TUVALU
State of emergency declared
Emergency rule has been imposed after protesters marched through the capital demanding the resignation of Finance Minister Lotoala Metia. The one naval patrol boat owned by the nation of about 12,000 is guarding the coastline near the homes of Governor-General Iakopa Itaeli Taeia and Prime Minister Willy Telavi, on the main island and capital, Funafuti. Communications Minister Kausea Natano said the emergency was declared on Thursday to prevent moves to destabilize the government. Natano said Metia had been placed under police guard after threats to his safety.
SOUTH KOREA
Would-be assassin jailed
A North Korean agent has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for plotting to assassinate a high-profile defector. Seoul Central District Court spokesman Kim Sang-woo said Ri Dong Sam admitted he was ordered to kill Hwang Jang-yop, a former senior member of the North’s Workers’ Party. Ri came to South Korea in August by posing as a defector and his identity was discovered under interrogation. Yesterday’s ruling came three months after Hwang died from heart failure at his Seoul home. Hwang was chief architect of North Korea’s juche philosophy of self-reliance. He was one of the country’s most powerful officials when he fled in 1997.
LEBANON
Cabinet in turmoil
President Michel Sleiman prepared on Thursday to tackle the delicate task of naming a new prime minister after Hezbollah forced the collapse of the unity government. Sleiman called on the government to stay on in a caretaker role and was to launch consultations on Monday with parliamentary blocs to appoint a new prime minister, who must be a Sunni Muslim in line with tradition. In a sweep led by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, 11 ministers withdrew from Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s government on Wednesday, providing the minimum number of resignations to automatically dissolve the 30-member Cabinet.
SOUTH KOREA
Japan standoff dispelled
The skipper of a fishing boat has admitted trespassing in Japanese waters, Seoul said yesterday, bringing an early end to a brief standoff between the two countries near disputed waters. The two countries’ coast guards on Thursday conducted a joint probe into whether the 29 tonne fishing boat had crossed into Japan’s exclusive economic zone off a disputed island known as Dokdo in Korea and Takeshima in Japan. Four Japanese patrol boats had chased the vessel on Thursday, sparking a standoff with a South Korean patrol boat. The captain was to be released later yesterday after giving a written guarantee that he will pay a fine of ¥250,000 (US$3,021) to Japan, a South Korean Coast Guard spokeswoman told reporters.
UZBEKISTAN
Ministers tied to mob boss
A US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks says high-ranking government ministers had close ties to a notorious crime boss. The March 2006 communique sent by then-US ambassador Jon Purnell says the embassy had obtained video footage of lavish parties thrown by relatives of an alleged mafia chief and attended by the wives of several ministers. The cable named the crime boss as Salim Abduvaliyev, a man described by Russian crime experts as being a former wrestling champion who consolidated Uzbek organized crime groups in the 1990s and acquired various businesses in former Soviet republics. WikiLeaks released the cable on Thursday.
BELARUS
Fox shoots hunter
A wounded fox shot its would-be killer by pulling the trigger on the hunter’s gun as the pair scuffled after the man tried to finish the animal off with the butt of the rifle, media said on Thursday. The unnamed hunter, who had approached the fox after wounding it from a distance, was in hospital with a leg wound, while the fox made its escape, media said, citing prosecutors from the Grodno region. “The animal fiercely resisted and in the struggle accidentally pulled the trigger with its paw,” one prosecutor was quoted as saying.
CANADA
‘Money for Nothing’ banned
The broadcast standards council has ruled that Dire Straits’ 1985 hit Money for Nothing should be censored because of a homosexual slur in its lyrics. The council said the British band’s use of a slur referring to gay people three times in the song breaches the national broadcasters’ code of ethics. The council said an edited version of the song could be played. Helen Kennedy, executive director of Egale Canada, an organization that promotes equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-identified people, said on Thursday the decision is the right move given a number of teenage suicides that took place in the US last year after they were subjected to homophobic bullying. “It perpetuates the stereotype, it’s negative and it’s offensive. If you look to the origin of the word, it’s disgusting,” Kennedy said. The decision was made after a radio listener complained about the song last year.
ITALY
Calabria a ‘failed state’: leak
A US official has said in a diplomatic cable that the southern region of Calabria would be a “failed state” were it not part of Italy, thanks to the pervasive grip of the ’Ndrangheta organized crime syndicate on every aspect of life. In a confidential cable released on Thursday by WikiLeaks, the diplomat said the region’s ineffective and corrupt politicians, corrupt port officials and woefully undermanned prosecutors’ offices only added to the sense of Calabria’s lawlessness and hopelessness. The cable, one of five Mafia-related documents released, dates from December 2008, before the government began a major crackdown on the ’Ndrangheta that has resulted in hundreds of arrests, millions in seized assets and a handful of rare turncoats.
ARGENTINA
Presidential aide robbed
Thieves on motorcycle held up an aide to President Cristina Kirchner and fled with a bagload of cash he was carrying for an upcoming foreign trip, police said on Thursday. One of the assailants put a gun to the aide’s head, then fled with the bag that contained US$68,000 and 17,000 euros (US$22,673) in cash, local news media reported. The robbery took place on Wednesday afternoon, police said, giving no further details. The cash was destined to pay for expenses aboard the presidential airplane Tango 01, local media reported.
MEXICO
Third mayor murdered
The mayor of an indigenous community in the south of the country was shot dead on Thursday, a local prosecutor said, making a total of three of the country’s mayors killed this year. Luis Jimenez Mata, who only took up his post in Santiago Amoltepec at the start of year, was shot dead as he arrived at his offices in nearby Oaxaca City, capital of Oaxaca state, Manuel de Jesus Lopez said. The motive of the killing remained unclear and fourteen people were called in for questioning, but none had been detained, the official said.
‘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