THAILAND
Lese majeste trial starts
The trial of a Thai man accused of selling video CDs (VCDs) of an Australian TV news segment about the monarchy has begun in Bangkok. Akachai Hongkangwan was arrested in March last year and charged with lese majeste, the crime of defaming the royal family. The VCDs allegedly sold by Akachai contained a segment from the Australian Broadcasting Corp’s Foreign Correspondent series in 2010 that questioned the future of the monarchy. The segment included footage from a private video of Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn with his wife-to-be. Akachai was also charged with violating laws governing the distribution of video recordings. His trial began yesterday.
JAPAN
Fukushima reopens beach
Fukushima Prefecture has opened its first beach to swimmers since last year’s nuclear disaster after judging the water to be safe. About 1,000 people on Monday descended on Nakoso beach, about 65km south of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant, where three reactors melted down after the earthquake and tsunami on March 11 last year. The opening was celebrated with beach volleyball games and hula dancers from a nearby spa. Iwaki City official Joji Kimura said negligible radiation was detected in water at the beach. Airborne radiation was measured at 0.08 microsieverts per hour, far below dangerous levels.
JAPAN
Schoolgirl injured by javelin
A schoolgirl was in intensive care yesterday after being speared in the head by a javelin while taking part in track and field training, an official said. The 2.6m javelin became lodged in the 15-year-old’s head after being thrown by a student on campus at Fukuyama Heisei University in Hiroshima Prefecture on Monday, the university official said. The girl was training at the university with a group of fellow high-school students when the incident happened. Rescuers cut the shaft off the 794g javelin before taking her to hospital.
NEPAL
Bus accident kills nine
A bus swerved off a road before dawn on Monday and plunged into a river, killing nine people, police said — the latest in a string of deadly accidents on the country’s highways. Police said Monday’s deaths occurred when the bus fell 200m down a cliff after the driver was thought to have fallen asleep. “A passenger bus on its way to Kathmandu from Katari slipped off the road at Krishnabhir and fell into the river,” police sub-inspector Narayan Prasad Chalise said. “We recovered six bodies from the accident site and three seriously injured died in hospital in Kathmandu. Another 17 people are injured and are undergoing treatment.”
CHINA
Hunan urges medical checks
Hunan Province urged parents on Sunday to seek immediate treatment for children showing symptoms of hand, foot and mouth disease after official figures showed 112 people died from the illness last month. The disease, to which children are especially vulnerable also infected more than 381,000 people, the Ministry of Health reported last week. The province urged parents and teachers to send children to hospital as soon as they showed symptoms of the disease, including mouth sores, skin rashes or fever. Last month, 34,768 cases were reported and 17 people died from the disease in Hunan, the statement said. According to the Ministry of Health, more than 460,000 people were infected in May, leading to 132 deaths.
CANADA
Two dead in party shooting
Two people were killed and at least 19 injured in a shooting at an outdoor party in Toronto, police said yesterday, raising fresh fears of a rise in gun crime in the nation’s largest city. Police said it was too early to say what prompted the shooting late on Monday, in which a young man and young woman were killed. Many of those hurt were injured in the panic that ensued after shots were fired. “This is the most serious crime of its kind to ever take place in the city of Toronto,” Toronto police chief Bill Blair told reporters at the scene. The incident occurred barely six weeks after a shooting at a shopping mall that killed one and wounded six.
MEXICO
Hundreds of youths arrested
Police held 226 mostly minors for questioning on Monday after what may have been the nation’s first incidence of flash mob violence. Ninety-one youths were let go during the day for lack of evidence, while the others remained in custody. Mexico City police chief Manuel Mondragon said two young men had called on other people to gather for a concert of reggaeton music on Sunday, but hundreds more people showed up than could fit into the bar where it was being held. Mondragon said as many as 600 angry youths who couldn’t get into the concert went on a rampage at local subway stations, damaging turnstiles and streetlamps, robbing people and tossing fireworks in an area popular among foreign residents and tourists. A police car had its windshield smashed. Mondragon said the people taken into custody were mostly younger than 18.
BRAZIL
Bus accident kills 10
Police in the southern state of Parana told local media that 10 people died and 42 were injured when a bus crashed and rolled off the road. The fatal victims of Monday morning’s accident have not been identified. A police spokesman told O Globo newspaper there were 52 passengers in the bus and two drivers. Police said the bus was traveling with two other buses to a conference of the Brazilian Computer Association at the Federal University of Parana, scheduled to start on Monday morning. The cause of the accident is still under investigation.
MEXICO
Homicides down: Calderon
Mexican President Felipe Calderon said homicides dropped 15 to 20 percent in the first six months of this year compared with a year ago. In an interview published on Sunday by the Spanish newspaper El Pais, Calderon said: “Violence related to rivalries between criminals is declining. It is higher than when I assumed the presidency, yes, but I insist it is a phenomenon that comes from the brutality and conflicts between cartels, and not precisely from the government’s actions.” Calderon said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal last month that drug-related killings had fallen by about 12 percent in the first five months of this year, although his administration has refused to release the actual figures of drug-linked homicides since September.
SUDAN
Chopper crash kills seven
The official news agency said seven army officers were killed when their helicopter crashed over the western region of Darfur. SUNA quoted military spokesman Colonel Sawarmy Khalid Saad as saying on Monday that the helicopter was on an “administrative mission” and that a technical failure caused the crash. Two officers were also injured. The military gave no further details of the crash, the malfunction or the identities of the officers.
‘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