Page 10 The Skanner July 27, 2016
News
World News Briefs
SAGAMIHARA, Japan (AP) — Japa-
nese police on Wednesday searched the
home of the suspect in a mass stabbing
spree that let 19 people dead at a facili-
ty for the mentally disabled.
The suspect, 26-year-old Satoshi Ue-
matsu, was transferred earlier in the
day from a local police station to the
prosecutor’s oice in Yokohama.
The attacker let dead or injured
nearly a third of the approximately 150
patients at the facility in a matter of
40 minutes early Tuesday, Kanagawa
prefectural authorities said. The ire
department said 25 were wounded, 20
of them seriously.
Uematsu turned himself into police
about two hours ater the pre-dawn
attack in Sagamaihara, a city about 50
kilometers (30 miles) west of central
Tokyo.
He had worked at the facility until
February, when he delivered a letter
to Parliament outlining a bloody plan
to attack two facilities for the handi-
capped and saying all disabled people
should be put to death.
Witnesses Say South
Sudan Soldiers Raped
Dozens Near UN Camp
JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — South
Sudanese government soldiers raped
dozens of ethnic Nuer women and girls
last week just out-
side a United Nations
camp where they had
sought
protection
from renewed ight-
ing, and at least two
died from their inju-
ries, witnesses and
civilian leaders said.
The rapes in the
capital of Juba high-
lighted two per-
sistent problems in
the chaotic country
engulfed by civil
war: targeted eth-
nic violence and the Police oicers enter into the house of Satoshi Uematsu, the suspect in a
reluctance by U.N. mass stabbing attack, in Sagamihara, outside of Tokyo Wednesday. The
peacekeepers to pro- suspect was being transferred Wednesday from a local police station to
the prosecutor’s oice in Yokohama.
tect civilians.
At least one assault
occurred as peacekeepers watched, es interviewed insisted on speaking on
witnesses told The Associated Press condition of anonymity because they
feared reprisals by soldiers if identi-
during a visit to the camp.
ied.
On July 17, two armed soldiers in uni-
form dragged away a woman who was
less than a few hundred meters (yards) France’s Religious Leaders
from the U.N. camp’s western gate Unite Ater Church Attack
while armed peacekeepers on foot, in
PARIS (AP) — France’s main religious
an armored vehicle and in a watchtow-
er looked on. One witness estimated leaders have sent a message of unity
that 30 peacekeepers from Nepalese and solidarity following a meeting with
French President Francois Hollande
and Chinese battalions saw it.
“They were seeing it. Everyone was a day ater two extremists attacked a
seeing it,” he said. “The woman was se- Catholic church and slit the throat of an
riously screaming, quarreling and cry- elderly priest.
Hollande was presiding over a de-
ing also, but there was no help. She was
crying for help.” He and other witness- fense council and cabinet meeting
Wednesday ater speaking with Roman
Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim and Jewish
leaders.
On Tuesday, the attackers took hos-
tages at the church in Saint-Etienne-
du-Rouvray, in the northwest region of
Normandy, during morning Mass. Af-
ter the priest was slain, both attackers,
one a local man, were killed by police
outside the church.
Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal An-
dre Vingt-Trois, called on Catholics to
AP PHOTO/SHIZUO KAMBAYASHI
Japan Police Search Home
of Stabbing Spree Suspect
“overcome hatred that comes in their
heart” and not to “enter the game” of
the Islamic State group that “wants to
set children of the same family upon
each other.”
The rector of the main Paris mosque,
Dalil Boubakeur, said France’s Mus-
lims must push for better training of
Muslim clerics and urged that reform-
ing French Muslim institutions be put
on the agenda, but without elaborating.
California Wildire Forces
Shutdown of Famed Big
Sur Parks
BIG SUR, Calif. (AP) — California’s sig-
nature parks along the Big Sur coast-
line that draw thousands of daily visi-
tors were closed Tuesday as one of the
state’s two major wildires threatened
the scenic region at the height of the
summer tourism season.
To the south, ireighters made prog-
ress containing a huge blaze in moun-
tains outside Los Angeles, allowing
authorities to let most of 20,000 people
evacuated over the weekend to return
home. In Wyoming, a large backcoun-
try wildire in the Shoshone National
Forest put about 290 homes and guest
ranches at risk.
The Big Sur ire threatened a long
stretch of pristine, forested mountains
hugging the coast and sent smoke bil-
lowing over the famed Paciic Coast
Highway, which remained open with
few if any lames visible to motorists
but a risk that the blaze could reach
beloved campgrounds, lodges and red-
woods near the shore.
“It is folly to predict where this ire
will go,” said California state parks
spokesman Dennis Weber.
The Los Angeles-area ire has de-
stroyed 18 homes since it started and
authorities over the weekend discov-
ered a burned body in a car identiied
as a man who refused to be evacuated.