VIETNAM
Customs seizes ivory
Customs officials yesterday said they had seized more than a tonne of ivory, believed to be from elephant tusks, being smuggled into the country. A total of 221 tusk portions were discovered hidden on an iron boat that was intercepted by authorities as it tried to cross a river on the northern frontier with China late on Saturday, an official from the Quang Ninh Provincial Customs Department said. Three people, including two Chinese, were arrested and are currently in police custody, said the official, who declined to be named.
AUSTRALIA
Man wrongly held: lawyer
An Indian man who came to the country to study for a masters in engineering ended up in immigration detention and was wrongly kept there for almost 18 months, his lawyer said yesterday. Prashant Cherkupalli was reportedly picked up by immigration officials after he was found to be working in a bakery without having the right visa to do so in November 2004. He spent the next 509 days in Sydney’s Villawood Detention Centre before his release in April 2006. Cherkupalli remains in the country, where he has since finished his masters degree, but he took his complaint to the national Human Rights Commission, which is yet to make its findings on the case public. His lawyer said that the commission had found that Cherkupalli should not have been detained.
HONG KONG
Feng shui master loses bid
The territory’s highest court has refused to reconsider a ruling that a will bequeathing a feng shui master the fortune of Asia’s once richest woman was forged. The decision by the Court of Final Appeal closes the door on Tony Chan’s (陳振聰) efforts to win control of Nina Wang’s (龔如心) private Chinachem Group fortune, estimated at HK$100 billion (US$12.8 billion). Chan was Wang’s lover. He contends that a will dating from 2006 bequeathing him Wang’s fortune is authentic. However, a three-judge panel yesterday found there was no grounds to reconsider a lower court’s April ruling that the will was a phony. Wang died in 2007.
INDIA
No polio found in months
Health officials say there has not been a case of polio in the country for nine months, the longest the nation has ever been polio-free. The health ministry says the country has never been closer to wiping out the debilitating disease since eradication efforts were launched here nearly two decades ago. India remains one of only four countries in the world where polio is still endemic. Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said yesterday the last new case was reported in January in West Bengal state and no cases were reported in the traditional polio reservoirs of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh states. He said any fresh case of the virus would be declared a public health emergency.
CHINA
Officials jailed over leaks
Two officials have been jailed for leaking economic data to securities brokerages and four people who work in the financial industry are being investigated. The National Administration for Protection of State Secrets said the officials shared classified data numerous times, but it gave no details about the information or the impact of the leaks. The officials worked in the National Bureau of Statistics and the People’s Bank of China and were sentenced to five and six years in jail respectively.
‘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