CAMBODIA
CPP likely to win local polls
Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling party was expected to win local council elections yesterday in a vote that monitors say is tainted by vote buying and other irregularities. The elections are viewed as the key indicator of public opinion ahead of next year’s general elections. Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) has ruled the country for nearly three decades and overwhelmingly won both previous local elections in 2002 and 2007. Ten political parties were vying for seats, but none have the means to compete with Hun Sen’s party, said Koul Panha, executive director of election monitoring group Comfrel. Panha added that there have also been widespread reports of vote buying and intimidation to secure support. King Norodom Sihamoni issued a statement ahead of the election urging voters not to bow to election-related intimidation. “I publicly call on compatriots, brothers and sisters, children, nieces and nephews not to fear oppression, intimidation or threats from any individual or political party,’’ he said in a statement issued in March.
CHINA
Editor quits over blog posts
A newspaper editor has left his job after comments were posted on his paper’s official microblog mocking the Chinese Communist Party’s insistence that it command the loyalty of the nation’s military. Yu Chen (喻塵) confirmed yesterday that he was no longer the Southern Metropolitan’s in-depth editor. He declined to discuss the reason or other details in a sign of the sensitivity of the matter. However, activist friend Hu Jia (胡佳) said Yu told him he stepped down after the remarks were posted by an unknown person, a claim repeated by online media based overseas. The remarks said that if the party insists on full control over the military, then the people should have the right to form their own army.
PHILIPPINES
Storm turns into typhoon
Five people were missing in yesterday as Tropical Storm Mawar moved away from the country, now as a much stronger typhoon, rescuers said. A seven-year-old boy fell into a river east of Manila and was feared to have drowned, while four fishermen were missing at sea off the country’s east, the Civil Defense Office said. Thirty-two other fishermen were rescued in rough waters off the eastern island of Catanduanes on Saturday, hours after their boat ran out of fuel at sea during the storm, police said. Mawar’s western fringes brushed past the country’s eastern section on Saturday, the state weather service said. The system had maximum winds of about 100km an hour near the center. It became a typhoon early yesterday with maximum winds of 120km an hour, the weather service added.
INDIA
Farmers await late monsoon
The southwest monsoon has missed its normal arrival date, but forecasters said they were confident the rains would arrive soon. “Most likely, the southwest monsoon will reach Kerala by June 5,” India Meteorological Department director general L.S. Rathore told the Press Trust of India. Normally the rains begin pouring down from June 1 to late September and in recent years they have started early. Rathore said “there is no concern” about the delay, which he attributed to unfavorable weather off shore in the Arabian Sea. Agriculture gets 60 percent of its precipitation from the rains and a bad monsoon can spell financial disaster for the nation’s 235 million farmers, many of whom are smallholders eking out a living.
GERMANY
Activists clash in Hamburg
Police said leftists activists clashed with police and far-right supporters during dueling demonstrations in the northern port city of Hamburg. Several police were injured during the melee, which saw the leftists set fire to barricades and use pyrotechnics, bottles and stones to attack police and the far-right demonstrators. Both marches on Saturday attracted hundreds of people. Police spokeswoman Sandra Levgruen says the leftists tried to stop the far-right rally by erecting barricades and setting them ablaze. Officers used water cannons to extinguish the blazes and keep the leftists in check. Separately, police say more than 10,000 people followed a call by unions and major parties to demonstrate peacefully in the city center against the far-right march.
ITALY
Sailors released on bail
Sailors charged with murdering two Indian fishermen were released on bail on Saturday to await trial in India, one step closer to the climax of a major diplomatic row between Rome and New Delhi. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said the two marines, Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone, had moved to a hotel in the port city of Kochi in the western Indian state of Kerala, where they are obliged to stay under conditions of their bail. An Indian court on Wednesday set bail at 10 million rupees (US$178,900) each and said Latorre and Girone would not be allowed to leave Kochi for the duration of the trial, set to begin on June 18. The sailors were part of a military security team protecting the cargo ship Enrica Lexie from pirate attacks when they opened fire on the fishermen’s boat off the coast of Kerala on Feb. 15. Italian officials say the men mistook the fishermen for pirates.
