■CHINA
GPS satellite launched
The country took a further step yesterday toward ending its dependence on US satellites to provide navigation and positioning services. A rocket carrying the fifth of a planned array of 35 orbiters blasted off from the Xichang space launch center in Sichuan Province, Xinhua news agency reported. Beijing started a drive to end its reliance on the US Global Positioning System in 2000, when it sent an experimental pair of positioning satellites into orbit.
■JAPAN
Two reporters found dead
Two Japanese journalists reported missing by their TV network while pursuing a story of a helicopter crash were found dead on a mountain yesterday near the scene of the accident. Nippon Television reporter Yuji Kita and cameraman Jun Kawakami were on their way to the scene of the crash that killed five people last weekend. The two men were unresponsive when found yesterday morning partially submerged in a pool of water in a gorge about 300m below a mountain trail in Chichibu city, roughly two hours northwest of Tokyo. They were taken to a hospital and declared dead in the afternoon.
■SOUTH KOREA
Mine kills one, wounds one
Mines suspected to have come from North Korea exploded after washing ashore, killing one man and injuring another, Yonhap News Agency reported yesterday. About 30 North Korean wooden box mines have been found in the last two days by the military on the country’s northwestern coast, Yonhap said. Warnings have been issued to people living near these beaches and the military have embarked on a search for mines. Yonhap, quoting the, said the two men had picked up two mines on a northwestern beach on Saturday night. The beach is normally restricted to military personnel as it is close to the heavily guarded border with the North, and it was unclear what the two men were doing there. Flooding may have washed the mines ashore.
■INDIA
Kashmir under curfew
Police and paramilitary troops enforced a strict curfew in Kashmir yesterday after two days of violent clashes between anti-India protesters and security forces that left six people dead. Riot police were out in large numbers on the streets of Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir, and other areas that have witnessed a rolling series of violent protests over the past two months. The Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley has been rocked by street protests since early June when a 17-year-old student demonstrator was killed by a police tear-gas shell. A total of 23 civilians, most of them young men in their teens or early 20s, have died in the clashes with security forces.
■SRI LANKA
UNESCO adds highlands
The country’s central highlands and a protected marine area in Hawaii, the only habitats of several endangered plant and animal species, have been added to UNESCO’s list of World Heritage sites, the UN body said on Saturday. The central highlands were deemed of prime importance because of the pristine forests that are home to the Sri Lanka leopard and other rare animal and plant life. The Hawaiian marine site, known as Papahanaumokuakea, is the habitat of the endangered Hawaiian Monk seal and rare birds. Its isolated reef ecosystems are dominated by top predators like sharks.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Men questioned over bomb
Police were questioning two men yesterday after a parcel bomb was sent to the headquarters of the MI6 foreign intelligence service and another was intercepted at a postal sorting office. “The Metropolitan Police Service is investigating two suspect packages addressed to premises in central London,” a Scotland Yard spokesman said, declining to give details of the devices. He said the parcels were found on Wednesday and on Thursday. Two suspects, aged 52 and 21, were arrested in North Wales the next day and brought to London, where a magistrate granted warrants on Saturday for further detention and questioning.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Century old record broken
A four-strong rowing team smashed a 114-year-old record for crossing the North Atlantic Ocean when they reached the finish line on Saturday. The team sheared 11 days off the record for rowing from New York to the Isles of Scilly off the southwest English mainland. Their time — 43 days, 21 hours, 26 minutes and 48 seconds — smashed the previous record set in 1896 by Norwegian fishermen George Harbo and Frank Samuelsen. “It has been a really tough trip and we have had a huge amount to contend with. Every bit of technology that we had seemed to break — in the end it came down to four men and four oars. We now need to shower, eat and sleep,” 37-year-old skipper Leven Brown said.
