The knives were discovered on Friday in a classroom at the prestigious Ochanomizu University Junior High School, attended by Prince Hisahito.
The mysterious discovery comes just days before Hisahito's uncle, Crown Prince Naurhito, is due to ascend the throne, following the abdication of Emperor Akihito thisTuesday.
According to reports, Hisahito, who is third in line to the throne, but will become second in line after his father's ascension, was in a different part of the school building when the knives were discovered.
The two kitchen knives, which had been taped to either end of a stick and whose blades were reportedly painted pink, were discovered balanced between Hisahito's desk and his neighbor's, Japan's Asahi Shimbun reported. Nothing indicating a motive, or a claim of responsibility was left with the contraption.
Each desk has the name of its occupant written on it, making the prince's desk easily identifiable, the newspaper said.
Security footage from the school appeared to show a middle-aged man, wearing the uniform and helmet of a construction worker, on school premises around the time that the knives were discovered.
The school addressed the incident with a statement on its website, pledging to review its security protocols.
"We deeply apologize to have caused the great concern to everyone with regards to the incident at Ochanomizu University Junior High School," the statement, attributed to the university's president, Kimiko Murofushi, says.
"Ochanomizu University will review security measures urgently, in coordination with the junior high school, and work to secure its safety so that this kind of incident will never happen again."
While Hisahito has a police detail, they do not accompany him into class, according to reports.
The 12-year-old prince began studying at the school last month, Japan's national broadcaster NHK reported, after graduating from the university's affiliated elementary school.
Epochal change
Emperor Akihito will step down from the Chrysanthemum Throne -- the first abdication from the Japanese throne in 200 years -- on Tuesday.
Hisahito's uncle, Crown Prince Naruhito, will become the country's 126th emperor when he is crowned in a ceremony on Wednesday.
The 12-year-old is the only male grandchild of Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko. Given Japan's male-only hereditary laws, he will become second in line to the throne after his father becomes the crown prince and successor this week, when Naruhito ascends.
In August 2016, Akihito gave a rare televised address, where he said his age and fitness level could make it "difficult" to carry out his duties in the future, a plea many took as a request to step aside.
Following that speech, the Japanese parliament in June passed into law a historic bill to allow 83-year-old Akihito to abdicate. Japan is the oldest hereditary monarchy in the world, dating back 14 centuries.
Akihito himself is a direct descendant of Japan's first Emperor, Jimmu, believed to have reigned around 660 BC.
Spain’s current Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his Spanish Workers’ Socialist Party (PSOE) have won the most seats in Spain’s general election — but their victory falls short of a majority needed to take outright control of the government.
Sánchez and his center-left PSOE are on pace to claim 122 seats, with more than 90 percent of the vote counted. It’s a gain from the 84 seats the party currently holds, but not exactly close to the 176 needed for a majority. Now Sánchez and his party will have to try to form a government with the support of other parties
PSOE will likely enter into an alliance with the left-wing Unidas-Podemos, which secured 42seats. That still leaves PSOE and Unidas-Podemos shy of a majority, which means theymay have to rely on smaller, regional parties to form a government. It may be an extremely difficult task amid Spain’s fragmented political landscape.
In those 40 years, two political parties dominated Spanish politics: the conservative Partido Popular (PP) and the center-left PSOE. But, in recent elections, smaller parties have chipped away at their influence. That trend continued in 2019.
Spain’s election outcome will do little to settle the political problems the country faces, including the question of Catalonia, which is still paralyzing the country’s politics more than a year after the illegal 2017 Catalonian independence referendum.
And now Sánchez and PSOE will need to rely on Unidas-Podemos and smaller, regional parties to govern.
This is a potentially volatile arrangement. Catalan and Basque country parties supported the PSOE in its successful bid to oust the former prime minister and then-PP leader, Mariano Rajoy, in June 2018, allowing Sánchez to become prime minister.
Spain’s politics are proving to be as volatile as ever after this election. Smaller parties are continuing to erode the traditional dominance of the PSOE and PP. Vox’s national gains, though short of expectations, prove that a far-right movement has officially arrived in Spain.
PSOE succeeded at the polls on Sunday. But now comes the extremely difficult task of forming a government — and Spain’s political divisions could still derail that, too.
