A group of former models have called on French lawmakers to abolish the law which determines how long victims of sexual assault have to report to the authorities. The women, including former supermodel Carré Otis, claim to have been sexually assaulted or raped by their French model agents more than 20 years ago. French law says they have run out of time to start criminal proceedings. But the women have said “rape should not have an expiration date”. Some of them travelled to Paris to give testimony at the French senate, saying “the law needs to change”. In the meeting with Senator Nathalie Goulet, the women, including Lesa Amoore, Thysia Huisman and Laurie Marsden, called for the time given for sexual assault to be reported to authorities to be “expanded or thrown away entirely”. Otis told the senators that it had taken her “decades to come to terms with what happened to me and decades to speak publicly” about her alleged rapes by the former European head of Elite model agency, Gerald Marie. He strongly refutes all the allegations.(BBC)…[+]

North and South Korea have tested ballistic missiles hours apart from each other, highlighting an arms race on the peninsula as nuclear talks with the North remain stalled. The North fired two ballistic missiles across its east coast, its first test with such missiles in six months and a fresh breach of UN resolutions.

The tests came as South Korea and China discussed the North’s nuclear issue. Hours later, the South tested its first submarine-launched ballistic missile. The test of the missile known as SLBM was pre-planned and not in reaction to the North’s latest launches. It makes South Korea the seventh country in the world with such technology. President Moon Jae-in, who attended the test, said South Korea now had “sufficient deterrence to respond to North Korea’s provocations at any time”, urging the South to continue increasing its weapons programmes to “overwhelm North Korea’s asymmetric power”. The comments were criticised by Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who described them as illogical and regrettable, warning that they could lead to a breakdown in ties, state news agency KCNA reported.(BBC)…[+]

California Governor Gavin Newsom appears to have survived a rare state-wide vote to remove him with a clear majority, US media report. Republicans launched the election over his handling of the pandemic.

The Democrat, currently in the third year of his four-year term, had faced a field of 46 candidates, and was expected to win by a large margin. Both President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris campaigned with Mr Newsom ahead of the contest. The BBC’s US partner CBS projects that the governor will prevail, with about two-thirds of voters backing him and more than 70% of the vote tallied. “I’m humbled and grateful to the millions and millions of Californians that exercised their fundamental right to vote,” Mr Newsom said in a victory speech in Sacramento.(BBC)…[+]