■SOUTH PACIFIC
Islands brace for cyclone
Tsunami survivors in Samoa and Tonga huddled in their makeshift shelters over the weekend as they braced for a second disaster in five months with the approach of Cyclone Rene. The cyclone left one dead, uprooted trees and caused landslides and flooding as it swept across American Samoa on Saturday, gathering intensity as it continued across the South Pacific. The islands are still recovering from the tsunamis that killed at least 118 people last September and thousands are still living in tents and other improvised lodgings after their homes were destroyed. The Fiji Meteorological Service warned that Rene, a category two storm, was likely to be upgraded to category three on a five-point scale as it tracks south.
■UNITED KINGDOM
India inks nuclear deal
London has signed an agreement on nuclear energy cooperation with India, paving the way for an international conference, the government said on Saturday. The declaration, signed in New Delhi, will help British companies collaborate with Indian partners in civil nuclear technology and help both countries achieve energy security and low carbon growth, business minister Pat McFadden said in a telephone call. The agreement will result in India attending a Nuclear New Build Conference in London next month, along with nuclear business and political leaders from 15 countries.
■CHINA
Tainted products destroyed
The government assured consumers most of the tainted milk products that resurfaced in recent months have been destroyed, saying none had made it to store shelves or been exported. The Health Ministry’s statement on Saturday came after revelations that milk powder tainted with the industrial chemical melamine, which was supposed to have been destroyed after a 2008 scandal, had reappeared around the country. “The vast majority of dairy products were recalled and destroyed, did not enter the consumer market, none was exported,” the ministry said. The statement reiterated the order to destroy all tainted milk supplies and vowed to crack down on anyone involved in criminal acts.
■INDONESIA
Flooding kills two
Heavy rains and rising rivers have flooded hundreds of houses in Jakarta, killing at least two people. The private el-Shinta radio says a 56-year-old man was found dead on Saturday afternoon in the Bukit Duri neighborhood, where floodwaters reached as high as 2m. The Antara news agency says another person died in the hilly region of Cisarua, south of the capital. More than 1,000 people have been forced to flee their homes for emergency shelters.
■UNITED STATES
Condoms for Valentines
An environmental group that fights to protect endangered species began distributing 100,000 free condoms across the country yesterday. The Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson says the Valentine’s Day promotion was meant to call attention to the impact of human overpopulation on endangered species. The group will hand out six different condom packages with original artwork in bars, supermarkets, schools, concerts, parties, and other public events. Slogans on the packages include “Wrap with care, save the polar bear,” and “Wear a condom now, save the spotted owl.” The center’s Randy Serraglio says human overpopulation is destroying wildlife habitat at an unprecedented rate.
■HAITI
US reduces troop numbers
The US military has pulled thousands of its troops from the quake-hit country because aid operations have improved, a general said on Saturday, as relief workers raced to boost conditions at squalid camps said. There were growing calls to speed up efforts to provide tarps and tents ahead of the rainy season, which threatens to bring more misery to the estimated 1.2 million left homeless by the massive earthquake a month ago. US General Douglas Fraser said troop numbers were now down to 13,000 after a post-earthquake high of more than 20,000.
■IVORY COAST
Opposition rejects president
The opposition has declared it will no longer recognize Laurent Gbagbo as president — a move likely to complicate his efforts to form a new government, after he dissolved the old one along with the West African country’s electoral commission. The four-party opposition coalition RHDP on Saturday urged supporters to mobilize against the governing party. RHDP leader Djedje Madi said the president’s dismissal of the government and election board on Friday was “antidemocratic and anticonstitutional,” and tantamount to “a coup d’etat.”
■FRANCE
Art piece to be put back
The culture minister on Saturday called on the country’s top art college to hang a work by a Chinese artist back on its facade, after she complained it had been censored for political reasons. A ministerial statement said Minister of Culture and Communication Frederic Mitterrand had asked the prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts to reinstall “as quickly as possible” the work by Ko Siu Lan that deformed a slogan of President Nicolas Sarkozy. The huge black banners daubed with the words “earn — less — work — more” in white were hung up on Wednesday as part of an exhibition organized by the school in central Paris, but ordered removed within hours by college authorities.
■UNITED STATES
Professor donates handcuffs
Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr says he donated the handcuffs used on him during his arrest last year outside his home to the Smithsonian Institution’s black history museum. Gates said in yesterday’s edition of the New York Times Magazine that he donated the handcuffs to the new National Museum of African American History and Culture. Gates’ arrest last July by police investigating a report of a possible break-in at his home near Harvard University sparked a national debate over racial profiling.
■UNITED STATES
Ohio man sets hugs record
A 51-year-old Ohio man has embraced the Valentine’s Day spirit faster than anyone before, giving 7,777 hugs in 24 hours for a new world record. Jeff Ondash, who sought the squeezes under the costumed alter ego Teddy McHuggin, broke the record on Saturday night outside the Paris Las Vegas hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip. Ondash also holds the one-hour hugs record with 1,205.
■CHILE
Grandma pushers arrested
Elderly pensioners struggling to make ends meet are being lured by the narcotics trade, police said on Saturday. The average age of drug dealers has soared in the country, with police saying they had arrested 16 people this year, mostly women aged between 60 and 80 years. Among them were a pair of septuagenarians with a 2kg stash of cocaine.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
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