FRANCE
Tintin breaks auction record
A rare 1932 cover illustration of Tintin in America by Herve, the artist who dreamed up the boy reporter, on Saturday fetched a record 1.3 million euros (US$1.6 million) at an auction in Paris. “The work has been sold at 1,338,509.20 euros, costs included, by a person who wishes to remain anonymous,” a spokesman for the auctioneers, Artcurial, said. The previous owner, another Tintin collector, had bought it for 764,218 euros in 2008, which had until today stood as the record price in this domain. Belgian comic book artist Herve painted the Indian ink and gouache color cover for the first edition of the book, which appeared in 1934. One of only five such works of cover art by Herve remaining, it shows the young adventurer dressed as a cowboy sitting on a rock, his dog Snowy at his side, as three Indians, two wielding axes, creep up behind him.
NIGERIA
Car bomber targets church
A suicide bomber drove a car full of explosives into a northern church yesterday, killing at least 12 people, witnesses said. Security forces at a road block nearby said the bomber forced his car through the checkpoint and drove into the church in Yalwa, on the outskirts of the city of Bauchi. A reporter at the scene counted 12 bodies being pulled from the building. It was not clear who was responsible for the attack, although churches have been targeted by militant Islamist group Boko Haram this year — who are increasingly using suicide bombers. Gunmen killed at least 15 people and wounded many more on April 29 in an attack on a university theater being used by Christian worshippers in Kano, the main city in the north.
CAYMAN ISLANDS
Turtle release planned
A turtle farm says it will free a turtle that is about 60 years old to celebrate British Queen Elizabeth II’s 60 years on the throne. Officials at the Cayman Turtle Farm said that the creature, known as “Sir Thomas Turtleton,” weighs more than 272kg and has been used to breed for more than 30 years. The plan is to release the turtle on Saturday in North Sound, the largest protected bay on Grand Cayman Island. Scientists will then track it by satellite.
UNITED STATES
Fire extinguished at WTC
Firefighters responded to the 89th floor of One World Trade Center (WTC) on Saturday to help construction workers put out a smoldering fire in some wooden decking. The fire was a small one and never posed a threat to life or property, but its location at the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, made it anything but routine. The New York City Fire Department said it received the call for help at 7:15am. Workers at the unfinished tower used fire extinguishers to put out the burning plywood themselves, but fire-fighters were still on the scene wetting down the area an hour later. Pat Foye, of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey executive director, which owns the skyscraper, said there were no serious injuries or structural damage and construction work had not been halted.
MEXICO
Babies to be returned
Babies taken into custody during the dismantling of a child trafficking ring that handed children to Irish couples will be returned to their mothers, a lawyer said on Saturday. The ring, disbanded by police earlier this year, allegedly passed on babies to Irish couples for adoption. Seven people are under arrest while the leader of the operation, Carlos Lopez, remains at large. Yuri Marquez, a lawyer working on the case, told reporters that an unspecified number of children kept in a nursery for four months were being returned to their mothers after undergoing DNA tests to confirm their identity, local media reported. A report showed that the women, some of them illiterate and living in slums, had voluntarily given their children up for adoption in exchange for money. However, the Foundation for Locating Missing Children said that lawyers duped the women into thinking their children were being photographed for an anti-abortion advertising campaign.
UNITED STATES
Firefighters use choppers
More than 1,200 fire-fighters battling the largest wildfire in New Mexico’s history rappelled from helicopters on Saturday to extinguish blazes in rugged mountains and canyons, authorities said. The Whitewater-Baldy Complex blaze has burned through 92,000 hectares and is only 15 percent contained, although “substantial progress” has been made as firefighters race to extinguish the massive fire ahead of more hot and windy conditions, according to officials. Thunderstorms and dry lightning forecast for southwestern New Mexico threatened to accelerate the disaster after the fire consumed vegetation in the Gila National Forest. Lightning sparked the blaze on May 16. About 1,257 personnel are involved in the firefighting effort, along with 64 fire engines, 28 water tenders, seven dozers and 10 helicopters, according to New Mexico Fire Information. The blaze has already surpassed New Mexico’s last record-breaking fire, the Las Conchas wildfire, which burned through more than 63,130 hectares.
‘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