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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
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