MYANMAR
Rebels bomb railway line
Ethnic Kachin rebels have bombed a major railway line in the north of the country for the third time in less than a month, a state-run newspaper said yesterday. The attack was the latest targeting the military-backed government since a long-standing peace deal with the Kachin forces deteriorated with an outbreak of fighting last month. The New Light of Myanmar said rebels attacked the train line that runs from the city of Mandalay to the Kachin State capital, Myitkyina, on Tuesday night. No casualties were reported and the track was repaired. The state paper said the train, which provides a vital link to Kachin State, was also attacked by rebels on June 22 and June 30.
INDIA
Textiles minister resigns
Textiles Minister Dayanidhi Maran resigned yesterday over corruption allegations, television reports said, dealing a new blow to the administration of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Police suggested on Wednesday that Maran, telecoms minister from 2004 to 2007, might have manipulated the sale of second-generation mobile phone licenses in favor of companies to which he was linked. Singh has grappled with a string of government-linked graft scandals over the last year, including claims that the allocation of the licenses cost the treasury US$40 billion in lost revenue. In the police report lodged with the Supreme Court on Wednesday, Maran was alleged to have forced a businessman to sell a stake in the Aircel telecoms group to another company that was close to the Maran family.
KYRGYZSTAN
President warns on election
The president has called on parliament to urgently review a recent reshuffle of the Central Asian nation’s top election body that she warns could derail a vote scheduled for October. President Roza Otunbayeva said in a statement yesterday that lawmakers’ decision last month to reject two of her four nominees to the 12-member Central Elections Commission breaches the election law. Otunbayeva says uncertainty over the commission’s legitimacy could spark legal complaints after the election in which she is to be replaced.
INDONESIA
Drug smuggler loses appeal
An Australian drug smuggler sentenced to death, one of the “Bali Nine” gang arrested in 2005, has lost his final appeal against the punishment, his lawyer said yesterday. Todung Mulya Lubis, a lawyer for 30-year-old Myuran Sukumaran, said he found out on Wednesday that Sukumaran’s judicial review had been rejected by the Supreme Court. “I’m very saddened by the decision,” Lubis said. “He has admitted his guilt and asked not to be sentenced to death. The death punishment should actually be revoked.” Lubis said it was not clear if Sukumaran would be able to seek any further judicial review of his sentence.
CHINA
Bridge construction rushed
Officials have been accused of rushing construction of the world’s longest sea bridge so that it can open for the Communist Party’s 90th anniversary, with nuts left unfastened, state media said yesterday. In the haste to finish the bridge before the July 1 celebrations, nuts on guard rails were in place but not fastened on a roughly 15m section of the 36.5km Jiaozhou Bay Bridge, the Global Times said. The lighting system also had not been installed before it opened on June 30 and it would take at least two months to finish all the bridge’s features, state-run China Central Television reported earlier this week.
UNITED STATES
CNN cancels Spitzer show
Former New York governor Eliot Spitzer was cut from CNN’s prime-time lineup on Wednesday. Spitzer, who resigned in March 2008, 14 months into his term as New York governor amid a prostitution scandal, began his nightly show on CNN in October. CNN moved Anderson Cooper’s flagship newscast into the tough 8pm time slot and eliminated Spitzer’s In the Arena program. Spitzer ended his last show on Wednesday with a quotation from former US president Theodore Roosevelt praising people who get “in the arena” to try to improve society, a passage he said inspired the name for his show. CNN talked to Spitzer about staying with the network as a commentator, but he declined.
UNITED STATES
Weapons lab reopens
Smoke still hung in the air from a northern New Mexico wildfire that came dangerously close to the nation’s No. 1 nuclear weapons laboratory, but life was returning to normal on Wednesday as thousands of employees showed up for their first day of work in more than a week. Although the threat to Los Alamos National Laboratory and the town that surrounds it has passed, the largest fire in New Mexico’s history continued to burn in remote areas. The fire, which began last month, had forced the closure of the lab along with the evacuation of thousands of residents in nearby communities.
UNITED STATES
Grizzly kills hiker
A hiker was killed by a grizzly bear in the Yellowstone National Park on Wednesday after he and his wife surprised the bear and her cubs on a popular trail, park officials said. The woman was not wounded in the attack. This was the first such killing in the park in nearly 25 years, the officials said. Grizzly bears can weigh up to 680kg and sport large shoulder humps. Despite their size, they can run up to 55kph, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. The bears tend to avoid humans, but can be extremely aggressive if they perceive a threat to their young. There are warning signs about grizzlies throughout the national park, and the attack took place in an area where bear-sightings are common.
HONDURAS
Ex-beauty queen arrested
Police say they arrested Miss Honduras 2009 on money laundering charges for failing to declare the equivalent of US$47,000 when entering the country. Special services police spokesman Alex Madrid said 25-year-old Belgica Suarez was arrested with euros and British pounds on a highway near the Nicaraguan border. Madrid said the beauty queen failed to declare the money when she crossed the border from the city of Esteli in Nicaragua. “She claimed she had earned the money working as a model in Europe,” Madrid said.
YEMEN
Al-Qaeda ambush kills 10
Suspected al-Qaeda militants killed 10 soldiers when they ambushed them on a road in the south of the country, where the jihadist network has a stronghold, a military official said yesterday. The gunmen opened fire on the vehicle in which the soldiers were traveling on Wednesday north of the city of Loder, in Abyan Province, killing them all, the official said. Only the driver survived, although he was wounded, a medical official said. Supporters of al-Qaeda have strengthened their grip on the south of the country since a wave of popular protests erupted in late January against the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
‘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
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in