NEWS OF THE DAY
From Around the World
1 Restrictions lifted: Russian police are lifting some bail restrictions on three young sisters charged with murdering their abusive father, their lawyer said Friday. The case elicited widespread outcry after reports emerged that the sisters — 17, 18 and 19 years old at the time — acted after years of being beaten and raped. They were released on bail in September 2018 after two months in custody with restrictions including a curfew and electronic monitoring bracelets. Some of the restrictions on Maria, Angelina and Krestina Khachaturyan expire Saturday and Moscow police have not sought to renew them. More than 350,000 people signed a petition this year demanding the sisters’ release. The case prompted Russian lawmakers this year to start working on a law against domestic violence, something women’s rights advocates have been unsuccessfully fighting for since 2016.
2 Electrocution deaths: A company that operates McDonald’s restaurants in Latin America has been fined $254,000 after the electrocution deaths of two employees who were cleaning a restaurant kitchen in Lima, Peru. The National Superintendency for Labor Rights this week recommended that McDonald’s franchise owner Arcos Dorados pay the fine for violations that may have resulted in the Dec. 15 deaths of 19yearold Carlos Campos and 18yearold Alexandra Porras. The Peruvian agency said the McDonald’s subsidiary failed to give its employees proper security training and did not conduct periodic risk assessments at its restaurants.
3 1st domestic car: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday unveiled prototypes of a domestically produced electric car, putting him closer to fulfilling a longheld dream of building Turkey’s first “national” automobile. Erdogan showcased the SUV and sedan models of the car, known as TOGG after a consortium of Turkish companies that will produce them, at a ceremony in Gebze, in Turkey’s northwestern industrial heartland. The car was designed by Italy’s Pininfarina design company, which has created models for Ferrari and Californiabased electric car maker Karma.
4 “Comfort women”: South Korea’s Constitutional Court on Friday rejected a petition seeking the repeal of a 2015 deal with Japan settling a bitter dispute over Korean women enslaved for sex by the Japanese military during World War II. A decision to spike the largely stalled deal could have complicated efforts by the two countries to resolve separate thorny trade and history disputes. Friday’s ruling was in response to a petition by former sex slaves and their families who say the deal, which was made without their consent, undermined their dignity and infringed on their rights to participate in negotiations and seek fuller Japanese government compensation. The issue of sex slaves, euphemistically called “comfort women,“has been a major source of friction between the two countries, both staunch U.S. allies.
5 Parliament chaos: Montenegro’s Parliament adopted a contested law on religious rights Friday after chaotic scenes that saw the detention of all proSerb opposition lawmakers. The vote followed nationwide protests by supporters of the Serbian Orthodox Church who said the law would strip the church of its property, including medieval monasteries and churches. The government has denied that. Trying to block a vote, the proSerb lawmakers hurled what appeared to be a tear gas canister or a firecracker and tried to destroy microphones in the Parliament hall in the capital, Podgorica. The law says religious communities with property need to produce evidence of ownership from before 1918, when Montenegro joined a Serbled Balkan kingdom and lost its independence.