THAILAND
Sick PM visiting Vietnam
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra was to be discharged from hospital yesterday after an overnight stay to recover from food poisoning and head directly to the airport for a scheduled trip to Vietnam, government spokeswoman Titima Chaisang said. “She will meet with her Vietnamese counterpart and hold bilateral talks. It’s possible that she will not stay for the evening banquet,” she said. The talks will address trade, investment and tourism — including a proposal for a single tourist visa for Southeast Asian countries — Titima said, adding that Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul was set to accompany Yingluck.
PAKISTAN
BBC blocked: cable group
The president of Pakistan’s cable TV association said operators had blocked BBC World News because of a documentary critical of the country’s commitment to fighting Islamist militants. Khalid Arain said the decision was implemented on Tuesday after the network showed the documentary, Secret Pakistan, on Nov. 23. The BBC says on its Web site that the two-part documentary explores accusations by CIA officials and western diplomats that Pakistan is failing to live up to its commitments in the war on terror.
CHINA
Old needles spark outbreak
More than 150 villagers, many of them children, may have been infected with hepatitis C by a clinic that reused old needles, state media and local authorities said yesterday. Nineteen people who received treatment at the privately run clinic in Henan Province have tested positive for the disease, which the WHO says can lead to cirrhosis of the liver and liver cancer. Another 98 are suspected to have been infected, the state-run Beijing Times reported. The paper quoted local officials as saying the clinic regularly reused needles, but that they were still trying to establish whether it was to blame for the outbreak. A statement from health authorities in neighboring Anhui Province said 43 patients who attended the clinic had been screened for the disease, and that the outbreak was “probably due to unsafe injections.”
CHINA
Poverty line raised to US$1
The government has raised the official poverty line, causing more people to qualify as poor despite a booming economy. It announced a near doubling of its previous poverty line to about US$1 a day on Tuesday. That means 128 million Chinese now qualify as poor, or 100 million more than under the previous amount. The new poverty line is still below the World Bank’s level of US$1.25 a day, but the change brings China closer to international norms after three decades of buoyant growth.
CHINA
HIV numbers rising
The number of people with the AIDS virus will reach 780,000 by the end of this year, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday, with most having contracted it through heterosexual sex. Xinhua said that a report from the Ministry of Health and the UN estimates there will be about 48,000 new HIV infections in the country this year. HIV gained a foothold in China largely because of unsanitary blood plasma buying schemes and tainted transfusions in hospitals. A number of of relatives of HIV or AIDS patients who contracted the virus through tainted transfusions yesterday planned to protest in front of the Ministry of Finance in Beijing, but abandoned the plan because of the tight security there.
UNITED STATES
Occupy protest gains support
Three New York City Council members introduced a resolution on Tuesday that would formalize support for Occupy Wall Street and its message condemning economic inequality. “The Occupy movement is more than occupying a public square,” said Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, one of the resolution’s authors, along with two of his peers. “It is about the frustration of the working class and the middle class who feel we have not received a fair share.” The resolution describes a protest “fueled by disheartened New Yorkers” and calls on members to defend a peaceful approach to “the divisive economic and social realities facing our nation.” Rodriguez said the resolution already had the support of 13 members.
UNITED STATES
Kidnapper sues his victims
Can there be no trust between a kidnapper and his hostages? A man who held a couple from Topeka, Kansas, hostage in their home while fleeing from authorities is suing them, claiming they broke an oral contract made when he promised them money in exchange for hiding him from police. Jesse Dimmick of Colorado is serving an 11-year sentence after bursting into Jared and Lindsay Rowley’s home in 2009. The couple escaped unharmed after Dimmick fell asleep. The Topeka Capital-Journal reported that Dimmick filed a breach of contract suit in Shawnee County District Court, contending that he and the Rowleys reached a legally binding oral contract that they would hide him in exchange for an unspecified amount of money. The couple has asked a judge to dismiss the suit.
ALBANIA
King Leka I Zogu dies
A spokeswoman for the royal family says that King Leka I Zogu, the self-proclaimed heir to the throne, has died. He was 72. Julinda Kamberi said King Leka I died of heart and lung problems in a hospital in Tirana yesterday. King Leka I was the only son of the late King Ahmet Zogu, who declared himself king in 1928 and ruled until the Italian army invaded in 1939, forcing the family to flee two days after King Leka I was born. The country’s communist rulers abolished the monarchy in 1946. King Leka I returned to the country in 2002, following the collapse of communist rule.
UNITED KINGDOM
Marmite wreaks havoc
It was not your typical road accident. A tanker carrying yeast extract — the key ingredient in that uniquely British spread Marmite — overturned on a major highway, spilling the pungent-smelling liquid onto the road. The liquid has the same unique smell of Marmite and was being transported to the Marmite factory in Burton-on-Trent to be turned into the black sticky paste that generations have spread on hot buttered toast. South Yorkshire Police said the accident happened on Monday evening after the tanker collided with a motorhome on the M1 highway.
UNITED STATES
Gacy victim identified
Investigators have identified the remains of one of serial killer John Wayne Gacy’s victims as that of a 19-year-old Chicago man. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said on Tuesday that DNA testing matched one of eight previously unidentified sets of Gacy victim remains to William George Bundy. Dart says Bundy’s brother and sister submitted DNA samples after the sheriff’s office called on the relatives of people who disappeared in the area in the 1970s to come forward. Gacy was convicted of murdering 33 young men from 1972 through 1978.
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
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
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