MYANMAR
Suu Kyi warned over ‘Burma’
Government officials have told opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi that she must refer to the nation by its official name and not “Burma.” The country’s former military rulers changed the country’s English name from Burma to Myanmar in 1989, but opponents and exile groups have persisted in referring to the country as Burma as a sign of protest and defiance. The national election commission issued the complaint yesterday in the state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper, saying Aung San Suu Kyi had referred to the country as Burma during her landmark trips to Thailand and Europe.
CHINA
Blogger’s name cleared
A blogger sentenced to one year in a labor camp says a court has cleared his name in a case linked to the nation’s biggest political scandal in years. Fang Hong (方洪) said the Chongqing Third Intermediate Court overturned his conviction because of a lack of evidence and ruled his time served an illegal detention. He said he would seek compensation and an apology from government and media outlets that made the accusations again him. The retired civil servant was arrested after posting a brief poem mocking now-disgraced politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來).
CHINA
Tanker explosion kills 20
A tanker truck filled with gasoline has collided with a truck in the south of the country, setting off an explosion and a massive fire that left 20 people dead and 14 others hurt. Xinhua News Agency said the tanker truck was carrying 40 tonnes of gasoline when it crashed into the other vehicle early yesterday morning on an expressway in Guangzhou City. Xinhua said oil leaked from the tanker truck and triggered an explosion that set a timber mill under the expressway bridge on fire. Xinhua said one of the 14 injured was severely hurt. Most of those hurt were workers from the factory. The agency cited Guangzhou City’s Internet information office.
INDIA
Rebels killed in shootout
At least 17 Maoist rebels were killed during a gunbattle yesterday with security forces in the central state of Chhattisgarh, a hotbed of left-wing extremism, police said. The gunfight erupted in the early hours of the morning in a thickly forested area of Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region, about 295km south of the state capital Raipur. Six Maoists and six members of the security forces were wounded, district police superintendent Prashant Agrawal said by telephone. Security forces are combing the area in search of more fighters, after the rebels ambushed a police patrol and shot dead six officers and a civilian in the state last month.
UNITED STATES
Colorado wildfire kills one
A body has been found in the debris from a wildfire that tore into the outskirts of Colorado Springs this week, marking the first casualty from the blaze in the western city. Colorado Springs Police Chief Peter Carey told reporters late on Thursday night that a body was found in the rubble of the Waldo Canyon fire and that one other person was missing who lived at the same address. The fire — which destroyed 300 homes and forced about 36,000 people to evacuate — is just 15 percent contained.
UNITED STATES
Filipino made citizen at 102
A 102-year-old Filipino man who came to the US as a youth to pick lettuce has become a citizen. Only 27 people older than 100 have become citizens there over the past 50 years. Joaquin Arciago Guzman was helped out of a wheelchair by his niece so he could stand during the Pledge of Allegiance at Wednesday’s naturalization ceremony in Los Angeles.
UNITED STATES
Obama meets veterans
President Barack Obama met with wounded service members from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Obama traveled to the hospital outside Washington by helicopter a few hours after the Supreme Court ruled on his healthcare law. The White House said the president met with 52 wounded soldiers and awarded one Purple Heart during his stay. It was Obama’s first visit to the hospital since early March.
MEXICO
Missing marines found dead
The navy said all four marines aboard a helicopter that went missing a week ago were found dead inside the aircraft’s wreckage. It said in a statement that investigators reached the site of the crash on a mountaintop in the western state of Jalisco on Thursday. The Eurocopter Panther helicopter set off from the Pacific coast city of Manzanillo on June 22, headed for Morelia, the capital of Michoacan State. Military and law enforcement helicopters have been attacked with small arms fire in the area in the past. The navy said in a separate statement that marines found a methamphetamine lab about 18km from the crash site. It did not say whether the helicopter crash and the discovery of the clandestine lab were related.
BRAZIL
Child porn ring arrested
Police said on Thursday they have broken up a ring that used Internet file sharing to distribute child pornography in at least 34 countries. Inspector Diana Calazans Mann told reporters the files exchanged by members of the group were “very repugnant.” She said there were images of “infants, children and teenagers being sexually abused.” “We were extremely shocked with the images,” she added. Another officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said 15 arrest warrants had been issued in the country and that at least 12 people had been arrested. Those arrested face up to six years in jail. He also said investigators found “accounts written by members of the ring describing acts of cannibalism, as well as the rape of children by their parents, kidnaps and murders.” He said police “are trying to determine if they describe actual events or are the fruit of the imaginations of those who wrote them and posted them on their Internet chat accounts.”
‘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