■RUSSIA
Opposition leader arrested
Police arrested opposition leader Boris Nemtsov in Moscow and at least 95 others on Saturday at demonstrations in cities nationwide against restrictions on freedom of assembly. In St Petersburg, 60 of about 200 people were arrested in what witnesses said was one of the most violent recent crackdowns on protesters. Reporters said some of the detained had bloody noses while others had their heads beaten against police buses. “Putin is the butcher of freedom,” protesters in the northern city shouted as the detainees were taken away, directing their anger at Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
■NIGER
Junta refuses to free leader
The military junta refused on Saturday to free the ousted president from nearly five months of house arrest and vowed to recover millions of euros in public funds allegedly embezzled by his regime. The junta detained ex-president Mamadou Tandja and his interior minister, Albade Abouba, in a Feb. 18 coup as Tandja sought to extend his mandate beyond its legal term after 10 years in power. “To those who demand that we free them, well, we will not free them,” junta leader General Salou Djibo told a meeting of about 200 representatives of political parties and civil society groups. They “are well treated and we will not release them,” he said.
■ISRAEL
Tunnels in Gaza bombed
Aircraft bombed a smuggling tunnel and a militant training camp in the Gaza Strip yesterday after a rocket was fired into the country from the territory, the army and militants said. The air strike caused damage but no casualties were reported. The rocket that militants launched on Saturday caused heavy damage to buildings close to the border with the Gaza Strip, the army said. Nobody was hurt. Jihadist Salafi groups issued a statement claiming the launch. They have repeatedly accused Hamas of preventing them from launching rockets at Israel and say it sometimes arrests those attempting to do so.
■IRAN
US hikers to be probed
The government said yesterday that three American hikers detained in Tehran for a year are being investigated by the authorities for possible actions aimed at harming the security of the Islamic republic. Foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said it was “evident” that the three — Shane Bauer, 27, Sarah Shourd, 31, and Josh Fattal, 27 — had entered the country illegally, but “their other possible actions and intentions against the security of the Islamic republic are being probed by relevant authorities,” he was quoted as saying on the Web site of state television. Tehran has previously alleged that the three hikers planned to carry out “acts of espionage” in the Islamic republic, prompting denials from the US government and their families. The three were arrested on July 31 last year after they reportedly strayed into Iran from across the border with Iraq.
■BRAZIL
Iranian offered asylum
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has called on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to allow a woman sentenced in Iran to death by stoning to accept an offer of asylum in Brazil, local media reported. The sentence imposed on Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani for an extra-marital relationship, which she denies, has caused an international outcry. It has been suspended pending a review by Iran’s judiciary, but could still be carried out. “I call on the supreme leader of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to permit Brazil to grant asylum to this woman,” state radio reported Lula as saying on Saturday. “If my friendship with the president of Iran is worth anything and if she is causing unease there, we will willingly receive her here,” Agencia Folha reported Lula as saying.
■UNITED STATES
Bears close paintball course
A newly opened paintball course in Montana had to shut down after odor from disintegrated paintballs was luring possibly dangerous guests — bears. Big Sky marketing director Dax Schieffer said the resort tried to find an environmentally friendly paintball, but it turned out that the one selected contains a vegetable oil that can attract grizzly and black bears that commonly roam the region. A wildlife official said that some bears were even eating unexploded paintballs. The resort is on the side of a ski hill. It shut down in the middle of last month after the bear problem arose. Schieffer said workers are now trying to find a paintball that won’t attract bears.
■MEXICO
Troops find US$7m in cash
Federal prosecutors say troops who raided a house of a major drug kingpin killed in a gunbattle with soldiers found US$7 million in cash. A statement from the federal Attorney General’s Office said soldiers also found jewelry, luxury watches, guns, two hand grenades and three expensive cars in the house where Ignacio “Nacho” Coronel was killed on Thursday. Coronel killed a soldier and wounded another in the clash in the Guadalajara suburb of Zapopan.
■CHILE
Ambassador to return
Santiago is formally recognizing the government of Honduran President Porfirio Lobo a year after a coup ousted his predecessor. Foreign Minister Alfredo Moreno said late on Friday that the country’s ambassador would return to Tegucigalpa. Santiago withdrew its envoy in protest following the coup in June last year, in which soldiers seized ousted president Manuel Zelaya at gunpoint and flew him out of the country.
‘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