VIETNAM
Land rights activists jailed
A court has sentenced three land rights activists from the same family to up to seven years in jail for spreading anti-government propaganda, state media said yesterday. Nguyen Ngoc Cuong, 55, received a seven-year prison term, while his 25-year-old son got two years and his daughter-in-law received a suspended sentence, according to the Communist Party newspaper Nhan Dan. The three were known to campaign on behalf of farmers embroiled in land disputes with local authorities, an increasingly contentious issue. They were arrested in April for distributing anti-government leaflets, giving money to protesters and for publishing interviews containing “anti-regime content” online, the report said. They were also accused of founding an Internet forum called “Vietnam and Today’s Issues” that they used to urge fellow citizens “to distort the policies of the state and the party,” the paper said.
CHINA
Mining deaths down: official
The country says its coal mines have had fewer fatalities and accidents this year compared with the same period last year, though its mines are still the world’s most dangerous. Xinhua news agency yesterday quoted the top official in charge of coal mine safety as saying that 1,419 miners were killed in the first nine months of the year, 27.6 percent fewer than the same period last year. Zhao Tiechui told Xinhua that the number of deadly accidents fell 18.7 percent to 892 during the same period. The report did not credit any specific measures for the improvements, though China has cracked down on the smaller, illegal mines blamed for many deaths. Fatalities in China’s coal mines last year were about one-third of the high of nearly 7,000 in 2002.
‘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