IN BRIEF (Page 12)

France

Clashes over alleged police rape

Police fired tear gas after clashes erupted on Saturday in the suburbs of Paris as demonstrators protested over the assault of a young black man who was allegedly raped with a truncheon while being arrested. Surrounded by a heavy police contingent, about 2,000 protesters, some carrying placards saying "Police rape" and "Police kill innocent people", gathered in Bobigny, northeast of the French capital, to demand "Justice for Theo". Theo, a 22-year-old black youth worker, required surgery after his arrest on Feb 2 in the suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois, when he claims a police officer sodomised him with a baton.

Australia

1 killed, 4 injured at water skiing race

A man died on Sunday after a boat towing two water skiers crashed during a high-speed race on the Murray River on the New South Wales-Victoria state border in Australia. Police said the driver of the ski-race boat, David Morabito, 50, died at the scene after efforts by paramedics to try and revive him on the riverbank. The accident happened at the annual Southern 80 water skiing event.

Belgium

70 suffer poisoning at karting event

Around 70 people suffered carbon monoxide poisoning, including five seriously, at a private indoor karting event in central Belgium on Saturday, authorities said. The incident took place at around 8:30pm at a newly opened indoor karting venue in Wavre, a suburban town about 30 kilometers southeast of Brussels. The victims were taken to local hospitals across central Belgium for treatment.

Japan

Manga legend Taniguchi dies

Jiro Taniguchi, a legend in Japan's comic art of manga, died in Tokyo on Saturday at the age of 69, leaving behind an international following for his exquisite line drawing of scenes from everyday life. The artist's French publisher Casterman announced his death on its website, adding that he had been seriously ill, as it expressed its deep condolences to his family. Taniguchi first shot to fame in Japan at the end of the 1980s with the first volume of The Times of Botchan, which centres around Natsume Soseki, one of Japan's greatest writers.

Dominican Republic

Paper apologizes for Trump gaffe

Alec Baldwin does a pretty convincing Donald Trump impersonation - just ask a newspaper in the Dominican Republic. El Nacional published an apology on Saturday after mistakenly running a photo of the actor doing his impression of the US president on Saturday Night Live instead of Trump himself. Accompanying an article in its Friday edition headlined in Spanish: "Trump says settlements in Israel don't favor peace," a photo of a scowling Baldwin in a blond wig appears next to a photo of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

(China Daily 02/13/2017 page12)