MYANMAR
Hardliner picked for VP
A retired general, seen as a hardliner for close ties to the former junta and its deadly crackdown on 2007 monk-led rallies, has been nominated to be vice president, a military official said yesterday. Yangon chief minister Myint Swe was selected to replace another hardline army vice president by soldiers in parliament, who make up one quarter of the legislature, Brigadier General Wai Lin told reporters in the capital Naypyidaw. The nominee will later be approved by MPs. State media announced a reshuffle of six deputy ministers late Monday, but did not say whether or not the move was part of a wider reorganization.
CHINA
Self-immolation reported
Radio Free Asia says a Tibetan man protesting against Chinese rule set himself on fire on Saturday outside an old community hall in Dangxiong County, outside Lhasa. The report cites an unidentified source in Lhasa as saying the man shouted slogans in support of the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. Officials in Dangxiong either refused to comment or said they had not heard about the case.
SOUTH KOREA
President’s brother egged
Enraged protesters have thrown eggs at President Lee Myung-bak’s brother and grabbed his tie as he entered a court for questioning over corruption allegations. The court said it was reviewing whether to arrest the brother, former lawmaker Lee Sang-deuk. Prosecutors have accused him of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from two detained bankers. Lee Sang-deuk wasn’t hit by any of the hurled eggs and didn’t speak to a swarm of reporters gathered at the court. The protesters said they’d lost money after the government suspended the troubled savings banks he is accused of taking bribes from.
PAKISTAN
Lawmakers try to save PM
Lawmakers have passed a bill that would exempt senior ministers from contempt of court proceedings, a move seen as a bid to save the new prime minister from disqualification. The Supreme Court has given Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf until tomorrow to indicate whether he will obey an order to ask Swiss officials to reopen multimillion dollar corruption cases against the president. The court dismissed Yousuf Raza Gilani as prime minister on June 19 after convicting him of contempt in April for refusing to reopen the cases against President Asif Ali Zardari. The bill passed by the lower house on Monday night said senior government figures including the president, prime minister and ministers could not be found guilty of contempt for acts performed as part of their job. The bill must be passed by the upper house and signed off by the president before it becomes law.
RUSSIA
Web site protests censorship
The Russian-language Wikipedia Web site shut down yesterday with a stark black line across its main page in protest at a bill it warned could be used to censor the Internet. “Imagine a world without free knowledge,” it said on an otherwise white page, saying amendments to be discussed in parliament today “could lead to the creation of extrajudicial censorship of the whole Russian-language Internet.” The amendments to an information law are being promoted as a crackdown on child pornography in particular, but the Ru.Wikipedia.org site warned that they could “prompt the creation of a Russian version of the Great China Firewall.”
‘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