Indianapolis — Former Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, a Republican foreign policy sage known for leading efforts to help the former Soviet states dismantle and secure much of their nuclear arsenal, but whose reputation for working with Democrats cost him his final campaign, died Sunday. He was 87.
The Lugar Center issued a statement saying Lugar died early Sunday at the Inova Fairfax Heart and Vascular Institute in Virginia from complications related to chronic inflammatory demylinating polyneuropathy, or CIPD, a rare neurological disorder.
A soft-spoken and thoughtful former Rhodes Scholar, Lugar dominated Indiana politics during his 36 years in the U.S. Senate. That popularity gave him the freedom to concentrate largely on foreign policy and national security matters — a focus highlighted by his collaboration with Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn on a program under which the U.S. paid to dismantle and secure thousands of nuclear warheads and missiles in the former Soviet states after the Cold War ended.
Sen. Richard Lugar seen June 9, 2010, in Washington, D.C.
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"Every stockpile represents a theft opportunity for terrorists and a temptation for security personnel who might seek to profit by selling weapons on the black market," Lugar said in 2005. "We do not want the question posed the day after an attack on an American military base."
He served for decades on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, twice as chairman, where he helped steer arms reduction pacts for the presidential administrations of George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, supported an expansion of NATO and favored aid to Nicaragua's Contra rebels.
Lugar tried to translate his foreign policy expertise into a 1996 presidential run, where his slogan was "nuclear security and fiscal sanity." But his campaign for the GOP nomination went badly from the start. His kickoff rally began just hours after the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, and he struggled to build name recognition and support.
"He is not, nor does he try to be, a good ol' boy," Rex Early, a former state Republican chairman who worked on many of Lugar's campaigns, said during the presidential run. "He is not a back-pounder and doesn't tell funny jokes and have a beer with the boys."
Lugar tried to counter questions about his demeanor, contending that the presidency is "serious business. The presidency is not entertainment." But he was chafed at criticism that he was too straight, too smart, too dull.
"I don't know what that means," he said. "Is it better to have someone stupid? Or mediocre? Or halfway there?"
He withdrew a year into the race after failing to win a single convention delegate, but not before eerily foreshadowing the threat of terrorism that would become all too real on Sept. 11, 2001. Three of his television ads depicted mushroom clouds and warned of the growing danger of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of terrorist groups.
Lugar's time as a Washington foreign policy expert was the highlight of a political career that began with his election to the Indianapolis school board in the early 1960s. It was there that he caught the eye of city GOP leaders, who encouraged him to run for mayor in 1967.
He served two terms at the city's helm, leading the unification of Indianapolis and its suburban communities in Marion County, which solidified the city's tax base and added so many Republican voters that Democrats weren't able to win the mayor's office again for more than 30 years. He also started efforts to revive the city's downtown with construction of Market Square Arena, which in turn helped bring the Indiana Pacers into the NBA and spurred Indianapolis' development as a sports city that culminated in the 2011 Super Bowl.
As mayor, he was referred to as "Richard Nixon's favorite mayor" for backing the move of federal programs to local governments.
He first ran for Senate in 1974, but lost narrowly to Sen. Birch Bayh in the Democratic landslide at the time of the Watergate scandal. But he ran again two years later and easily unseated three-term Democratic Sen. Vance Hartke, launching a 35-year Capitol Hill career that made him Indiana's longest-serving senator.
He built a reputation as someone willing to work across the aisle and showed he could buck his party, notably with two major disagreements with President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.
In 1986, Reagan was inclined to accept the rigged election that would have kept Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos in office. But Lugar went to the islands as an election observer and said Reagan was misinformed. Lugar's stand shifted U.S. support to the ultimate winner, Corazon Aquino, bringing down Marcos.
In another break with Reagan, Lugar pushed through Congress — over the president's veto — the economic sanctions that Nelson Mandela said played a crucial role in overthrowing white minority rule in South Africa.
Lugar smiles during a speech Aug. 12, 1995, in Dallas.
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His foreign policy work didn't sit well with everyone. Sen. Jesse Helms ousted him as the top Republican on the foreign relations committee in 1986 as being "too internationalist."
