■NEPAL
Police detain 562 protesters
Police detained 562 Tibetan women at an anti-China rally in Kathmandu yesterday, the first all-women protest against Chinese rule in their homeland, officials said. Some shouted “we want free Tibet,” while others wept as they were dragged along the road to police vans and trucks and driven to detention centers. Many were wearing black armbands and had their mouths gagged with cloths. Nepal considers Tibet part of China, a key donor and trade partner, and has been cracking down on protests by exiled Tibetans against Beijing. Police said the protesters would be freed later. Exiled Tibetans have been protesting regularly ever since deadly riots broke out in the Tibetan capital Lhasa in March. “We are not against Nepal. Our protests are against China. So why are they arresting us?” asked a 70-year-old protester.
■JAPAN
PM to set emissions targets
Japan aims to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by between 60 percent and 80 percent by 2050, news reports said yesterday, as part of measures setting out the country’s long term environmental goals. Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda is expected to announce the target as early as next month, the Nikkei Shimbun and Asahi Shimbun said. For the year to March, Japan’s total volume of greenhouse gas emissions was estimated at 1,341 million tonnes, up 6.4 percent from the 1990 level, used as the base year for the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. Tokyo is still discussing details of the plan ahead of Japan hosting the G8 summit in July, the Asahi said. Officials want to make the goal not legally binding, but they hope the announcement will encourage technological and business innovations in the environmental field, the newspaper said.
■UNITED STATES
Pelican injures swimmer
A swimmer is recovering after a pelican apparently diving for fish slammed into her face off Florida. Debbie Shoemaker was in the water on Thursday near St Petersburg when the pelican’s beak opened a gash in her face. She needed 20 stitches. The bird died. The chief of the St Petersburg Fire Department says he never heard of a diving pelican colliding with anyone. An expert surmises the bird was diving for fish and hit Shoemaker by accident. The 50-year-old woman returned home on Friday.
■BRAZIL
Prison inmates escape
Twenty-nine inmates broke out of a prison in the southeastern part of the coutry in an escape that local media blamed on a security breakdown after a contract with guards expired. Police said on Saturday that the prisoners had escaped the previous night from the Novo Horizonte lockup near Vitoria, the capital of Espirito Santo State. Globo TV network reported on its Web site that inmates cut wire fences inside the yard and then broke through a wall. Four were recaptured on Saturday, Globo said. A woman who answered the phone at the Espirito Santo state police department confirmed that 29 inmates broke out Friday, but she declined to provide further details or give her name.
■UNITED STATES
Five corpses found
The bodies of five people, including three young children, were found on Saturday afternoon on a sprawling property with several structures in Houston, Texas, police said. A neighbor made the grisly discovery after seeing a man’s body on porch next to a .22-caliber rifle, police Lieutenant Dan Harris said. The bodies of a woman and a boy were found in a shack on the property, Harris said. The bodies of a boy and girl were found in another shack. The children were believed to be between ages four and nine. Investigators declined to speculate on the causes of death, although they said there were no obvious signs of a struggle. They also declined to release identities of the victims or say whether they were related.
■VENEZUELA
Chavez backs Beijing
President Hugo Chavez condemned pro-Tibet protests and backed China ahead of the Olympics in Beijing. The socialist president accused the US government of trying to “sabotage” the August Olympic Games and of aiding protests focused on Tibet. Chavez said he would back China against what he sees as a “secessionist” attempt in Tibet. The US considers Tibet a part of China and says it is concerned about violence in Tibet, but will refrain from meddling in China’s internal affairs. Chavez spoke on Friday night after meeting Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu (回良玉). Venezuelan and Chinese officials also signed cooperative accords.
■UNITED STATES
Six die in car collision
An official in the Erie County Coroner’s office said six people died in a two-car accident in Pennsylvania, near the border with Ohio. Chief deputy coroner Korac Timon said that four men and two women died on Saturday when the minivan they were traveling in crossed the median and hit a car head-on at about 4pm. The van came to rest on its roof. Timon said a seventh person in the van and the woman driving the other car were taken to a hospital. Both are expected to survive. Officials did not release names of those involved in the accident.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was