A Japanese man arrested after police found nine dismembered corpses rotting in his house has confessed to killing all his young victims over a two-month spree after contacting them via Twitter, media reports said Wednesday. Takahiro Shiraishi, 27, has also confessed he "assaulted" all of his eight female victims, the Fuji TV network said, using a Japanese media euphemism for sexual attacks. Prosecutors were now quizzing Shiraishi, who has reportedly admitted hacking the flesh off the bodies and throwing it out with the trash, then sprinkling cat litter over the remains in an effort to cover up the evidence. In all, some 240 pieces of bone belonging to nine people, including heads and limbs, were discovered inside coolers and toolboxes at his apartment, the Tokyo Shimbun said. The grisly case has stunned Japan, which enjoys an extremely low crime rate, and pictures of the nondescript apartment building in a quiet residential area were splashed across the country's front pages. "Killing room," splashed the Nikkan Sports tabloid. "One murder a week," wrote the Sports Nippon. 'Inside the cooler' Details also began to emerge as to how investigators tracked down the suspected killer and trapped him using the same medium -- Twitter -- he himself used to lure his victims. Police were led to Shiraishi while investigating the disappearance of a 23-year-old woman, who had reportedly tweeted she wanted to take her own life. Her brother managed to hack into her Twitter account, noticed a suspicious handle, and then tweeted about his sister's disappearance, major media said. One female follower told him that she recognized the handle. The brother asked her to contact the person, while he also reported the case to police, the Yomiuri daily said. The woman managed to convince Shiraishi to come to a train station, where investigators awaited and followed him to his house, media say. Immediately after he returned to his apartment, police knocked on the …
Literacy rate in japan
Japan starts vaccine rollout with healthcare workers
Japan began vaccinating healthcare workers against the coronavirus on Wednesday, as it rolled out a cautious inoculation programme with just over five months until the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. The Fearless Girl Statue in Melbourne, Australia: The lockdown imposed on the city along with the entire state of Victoria was eased on Feb. 17. © Reuters Japan has so far approved only the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, and started administering the first shots at a Tokyo hospital on Wednesday morning. Tokyo Medical Centre director Kazuhiro Araki volunteered to be the first at the facility to receive the shot. "The vaccine plays an important role in anti-coronavirus measures. So I thought as a director I should take the lead and get the shot," he told reporters afterwards. "I don't like getting shots very much," he admitted. "But it wasn't painful, so it was good. I was relieved." Nurse Rino Yoshida, wearing a face mask and visor, was calm and relaxed as she too became one of the first people in Japan to be vaccinated outside of clinical trials. "I felt it going in but it wasn't sore. There's no real pain or swelling," she told national broadcaster NHK. "The mortality rate and the risk of illness have gone down overseas, so hopefully vaccinations starting in Japan can change the situation here," she said. Twelve staff at the facility are being vaccinated on Wednesday, in front of the media, with a total of 800 in line to receive shots, including administrative personnel. Japan is planning to initially vaccinate 40,000 healthcare workers across the country, and will study the effects of the two-dose vaccine on 20,000 of them. Doses will be administered three weeks apart, with the people in the study group asked to keep daily records of any side effects or reactions, local media said. The country then hopes to vaccinate around 3.7 million health workers from March -- with jabs for around 36 million people aged 65 or older starting …
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S&P maintains Vietnam’s sovereign rating at BB with stable outlook
The Hanoitimes - The stable outlook reflects S&P’s expectation that Vietnam's economy will continue to expand rapidly. Standard and Poor’s (S&P) on May 21 announced its decision to maintain Vietnam’s sovereign rating at BB, with stable outlook. Standard and Poor’s (S&P) announced its decision to maintain Vietnam’s sovereign rating at BB, with stable outlook. The stable outlook reflects S&P’s expectation that Vietnam's economy will continue to expand rapidly, exemplifying gradual improvements in its policymaking settings and underpinning credit metrics, stated the rating agency in a statement. In tandem with the global economy, Vietnam's economic growth will be hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic and the associated downturn. S&P forecast the country’s real GDP growth to fall to 1.2% this year, with precipitous declines in global trade and tourism taking a considerable toll on the economy's near-term prospects. However, Vietnam's economy is well-placed to achieve a rapid recovery, assuming that the pandemic is largely contained toward the end of 2020 or the beginning of 2021. Under these circumstances, S&P expect real GDP growth to rebound in 2021, before settling closer to Vietnam's long-term trend rate of growth between 6.0%-7.0% from 2022 onward. Vietnam's attractiveness as a premier destination for FDI in Southeast Asia, along with its young, increasingly educated, and competitive workforce, should help to keep the country's long-term development trajectory intact, it said. Meanwhile, continued improvements in macroeconomic stability have supported the manufacturing sector's attractiveness to global firms in the electronics, mobile phone, and textiles industries. Vietnam's robust FDI-oriented economy continues to fuel stronger domestic activity, particularly through private consumption. The outlook for these growth drivers over the next year is poor, owing to weakening global trade and labor market …
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