spent the night in jail after he was arrested at the Sydney Airport on Tuesday morning, and he did not appear in court either in person or by video link yesterday. His lawyers did not enter pleas to the charges or apply for his release on bail. The case was adjourned until June 4.
GREECE
Social media ban approved
The government is to ban access to social media for children younger than 15 from Jan. 1 next year, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said yesterday. “We have decided to go ahead with a difficult, but necessary, measure: ban access to social media for children under 15 years old,” he said in a video posted on TikTok. “Greece is among the first countries in the world to adopt such a measure,” he said, adding that he would put pressure on the EU to follow suit. Mitsotakis said he used social media to make the announcement so he could address teenagers and children directly: “I know that some of you are going to be angry... Our aim is not to keep you away from technology, but to combat addiction to certain applications that harms your innocence and your freedom.” He added that the “science is clear: When a child is in front of screens for hours, their brain does not rest.”
NIGERIA
Armed men kill 20 people
Armed men killed at least 20 people, including security guards, and abducted an unknown number of people after attacking villages in northwestern Niger State, police and residents said late on Tuesday. The attack happened in Shiroro District, where kidnapping gangs and Islamist militants are known to operate. Niger State Police spokesman Wasiu Abiodun said gunmen invaded Bagna and Erena villages on Tuesday and, when security responded, two community guards and a driver were killed, and others were injured. However, residents said that at least 20 people were killed and that the attackers, who also destroyed homes, operated for several hours and overwhelmed security personnel in the area.
SPEAKING OUT: After Siranudh Scott’s allegations surfaced, celebrities and public figures took to social media to share their own experiences of sexual misconduct and abuse A high-profile alleged sexual abuse case within a wealthy Thai beer brewing family has prompted a wave of painful accounts from survivors of unconnected abuse in the conservative nation. Siranudh Scott, a member of the billionaire Thai family that founded the ubiquitous Singha beer brand, posted an emotional video this month accusing his elder brother Sunit of repeatedly abusing him when he was a teenager. Sunit, who is in his 30s, later denied the allegations in a video posted online, but Singha parent Boonrawd dismissed him from his executive role with the company on Tuesday last week. “I felt I needed to speak
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
COMMUNITY CONFLICT: Concerns about disease spread from corpses has run up against friends and families’ desire to bury their dead as infection spreads in the area Angry residents of a town at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) attacked and burned a tent that was part of a health center where people are being treated for the virus, the staff there said Saturday. It was the second such attack in the region in a week. No one was hurt in the attack, according to reports but as patients ran out to escape the fire, 18 people with suspected Ebola infections fled the facility and are unaccounted for, a hospital director said. Angry residents arrived at the clinic in the
Forecasters in Europe yesterday warned of exceptional heat as record temperatures driven by a “heat dome” push temperatures well above seasonal norms across the continent. The surge follows a record-breaking Monday, with France logging its hottest day in the month of May on record, its weather agency said, and the UK also posting unprecedented highs. A so-called “heat dome” of warm air from northern Africa trapped under a high-pressure system over western Europe is behind the high temperatures not usually seen until high summer. Restrictions on outdoor work were imposed in parts of Italy, beaches in southwest France filled earlier than usual and
RSS