■DENMARK
Arms merchant arrested
A man who has admitted parachuting arms into the Indian state of West Bengal in 1995 was arrested on Friday after officials in agreed to back his extradition, authorities said. A prosecutor said police had long known that Niels Holcks, 47, was in Denmark, but negotiations over his possible extradition had dragged on for years. “It is correct that we have had knowledge of Niels Holcks’ whereabouts in Denmark since 2001,” Birgitte Bundsgaard said. “The reason why the ministry of justice decided to arrest him today is partly that it has taken several years to negotiate the terms for a potential extradition with Indian authorities.”
■AFGHANISTAN
Bullet removed from head
A US military doctor removed a live round of ammunition from the head of an Afghan soldier in an unusual and harrowing surgery. Doctors say a 14.5mm unexploded round — more than 5cm long — was removed from the scalp of an Afghan National Army soldier at the Bagram Air Field hospital last month. When the Afghan soldier, in his 20s, arrived at the base, doctors thought it was shrapnel or the spent end of some sort of round, said Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony Terreri, a radiologist deployed from Wilford Hall Medical Center at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. But as he reviewed a CAT scan of the soldier, he realized it was a much bigger problem, an Air Force news release said last week.
■CHINA
Mine death toll mounts
Rescuers recovered yet another body at a coal mine in the north, bringing the death toll from a massive flood to 26, state media reported yesterday. Twelve people still remained unaccounted for at the huge, unfinished Wangjialing mine in Shanxi Province, 13 days after it was flooded in the latest high-profile incident to hit the country’s notoriously dangerous mining sector. The flood left 153 workers trapped underground, but 115 were rescued alive on Monday in what officials called a “miracle.”
■AUSTRALIA
Asylum block questioned
A decision to temporarily block asylum-seekers from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka could face a legal challenge, lawyers said yesterday. On Friday, Canberra announced it would immediately stop taking fresh applications from asylum-seekers from those two countries, as it attempts to thwart people smuggling operations. But the Australian Lawyers Alliance said the policy, which means new arrivals from those countries cannot apply for asylum for between three and six months, could breach the law by discriminating against Afghans and Sri Lankans. “The law in Australia and the rule of law is such that laws have to be applied equally, irrespective of where a person comes from or their race,” the alliance’s Greg Barns told ABC Radio.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Cat terrifies postal service
Britain’s postal service says it has suspended deliveries to a woman following repeated attacks by her 19-year-old cat. Royal Mail said on Friday that it had halted deliveries because postal workers had already sustained “nasty injuries” at the address in the town of Farsley, near Leeds in northern Britain. The woman was identified as a 43-year-old pharmacy worker. Media reports say she found it hard to believe that her cat, named “Tiger,” could be behind the attacks. She told two newspapers the animal spent most of its day sleeping and didn’t have the energy to chase postal workers.
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