But at home, Lugar remained the Indiana GOP's most popular figure, trouncing his opponents by winning at least two-thirds of the vote in four straight elections. Democrats considered him so invincible that they didn't nominate a challenger to him for the 2006 election.
He was the top Republican on the Senate's Foreign Affairs Committee when he first worked with Obama, taking the then-Illinois senator with him to Russia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan in 2005 to visit weapon dismantlement sites. He then co-sponsored 2007 legislation with Obama on eliminating stockpiles of shoulder-fired missiles.
Obama frequently cited his work with Lugar during the 2008 presidential campaign as evidence of his bipartisanship and foreign policy experience. Lugar endorsed John McCain but didn't distance himself from Obama at the time, saying "I'm pleased that we had the association that Sen. Obama described."
That changed by the time of Lugar's 2012 re-election campaign. His tea party-backed challenger, state Treasurer Richard Mourdock, maintained that, "Lugar has clearly lost his way on issues like our raising the debt limit, wasteful earmark spending and massive bailouts of private companies at taxpayer expense."
Lugar's campaign ads highlighted his votes against Obama's "bankrupting" budgets, and the senator said his relationship with Obama was "overhyped."
But those attacks on his conservatism — combined with voter wariness about his age and long Washington tenure and questions about him not owning a home in Indiana since the late 1970s — led to Lugar's first defeat since 1974, as Mourdock grabbed 60 percent of the GOP primary vote.
In conceding defeat, Lugar said he knew some of his positions had been considered "heretical" by some, including his opposition to earmarks and support for immigration reform.
"I believe that they were the right votes for the country, and I stand by them without regrets," he said.
After Lugar's defeat, Nunn, the Democratic senator with whom he worked on nuclear disarmament, suggested that many people may have misinterpreted Lugar's positions as they accused him of being too liberal.
"Dick Lugar never compromised his principles in anything we did together, nor did I," Nunn said at the time. "We found ways to work together because we examined the facts and let the facts have a bearing on the conclusions, and I'm afraid in today's political world too often people start with the conclusions and then hunt facts to justify them."
The Nunn-Lugar program led to about 7,600 Soviet nuclear warheads being deactivated and the destruction of more than 900 intercontinental ballistic missiles by the time Lugar left office, according to U.S. military figures. The program is credited with removing all nuclear weapons from the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus.
Born April 4, 1932, in Indianapolis, Lugar became an Eagle Scout and graduated at the top of his classes at both Indianapolis Shortridge High School and at Denison University in Ohio. At Denison, he played cello in the orchestra and was the student body co-president with his future wife, Charlene. They married in 1956 and had four sons.
He was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, and in 1956 he became a Navy officer, spending time as an intelligence aide for the chief of naval operations. He moved back to Indianapolis in 1960 to help run the family's food machinery manufacturing business.
A longtime fitness advocate, he sponsored runs in Indiana and even at age 70 completed a 3-mile competitive race in Washington in just over 28 minutes.
Reaction to Lugar's death
Former President Barack Obama issued a statement Sunday afternoon saying "for 36 years, Richard Lugar proved that pragmatism and decency work — not only in Washington, but all over the world."
"He exhibited the truth that common courtesy can speak across cultures," Obama continued. "In Dick, I saw someone who wasn't a Republican or Democrat first, but a problem-solver-an example of the impact a public servant can make by eschewing partisan divisiveness to instead focus on common ground. Today, thousands of warheads, bombers, and submarines no longer threaten us because of Dick's work. America is safer because of Dick; the world is, too. His passing is a reminder of the constant and pressing need to expand international nonproliferation agreements. And it's a call to remember what a public servant can be."
Vice President Mike Pence tweeted Sunday: "As the longest serving member of Congress from Indiana, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, he leaves behind a legacy of public service that will inspire Hoosiers for generations."
Hoosiers are saddened today to learn of the passing of one of our greatest statesmen, Senator Richard Lugar. Senator Lugar’s contributions to the life of our nation are countless. My statement: pic.twitter.com/Rxp9pq89wQ
Former Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar died Sunday at the age of 87.
