RUSSIA
Oil rig capsizes, killing 2
At least two people died in freezing waters after an oil platform in the nation’s Far Eastern Okhotsk sea turned over yesterday, the regional emergency ministry said. The Kolskoye oil platform was 200m from the shore when the accident occurred at 1:45am amid high winds and temperatures of minus-17?C. Fourteen people were rescued and two bodies were found by 5:30am, Interfax news agency quoted a local official as saying.
HONG KONG
Deportee enters 40 times
A woman barred from entering the territory for life over serial shoplifting offenses evaded security checks and slipped into the territory more than 40 times in two years, a report said on Saturday. The 49-year-old woman, Chao Sam-i, a cleaner from Macau, was deported from Hong Kong and received a lifetime expulsion order in 2004 after she committed a series of thefts, according to the South China Morning Post. She visited the territory in 2009 again to attend her daughter’s wedding without a hitch, and has since returned to the territory dozens of times, the report said.
ITALY
Police stop chatty driver
A driver was stopped by astonished police in the southern city of Bari on Saturday when they saw him speaking on two cellphones with a handset in each hand and no control of the wheel. Asked to explain his actions, the 43-year-old driver of an Alfa Romeo 166 saloon car said he was speaking to his wife when his mother called and he could not hang up on either of them, the Corriere Della Sera daily reported. The man — a professional truck driver — made matters worse when he admitted that he frequently spoke on two handsets while on work trips. Police fined him 152 euros (US$198) and took five points off his license.
CHINA
‘Blue sky’ quota met
Beijing authorities said yesterday they had met their target of “blue sky” days for this year, amid growing public criticism that officials are underplaying the pollution problem in the capital. The city had 274 days of “grade one or two” air quality compared with 252 days last year, according to a statement on the Beijing government’s official news portal. “Beijing has seen an overall decline in the concentration of various pollutants in 2011,” said Zhuang Zhidong, the deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau. However, Zhuang admitted that Beijing also experienced “several days of poor air quality as a result of bad weather conditions.” Public anger over heavy pollution has been compounded by official data showing air quality is good or only slightly polluted when smog is visible and figures published by the US embassy rank it as “very unhealthy.”
YEMEN
Saleh forces withdraw
Forces loyal to outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his opponents withdrew from their positions in Sana’a on Saturday, witnesses and officials said, in a further sign a peace deal signed last month was being implemented. Witnesses said a military committee set up under the Gulf peace deal signed in Saudi Arabia last month oversaw the dismantling of military positions that have divided the capital since protests against Saleh’s 33-year rule began in January. They said armored bulldozers removed barricades from Sixty Street which split the capital. Military trucks were seen carrying armored vehicles from the base of a brigade led by dissident General Ali Mohsen outside Sana’a.
‘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