MALAYSIA
Six divers go missing
Search teams were yesterday looking for six scuba divers who went missing a day earlier off a resort island after apparently failing to resurface, a maritime official said. The group, including a diver from Singapore, one from China and four Malaysians, disappeared after going diving off Tioman Island on the east coast on Saturday, an official with the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency said. Only one person with the group, whose members were aged between 25 and 33 and which included two women, resurfaced after the dive, he said. Three boats and eight navy divers are involved in the search.
CROATIA
Bus crash kills eight Czechs
At least eight Czech tourists were killed and 44 injured when a bus crashed and overturned on a major highway in the country on Saturday, police said. The accident happened at about 4am, about 200km south of Zagreb, on a highway connecting the capital with the central Adriatic coastal city of Split, according to a police statement. State TV said the bus crashed through metal barriers in the middle of the highway and overturned in the opposite lane near a tunnel. State TV quoted eyewitnesses as saying the bus started “swaying” moments before the crash, suggesting the driver apparently lost control after he fell asleep. Photographs from the scene showed the bus’s twisted metal remains on its side, with seven dead passengers — covered with white sheets — lying on the pavement. State TV said a child was among the dead and the eighth fatality was discovered in the wreckage.
NORWAY
Far-right extremists rally
Police say about 40 far-right radicals have held a peaceful rally to protest what they call the “Islamization of Norway and Europe.” The demonstration in the southwestern city of Stavanger was held on Saturday by the Norwegian Defense League, an anti-Islam organization closely associated with the English Defence League. Saturday’s demonstration opposed a recent parliamentary decision to amend the country’s constitution to separate the state from the church. Police spokesman Henning Andersen said there were no arrests during the two-hour rally.
GREECE
Gay pride rally attacked
Police say about 50 people threw eggs and plastic bottles of water at about 400 people holding a gay pride parade in the northern city of Thessaloniki. Police moved in to restrict the attackers on Saturday, but no injuries were reported. In recent days, Anthimos, the senior Greek Orthodox cleric in Thessaloniki, had publicly criticized the planned gay pride parade. Anthimos, who only uses one name, is known for outspoken speeches.
ITALY
Migrants found dead on ferry
Two would-be immigrants were found dead on a ferry that arrived in the port of Ancona from Greece on Saturday and a third was in a coma, media reported. The daily Corriere della Sera said in its online edition that 18 migrants hid under trucks and buses on the Superfast ferry and suffered from the extreme heat inside the hull. ANSA news agency said the migrants were inside a Hungarian truck and died of asphyxiation. Two drivers were arrested, the agency added. There were conflicting reports about the migrants’ origins, with the Corriere saying they were from Pakistan and ANSA reporting they came from Afghanistan. On Tuesday, seven migrants went missing after their boat capsized off the coast.
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