Norway attacker pleads guilty to murder
Buskerud: A man charged with killing five people and wounding four others in southern Norway when he attacked strangers with a bow and arrow and knives has pleaded guilty to murder and attempted murder.
Espen Andersen Brathen, 38, said at the start of his trial at Buskerud District Court: “I admit criminal guilt for the entire charges.” The five victims were fatally stabbed on October 13, 2021. Brathen also faces 11 counts of attempted murder for allegedly shooting at people with a bow in the town of Kongsberg.
He is further accused of causing bodily harm, threatening behaviour, refusing to obey police orders and throwing knives at officers.
Brathen was arrested after firing arrows inside a grocery shop and attacking people inside their homes.
The defendant listened quietly as the charges were read out yesterday. Prosecutors want him sentenced to compulsory mental health care, saying he was in a “strongly deviating state of mind” during the attacks.
After his arrest,
Brathen was admitted to a closed psychiatric ward and assessed by three forensic psychiatric experts as probably insane at the time of the killings. The trial is expected to last a month.
Walldorf: Some cat owners in a German town have been ordered to keep their pets indoors until the end of August in a bid to protect a rare bird during its breeding season.
The decree is designed to help save the crested lark, which nests on the ground, making it easy prey for feline hunters.
With the bird’s western European population in sharp decline, authorities in the town of Walldorf said that “the survival of the species depends on every single chick”.
The decree has prompted anguish among pet owners and the head of the local animal protection association reportedly plans to take legal steps to challenge it.
Himalayas: Hundreds of climbers who set out to scale Mount Everest during favourable weather conditions have begun returning safely down the mountain. They include Antonina Samoilova, the first Ukrainian woman to scale the world’s highest peak, and several record breakers.
Lakpa Sherpa, 48, reached the 29,032ft summit for the 10th time – the highest number of times a woman has climbed Everest. .
British climber Kenton Cool set the record for the most Everest summits by a non-nepalese climber. Nepalese Sherpa climber Kami Rita holds the record with 26 summits after breaking his own record earlier this month.
Tokyo: Japan’s nuclear regulator has approved plans by the operator of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant to release its treated radioactive wastewater into the sea next year. It said the methods outlined are safe and risks to the environment are minimal. The plan was submitted in December based on the government’s decision last year to release the wastewater as a necessary step for the ongoing plant clean-up and decommission.
A massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011 destroyed the plant’s cooling systems, causing the meltdown of three reactors and the release of large amounts of radiation.