PHILIPPINES
Heavy rain to continue
Hundreds of thousands of people already reeling from floods have been told to expect further heavy rains until March, authorities said yesterday, as the disaster death toll rose to 53. “There will be more rains in areas which should already be experiencing the dry season,” the national weather bureau’s spokeswoman Venus Valdemoro said. La Nina was partly responsible for the unseasonal downpours, she said. Heavier than normal rainfall is forecast for most of the country over the next three months, increasing the risk of flooding and landslides, especially in eastern regions, Valdemoro said. Heavy rains have swamped much of the country since late last month, with floods affecting nearly 1.6 million people, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.
CHINA
Nine die in apartment fire
An apartment fire in the city of Wuhan has left at least nine people dead. The Xinhua news agency says the fire started late on Monday and was put out early yesterday. An unnamed fire official told Xinhua that most people escaped the four-story building. Fires are a hazard in the country as families try to stay warm. Officials with the State Council yesterday expressed concern about icy conditions in the southern part of the country.
SRI LANKA
Flood victims storm office
Hundreds of flood victims stormed a government office in one of the hardest-hit areas on Monday to demand that aid be distributed, police said. Heavy monsoon rains caused flooding across the island nation last week, killing at least 40 people and leaving 51,400 people in temporary shelters. Anger over the distribution of relief spilled over in Ariyampathi, near the eastern port of Batticaloa. Police rushed to the scene and the crowd left after officials promised to deliver the aid, police spokesman Prishanth Jayakody said. He declined to say how many people were involved or whether anyone was injured.
PHILIPPINES
Medical visa on way in
Manila said yesterday it would introduce special medical visas for foreigners. The medical tourist visas, to be introduced this year, will allow foreigners to stay in the country for six months without having to apply for extensions as regular tourists are required to do, according to the Bureau of Immigration. “The visa will help the Philippines become competitive in the lucrative medical tourism market in Asia now dominated by Taiwan, Singapore and Thailand among others,” immigration bureau deputy head Ronaldo Ledesma reporters.
UNITED KINGDOM
‘Wife-beater’ recalled
New Delhi said yesterday it was recalling a senior envoy from Britain following reports that he assaulted his wife, but indicated it would not consider waiving his diplomatic immunity. The diplomat, named by media as Anil Verma, allegedly attacked his wife on Dec. 11 in an argument at their home in London, Britain’s Mail on Sunday reported. Police were called after neighbors heard his wife, Paromita Verma, scream and saw her run out into the street with blood streaming from her nose, the paper said. The envoy was reportedly angry because there was a Christmas tree in the house that had been given to the family by one of his wife’s relatives.
UNITED KINGDOM
Old whisky returns home
Three bottles of whisky abandoned in the Antarctic ice by British explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton more than a century ago returned home to Scotland on Monday. The bottles of Mackinlay’s were part of a cache recovered last year beneath Shackleton’s Antarctic hut, built in 1908 as part of his failed attempt to reach the South Pole. They made it home on Monday to Whyte and Mackay, the brand’s owner, for analysis to see how they have fared after so long preserved in the polar chill. The wooden crate containing the whisky, marked “British Antarctic Expedition 1907,” was frozen solid in minus-30oC temperatures, but the whisky in the bottles was still liquid.
SOMALIA
Pirates break record
Somali pirates kidnapped a record number of seafarers last year, in cases that left eight sailors dead, a maritime watchdog said yesterday. Pirates in the lawless region hijacked 53 ships and captured 1,181 seafarers last year, the International Maritime Bureau said in a report. The number of pirate attacks against ships has risen every year for the past four years, the bureau said. There were 445 attacks reported last year, up 10 percent from 2009. A total of 188 crew members were taken hostage in 2006, 1,050 in 2009 and 1,181 last year.
SOUTH KOREA
Russian arms trade for debt
Seoul has been negotiating with Russia to receive advanced defense technology as part of debt repayments, officials said yesterday. Russia has so far provided South Korea with US$740 million in weapons as a way of repaying US$1.3 billion in debt dating back to the days of the Soviet Union. Seoul is now in talks on the transfer of cutting-edge technology from Moscow, the South’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration said. Yonhap news agency quoted a military source as saying the Russian technologies include long-range radar and a defense system against an electromagnetic pulse attack.
SWITZERLAND
Arson attack hits court
Unknown assailants set fire to the entrance of the country’s highest criminal court and spray painted the building with anti-establishment slogans, police said on Monday. There was no immediate claim of responsibility and no one was hurt in the attack on the Federal Criminal Court in the town of Bellinzona, police Inspector Renato Pizolli said. Spray painted slogans condemning the judiciary were accompanied by the symbol of an encircled A often used by anarchists. Police said in a statement the fire was most likely arson. The attack in Ticino, near the Italian border, comes several weeks after Italy’s Informal Anarchist Federation claimed responsibility for a parcel bomb that seriously injured a man when it exploded in the Swiss embassy in Rome.
‘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