Lugar, a Republican who distinguished himself for his bipartisanship and foreign policy expertise, served Indiana in the Senate for 36 years, from 1977 to 2013. He was chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2003 to 2007. He died from complications arising from chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, the Lugar Center announced.
The Rhodes scholar was known for his soft-spoken demeanor and ability to work across the aisle on complicated issues, such as keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists after the end of the Cold War.
Lugar used that foreign policy expertise to attempt a 1996 run for president. His slogan was “nuclear security and fiscal sanity,” but the campaign failed to gain traction and bowed out early on in the primary season. Bob Dole went on to lock up the GOP nomination, but lost the general election to former President Bill Clinton.
Lugar’s lost his final election contest in 2012 to Republican primary challenger Richard Mourdock, a Tea Party candidate who lost the general election.
In 2013, then-President Barack Obama presented Lugar with the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. “Dick Lugar's decency, his commitment to bipartisan problem solving, stand as a model of what public service ought to be,” Obama said at the time.
Lugar was well-known for working with former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., to craft the Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, which sought to dismantle weapons of mass destruction from former Soviet states so that the weapons wouldn't fall into the wrong hands. Nunn thanked Lugar for his service Sunday. “Our nation has lost an extraordinary statesman who made the world a safer and better place. I have lost a wonderful friend and trusted partnerm" he said. “Dick Lugar treated every person with dignity and respect. This generation and future generations can learn much from his example in the political world and in life."
Prior to his time in national politics, Lugar served as mayor of Indianapolis, Ind., from 1968 to 1976. He was recognized by the current mayor in a pair of tweets.
"[Lugar] understood that progress could only occur when good ideas and good people came together -- from all sides of the political landscape. And he demonstrated a commitment to country over party, community over self, that is almost unparalleled in today's polarized world," Mayor Joe Hogsett said.
He understood that progress could only occur when good ideas and good people came together -- from all sides of the political landscape. And he demonstrated a commitment to country over party, community over self, that is almost unparalleled in today's polarized world. pic.twitter.com/5kc3xOkXmD
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., also praised Lugar for his dedication to bipartisanship. "Dick Lugar personified the thoughtful bipartisanship so much missing in America today. He will be missed," Schumer tweeted.
"Saddened by the news that Senator Richard Lugar has passed away. He served our country honorably in the Navy, and he represented Indiana proudly for decades in the Senate. Please keep his family in your prayers," Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel tweeted.
Saddened by the news that Senator Richard Lugar has passed away.
He served our country honorably in the Navy, and he represented Indiana proudly for decades in the Senate.
Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., and a presidential hopeful, also saluted Lugar. "America has lost a true statesman in Dick Lugar. A great mayor, senator, and mentor, he made the world safer, stood up for better foreign policy, and knew how to work across the aisle," he said. "He was never too important to make time for a young Hoosier public servant of either party. And I have never seen a Senator’s office so filled with books."
Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb said "the world weeps" over Lugar's death. "He was an officer and gentleman, father and faith leader, a Mayor and Senator, a diplomat and legendary role model to millions. @FLJanetHolcomb and I are keeping Mrs. Lugar and their wonderful family in our prayers and ask all those touched by his service to join us," he said in a string of tweets.
National security adviser John Bolton denied that the Trump administration paid North Korea $2 million after the release of comatose Otto Warmbier but acknowledged that a US envoy did sign a pledge to pay.
“Absolutely not. And I think that’s the key point. The president’s been very successful in getting 20-plus hostages released from imprisonment around the world and hasn’t paid anything for any of them,” Bolton told “Fox News Sunday.”
Bolton admitted that Joseph Yun, a State Department envoy sent to North Korea in 2017 to get Warmbier, signed a document pledging the US would pay for his release.
“Bottom line,” said host Chris Wallace. Did the US pay any money after the release “however it was disguised?”
“It’s very clear to me from my looking into it over the past few days – no money was paid. That is clear,” Bolton replied.
North Korea presented a $2 million bill for the medical care of Warmbier, the University of Virginia student who was released by the regime while in a coma and died days after returning to his home in Ohio, the Washington Post reported last week.
Warmbier was sentenced to 15-years of hard labor in North Korea in 2016 and fell into a coma soon after.
