NEPAL
Students protest fuel hike
Students are burning tires to block traffic on key roads in Kathmandu and the eastern town of Itahari to protest a government decision to boost the prices of gasoline, diesel and cooking fuel. Police say there have been no reports of violence in the protests yesterday. The government decided on Wednesday to increase prices of various fuels by an average of 10 percent. State-run Nepal Oil Corp imports all oil products from India and says it had to increase the price because the cost of its supplies had increased and because it was facing losses.
CHINA
Guangdong official sacked
The government has dismissed a member of Guangdong Province Chinese Communist Party Standing Committee for “serious violation of rules,” according to the party’s news Web site, which cited an unidentified spokesman from the Organization Department of the party’s Central Committee. The official was the director of United Front Department of the local party committee, according to the report. It didn’t provide more detail about the allegations against him.
NORTH KOREA
Kim Jong-un visits military
New leader Kim Jong-un has visited an army unit, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said yesterday, as the new leader and head of the armed forces seeks to burnish his military credentials. Soldiers were “enthusiastically cheering in tears of emotion” as Kim toured a military base and took photos with troops, KCNA reported. It was the second reported visit by Kim, the youngest son of late leader Kim Jong-il, to a military unit this month and the latest attempt to help him tighten his grip on power. Kim Jong-un toured the base as his “father would do,” said KCNA, without disclosing the location or date of the visit. Army top brass, including Ri Yong-ho, the chief of the military’s general staff, accompanied him.
INDIA
Teacher a ‘billionaire’
A high-school teacher, with a monthly salary of around US$700, was astounded when a routine online check of his bank account showed a balance of almost US$10 billion. Parijat Saha, from the town of Balurghat in West Bengal State, said he had checked his State Bank of India account online last Sunday to confirm reception of a 10,000 rupee (US$200) interest payment. “Instead I saw this astronomical amount,” he said by telephone. The account showed a balance of 496 billion rupees. After recovering from the initial shock at becoming an overnight billionaire, Saha, 42, said he immediately called a friend he knew at the bank to point out what was obviously a major accounting error.
The State Bank of India said it was not immediately clear how the amount came to be registered in Saha’s account.
AFGHANISTAN
Aid sent to snowbound
Helicopters flew supplies into snowbound villages in the mountainous northeast yesterday as the death toll from heavy snowfalls and avalanches rose to at least 28, an official said. Dozens more people have been injured or are trapped in their homes under up to 3m of snow in Badakhshan Province, where main roads have been cut, making it difficult for rescue workers to reach affected villages. “The latest statistics we have are 28 people killed, 45 injured and 600 cattle killed from seven districts of Badakhshan,” said Abdul Maroof Rasikh, a spokesman for the provincial governor. “This is not the final toll, the fatalities may increase in the coming days.”
MEXICO
Teens detained for killings
Four teenagers have been detained for allegedly killing four students and a student’s father at a shady student organization in a western state last month, officials said on Wednesday. The bodies of a 56-year-old man, his 21-year-old son, two 17-year-olds and a 16-year-old were found buried in the grounds of the Federation of Students of Guadalajara in the middle of last month. The suspects, aged from 13 to 19, were still at school and worked at the student federation, a statement from the attorney general’s office of Jalisco state said. Investigators said last month that the victims went to complain about a rise in protection money for selling snacks outside the campus when a dispute broke out.
MEXICO
Seized kids were abused
An official says four of the 10 children seized as part of a child-trafficking probe involving Irish couples in Guadalajara were sexually abused. Jalisco state attorney general Tomas Coronado says a medical examination determined the abuse. He gave no other details. Coronado told reporters on Wednesday that 11 Irish couples are being questioned in the case. He said 15 Irish citizens have already spoken to investigators in Guadalajara. Authorities last week detained four women with children between two months and two years of age. A woman told police her sister-in-law was trying to sell one of her babies and “rent” the other one.
COLOMBIA
Police arrest trafficker
Police said on Wednesday that they had arrested Luis Fernando Otalvaro, known as “the Mathematician,” a suspected member of a major drug ring who has been sought by the US on trafficking charges. Officials said the 57-year-old Otalvaro, arrested at the Medellin airport, was part of a group known as “the board of directors of drug trafficking,” headed at one time by Luis Agustin Caicedo, known as “Don Lucho,” who is being held by the US. A police statement said Otalvaro was captured as he tried to board a commercial flight in Medellin for the southwestern city of Cali.
COLOMBIA
Oil pipeline blown up
Unknown attackers blew up a section of an oil pipeline near the Venezuelan border, the company Petronorte said on Wednesday. “We cannot say who did this, but we know it was an attack, an explosion” at the Rio Zulia-Ayacucho pipeline, Petronorte spokesman Renzo Coronado told RCN Radio. The spokesman did not indicate how much oil was spilled, but said efforts were underway to control the damage and prevent contamination of the Catatumbo River. The area has seen several attacks in recent days by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a Marxist group fighting the government for decades.
UNITED STATES
One in five disturbed
One in five adults, or nearly 50 million people, suffered mental illnesses in the past year, with women and young adults suffering disproportionately, a government report released yesterday found. The survey by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found women were more likely than men (23 percent to 16.8 percent) to have experienced a mental illness, while the rate of mental illness among people aged 18 to 25 was twice that of those aged 50 and older. The administration defined mental illness among adults as diagnosable mental, behavioral or emotional disorders, excluding developmental disorders and substance use.
‘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