CHINA
Buffett plays ukulele
A hugely popular Lunar New Year variety show has a special guest star playing the ukulele: US billionaire Warren Buffett. Buffett is shown wearing a dark sweat shirt and singing the folk song I’ve Been Working on the Railroad in the video posted on state broadcaster CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala Web site yesterday. There are no details on the Web site about where the 45-second clip was shot, but Buffett appears to be sitting in a small room with an elaborate model railroad set up in the background. The New Year extravaganza usually draws about 800 million viewers.
JAPAN
Man swims to see emperor
A Japanese man who was arrested early yesterday inside the Imperial Palace grounds in Tokyo wearing only his underwear told police he swam across the moat to meet the emperor. The man, in his 30s, did not seemed to have a clear political motive, a duty officer at the Imperial Guard Headquarters said. “At the time of his arrest, around 4:34am, he said: ‘I came to see the emperor. I swam,’” the officer said. His clothing was found on the side of a public road surrounding the moat, the officer said, adding that police would examine whether he is mentally fit to stand in criminal proceedings.
HONG KONG
Protesters take a break
The territory’s Occupy Central movement capped 100 days as protesters outside the Asian headquarters of HSBC Holdings PLC headed home for Lunar New Year celebrations. Many of the demonstrators will return later in the week, said Sum Ho, who works in the construction industry. About 10 people with the Occupy movement mingled around pitched tents, tables with food and protest banners under the HSBC building. The site is also a popular meeting place on Sundays for the territory’s Filipino and Indonesian housemaids, who have a minimum monthly wage of HK$3,740 (US$482). The global average for compensation at Goldman Sachs Group last year was US$367,057, equivalent to US$30,588 per month.
SRI LANKA
Clerics told to leave
The government has ordered a group of 161 foreign Islamic clerics to leave the country, for flouting visa regulations by preaching to pockets of Muslims around the country, an official said yesterday. Controller of Immigration and Emigration Chulananda Perera said the clerics, who were mostly Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian, Maldivian and Arab, had entered the country on tourist visas. “We have ordered them to leave the country by Jan. 31. They have violated immigration laws. A tourist visa is to have a holiday or visit friends and family and not to preach Islam,” Perera said.
CHINA
Man dies of bird flu
A man in Guizhou Province died of bird flu yesterday after three days of intensive care treatment in hospital, Xinhua news agency quoted the Ministry of Health as saying. The 39-year old — who died in hospital in Guiyan — began suffering from fever on Jan. 6. Xinhua said the centers for disease control and prevention at provincial and national levels confirmed the man had died after being infected with the H5N1 bird flu strain. The man had had close contact with 71 individuals, but none had shown unusual symptoms, the ministry told Xinhua. The report did not mention whether the man had been in recent contact with birds.
SOMALIA
Al-Qaeda official killed
Insurgents say that a US drone strike killed an al-Qaeda official fighting alongside them. A statement from the insurgent al-Kataib media foundation late on Saturday said that three missiles fired from an unmanned aerial vehicle hit Bilal al-Berjawi’s car on the outskirts of Mogadishu. Berjawi was a Lebanese and British citizen who grew up in West London. The strike was confirmed by a US official in Washington, who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
BOSNIA
War crimes fugitive nabbed
Police recaptured a Bosnian Serb former soldier on Saturday in the same town where he had escaped from jail four years earlier while serving a 20-year sentence for war crimes. Radovan Stankovic, now 42, had escaped from Foca in May 2007 during a fake visit to the dentist just a month after having been convicted of war crimes. He had been jailed for having raped and enslaved Muslim women during Bosnia’s 1992 to 1995 war. “The police were tipped off by a citizen that Stankovic was at his home in Foca. When police arrived, he tried to flee but was arrested near his building,” said Mirna Soja, a spokeswoman for the Republika Srpska interior ministry. Stankovic was originally arrested in 2002 by NATO troops in Bosnia, and his case was the first to be transferred to Bosnian authorities by The Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in 2005.
EGYPT
Blogger to be freed
A chief military prosecutor says blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad, imprisoned for criticizing the army, is among nearly 2,000 detainees who will be released on the one-year anniversary of the start of the uprising that toppled leader former president Hosni Mubarak. Adel el-Morsi says that 1,959 people convicted in military courts will be released on Wednesday. Sanad, arrested in March, was sentenced to two years in prison on charges of criticizing the armed forces and publishing false information after he posted blogs comparing the military to Mubarak’s regime — a criticism being voiced more frequently by protesters.
ITALY
Ship search suspended
Rescuers again suspended their search yesteray for 20 people still missing since a cruise liner capsized more than a week ago, officials said. Divers had to abandon their search because the 17-deck Costa Concordia, half-submerged and keeled over after hitting rocks off a northwestern island, had shifted again, an official spokesman said. A technical meeting was being held to review data and determine how much the ship had shifted and why before deciding how to continue the search. The underwater exploration had been halted for the same reason on Friday. After it resumed on Saturday, rescue crew recovered the body of a woman, yet to be identified, bringing the known death toll to 12.
PHILIPPINES
Two cargo ships sink
A cargo ship loaded with iron ore sank off Catanduanes province yesterday and another vessel carrying cement went down off Antique province, the coast guard said. All 32 crewmen from both ships were rescued. The Panamanian-registered M/V Sun Spirit began to list on Saturday off Catanduanes and sent a distress signal. A Philippine cargo ship and a fishing boat saved the crew of 12 Indonesians and two South Koreans, who had abandoned the ship.
‘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