Islamic terrorists are feared to be plotting Sri Lanka-style massacres at other popular tourist destinations, intelligence officials have warned.
Jihadi fighters fleeing Iraq and Syria after the fall of ISIS are now able to concentrate on plotting devastating attacks with radicals overseas, according to the UK’s Sunday Telegraph.
Intelligence sources told the paper that the devastation in Sri Lanka — where at least 250 were killed — will strengthen the resolve to further target popular hotspots packed with tourists.
“It’s grim to say so, but we should expect more attempts at attacks like these more regularly for the foreseeable future,” warned Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, a researcher who tracks ISIS.
“Sri Lanka was not a one-off. If anything, it was a test run.”
Well-placed sources told the paper that India, the Maldives and east African resorts in Kenya and in Tanzania are most vulnerable.
“The change in tactics is a big worry,” one intelligence source told the paper. “When they were running a de facto state that also meant running things like a health service and all that entails. That took up a lot of their time.
“But now they are not doing that they have a lot of time to push out their propaganda and they do that by carrying out attacks.”
A second source also warned that the end of ISIS’ stronghold in Syria meant that terrorists are “dispersing around the world and seeking to carry out attacks.”
The father and two brothers of the alleged organiser of the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka, Zahran Hashim, were killed in a security forces operation on Friday, police say.
Hashim, who blew himself up at a hotel in the capital Colombo, is said to have been the leader of an Islamist group, the NTJ, which has now been banned.
Police have raided the group's HQ in the eastern town of Kattankudy.
The attacks targeted churches and hotels, killing at least 250 people.
Sunday church services are cancelled across the country as a precaution.
However, worshippers in the capital gathered to pray outside St Anthony's, which was badly damaged in the attacks.
The country's president and prime minister attended a televised Christian ceremony.
'Safe house' discovered by chance
By Anbarasan Ethirajan, BBC News, Sainthamaruthu
When I entered the house where the Islamists and their families were killed on Friday evening, the smell of death was unbearable. The fact that the Islamists blew themselves up along with their children beggars belief.
A close relative of the radical preacher Zahran Hashim's family confirmed to me that the father and two brothers of Hashim were the individuals who appeared in a video just before they killed themselves. A police officer at the site also said Zahran Hashim's mother was also believed to be among the victims.
Security forces have been conducting raids across the country but this safe house was discovered by chance, when the suspicious house owner and local people alerted the police.
Every day, police are making arrests, seizing weapons, explosives and jihadist material suggesting the radicalisation process, however small it may be, has been happening over a period of time. If the security agencies had missed this, then it is a colossal failure.
The ongoing raids and discovery of weapons and material are gradually building up tensions among the communities. A hotel owner said she was worried because she was a Catholic. Muslims say they are nervous to visit Sinhala-majority areas. Some foreign governments have warned that there is a possibility of further attacks and if those happen, fragile ethnic relations could be further strained.
What happened on Easter Sunday?
As well as St Anthony's Shrine, bombers struck churches in Negombo and the eastern city of Batticaloa, and hotels in Colombo.
Most of those killed were Sri Lankan, but dozens of foreign citizens were also among the dead.
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While the authorities have blamed the NTJ for the attacks, they say they must have had help from a larger network.
The Islamic State group, which carried out mass attacks on civilians in Paris and other locations in recent years, has said it was involved, but has not given details.
How are the victims being remembered?
Christians in Sri Lanka prayed at home while the Archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, held a televised Mass, attended by President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
He called the attacks an "insult to humanity" in the service, broadcast from a chapel in his residence.
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"Today during this Mass we are paying attention to last Sunday's tragedy and we try to understand it," he said.
"We pray that in this country there will be peace and co-existence and understanding each other without division."
Scores of people gathered for the public service outside St Anthony's, where Buddhist monks joined Catholic priests in a show of solidarity with the Christian community.
Crowds of people watched the heavily-guarded church from behind a barricade, with some singing hymns and passing rosary beads through their hands.
Many lit candles and placed them in a makeshift memorial for the victims.
The church's bells tolled at 08:45 (03:15 GMT) - the exact moment a bomber detonated his device one week ago.
The hands of its damaged clock tower are still stuck at that time.
