JAPAN
DPP leader admits affair
Yuichiro Tamaki, head of the opposition Democratic Party for the People (DPP), said that a tabloid report about his extramarital affair with a model was “basically true.” “I apologize for the trouble caused,” Tamaki told reporters at a hastily called news conference after tabloid SmartFlash yesterday reported the affair. Despite the scandal, Tamaki retained the unanimous support of the party’s lawmakers to stay on as party leader, DPP Secretary-General Kazuya Shimba told reporters. SmartFlash reported that Tamaki, 55, and a 39-year-old model and entertainer rendezvoused in July and last month.
AUSTRALIA
Chef Oliver withdraws book
Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has withdrawn his latest children’s book from sale after criticism it stereotyped members of the indigenous community. Billy and the Epic Escape, released in May, contains a passage where an indigenous Australian girl living in foster care is abducted by the story’s villain — a sensitive issue in a country where indigenous children were for decades forcibly removed from their parents. It also contained errors made by mixing different indigenous languages. “I am devastated to have caused offence and apologise wholeheartedly,” the Guardian reported Oliver, who is currently in Australia promoting his latest cookbook, as saying in a statement on Sunday. “It was never my intention to misinterpret this deeply painful issue. Together with my publishers we have decided to withdraw the book from sale.” Oliver’s publisher Penguin Random House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
SINGAPORE
Priest ‘stabber’ charged
A Singaporean man was yesterday charged with stabbing a priest celebrating a weekend Mass, court papers showed, but the Ministry of Home Affairs said there was no evidence the attack was religiously motivated or an act of terror. Basnayake Keith Spencer, 37, is accused of using a foldable knife to stab parish priest Christopher Lee Kwong Heng, 57, in the mouth during Saturday’s evening Mass at St Joseph’s Church in the upmarket Bukit Timah District, the charge sheet showed. Spencer was disarmed and held by members of the congregation until police officers arrived. Among the four other weapons on him were a penknife and a mallet, authorities said. Spencer was charged with voluntarily causing grievous hurt using a weapon likely to cause death, which carries a life sentence, or up to 15 years in jail, along with a caning and a fine. Media said he was not represented in court. His motive for the attack was not immediately clear. The ministry said he had a history of offenses of causing serious hurt and drug use. The priest, who suffered cuts to his tongue, upper lip and a corner of his mouth, is recovering in hospital.
MEXICO
Mariachis ‘break’ record
More than 1,000 mariachis on Sunday gathered in Mexico City’s main plaza, strumming guitars and singing classics like Cielito Lindo to end a mariachi congress celebrating the musical form. The number of musicians apparently topped the previous record of 700 mariachis at an earlier gathering in the city of Guadalajara. The Guinness World Records organization has not replied to a message from The Associated Press asking whether Sunday’s gathering broke the previous record. The musicians, many of whom had traveled from other cities, expressed their joy at singing in the giant iconic plaza, saying the music is a family tradition they start learning at a young age.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
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