JAPAN
Police search for attacker
Police were yesterday searching for the attacker who fatally stabbed a junior-high school student and wounded another at a McDonald’s restaurant, local media reported. The teens were in line to order at about 8:30pm on Saturday when the attacker entered the fast-food restaurant in Fukuoka Prefecture’s Kitakyushu and wordlessly stabbed them both, national broadcaster NHK reported. They were rushed to a hospital where the girl later died. The other victim, a boy, survived and told police he did not know the man who had stabbed them, NHK said. It was not clear whether the girl knew the man, who remained at large yesterday. Dozens of police have deployed to find the attacker, described as a man who appears to be in his 40s, Television Nishinippon reported.
IRAN
Singer arrested after concert
Authorities have arrested a female singer who performed a virtual concert on YouTube, a lawyer said. Parastoo Ahmady, 27, was arrested in Sari City on Saturday, lawyer Milad Panahipour said. On Thursday, the judiciary had filed a case regarding Ahmady’s concert performance, in which she performed wearing a long black sleeveless and collarless dress, but no hijab. She was accompanied by four male musicians. Ahmady had posted her concert on YouTube the day before. “I am Parastoo, a girl who wants to sing for the people I love. This is a right I could not ignore; singing for the land I love passionately,” she said. The online concert has been viewed more than 1.4 million times. Panahipour said that he did not know the charges against Ahmady or her place of detention, adding that two musicians in her band were arrested in Tehran on Saturday. Separately, a court has sentenced Iranian-American journalist Reza Valizadeh to 10 years in prison for working at a US-funded radio outlet, his lawyer, Mohammad Hossein Aghasi, wrote on X on Saturday.
FRANCE
Oldest Miss France crowned
A 34-year-old flight attendant from the French Caribbean island of Martinique on Saturday became the oldest contestant to win the Miss France pageant. Angelique Angarni-Filopon clinched the crown thanks to a rule change that permitted women older than 24 to participate, as well as those who are married or are mothers. “In 2011, a young woman aged 20 finished first runner-up in the Miss Martinique competition. Today, it’s the same young woman aged 34 who stands before you to again represent Martinique, its diaspora as well as all the women who were once told that it was too late,” she said on winning the competition, which was broadcast by TF1.
UNITED STATES
Trump wins ABC News case
ABC News is to pay a US$15 million settlement to resolve a defamation lawsuit brought by president-elect Donald Trump, court documents filed on Saturday showed. The lawsuit stemmed from on-air comments made by top anchor George Stephanopoulos, who said Trump was found “liable for rape” during an interview with US Representative Nancy Mace that aired in March. The settlement require ABC News to donate US$15 million to a fund dedicated to “a presidential foundation and museum” for Trump. The news organization and Stephanopoulos would also issue public apologies saying they “regret statements” made about Trump during the aforementioned interview, and the broadcaster would pay an additional US$1 million in attorney fees. Trump had been found liable for sexual abuse — a different transgression from rape under New York law — in a case filed by writer E. Jean Carroll.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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