CHINA
Dead pig numbers double
The number of dead pigs found in Shanghai’s main river doubled in two days to nearly 6,000, the government said, as officials from a nearby province blamed for the porcine deluge sought to deny it was the source. Shanghai had pulled 5,916 dead pigs out of the Huangpu River, which cuts through China’s commercial hub, the local government said in a statement late on Tuesday. Shanghai has pointed the finger at Jiaxing in the neighbouring province of Zhejiang, a major center for hog-raising, Shanghai media reported. Jiaxing officials said investigations were continuing, the Shanghai Daily reported yesterday. “We don’t exclude the possibility that the dead pigs found in Shanghai were from Jiaxing, but we are not absolutely sure,” a Jiaxing spokesman told a press conference.
INDIA
Five police killed in ambush
Five paramilitary police were killed yesterday in an ambush on security forces in the main city of Indian Kashmir carried out by two militants who were then shot dead, a senior officer said. “Five of our CRPF jawans [officers of the Central Reserve Police Force] were martyred,” a senior officer told reporters at the scene in the Bemina area of Srinagar, which is home to a camp for security forces and a police-run school. “We have neutralized two militants,” he added. Another six to seven police were injured in the attack.
TUNISIA
Two detained for rap video
Two people have been detained for insulting police by making a rap video describing them as dogs, in a case likely to fire debate over free speech under the new Islamist-led government. “The rap video posted on YouTube called the police dogs, and contains expressions and gestures that affect morals, and threaten the security of officers and magistrates,” the Ministry of Interior said on Tuesday in a statement. Mohamed Hedi Belgueyed and actress Sabrine Klibi were arrested on Sunday and appeared at the Court of First Instance in Ben Arous on Tuesday. The court decided to keep them in jail until their trial, the ministry added. A third rapper known as “weld el 15” is still being sought.
AUSTRIA
My son is no pope: mom
Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn is one of the favorites for the papacy, but at least one Catholic from his country does not think he is qualified. His mom. Eleonore Schoenborn, 92, says her son is much too good-natured to deal with “the nastiness at the Vatican. He has enough to do dealing with the intrigues in Vienna.” Schoenborn also named other reasons for her opposition in an interview published in Tuesday’s Kleine Zeitung newspaper. “It’s much too difficult for him. He has control of his diocese, but heading a world church is something else,” she said.
NETHERLANDS
‘Forced tongue kiss’ not rape
The Dutch Supreme Court narrowed its definition of rape on Tuesday, saying that a “forced tongue kiss” should no longer be considered among the worst forms of sexual assault. In one of the court’s more unusual cases, a panel overturned a lower court’s rape conviction of a man for forcing his tongue into the mouth of a woman in a hospital restroom. The court said that a forced kiss, while still illegal, is not as serious as forced sexual intercourse. Instead, the judges said that a forced kiss should be considered an indecent assault, which carries a maximum sentence of eight years, as opposed to rape, which has a maximum 12-year sentence.
UNITED STATES
Baby shot and killed
A six-month-old baby who was shot in Chicago while her father was changing her diaper on the seat of a parked minivan has died, police said on Tuesday. The shooting in broad daylight on Monday comes as Chicago struggles to stem an epidemic of gang violence that helped push the city’s murder rate up 16 percent to 506 people last year. The city has already logged more than 60 murders and 250 shootings so far this year. The family was no stranger to gun violence before this tragedy. Jonylah Watkins’ mother was shot in the leg while she was pregnant, the Chicago Tribune reported. The girl’s father was in “serious, but stable” condition in hospital, police said.
UNITED STATES
Gangsta rap police probed
The head of a police union and three other officers are being investigated for making gangsta rap videos, according to a report. The Newark Star-Ledger reported that the union president, Officer Maurice Gattison, raps under the name “Gat the Great.” He has appeared in numerous videos. One features Gattison rapping about drinking, using an anti-gay epithet and calling himself a “felon for life.” In one scene, Gattison, clad in a fur coat, sits in a car and tells others they might have to meet a Smith & Wesson gun. He then briefly points his finger at the camera as though he is firing a gun. The case has sparked a debate over free speech and whether officers are bound by the same rules of behavior on and off-duty.
MEXICO
Bullying death probed
Officials said on Tuesday they are investigating a father’s complaint that his seven-year-old son died after a violent school bullying incident. The governmental Human Rights Commission in Jalisco State said it is investigating hospital and school officials for possible negligence in the death of the boy, whose name has not been released. Luis Arturo Jimenez, the director of complaints for the rights commission, said the boy died over the weekend of an acute respiratory infection. The boy’s father told the commission that an older classmate had forcibly submerged the boy’s head in a toilet at their government-run school last month. The father said he took the boy to a hospital, but doctors there failed to detect the infection and told him it was a stomach ailment. The boy’s condition worsened, apparently because fecal matter from the toilet had entered his lungs, and he died on Saturday.
BRAZIL
Doctors in fake finger fraud
This gives new meaning to punching in at work: Doctors at a Brazilian hospital covered for absentee colleagues by using fake silicone fingers with their prints to fool biometric machines. Globo television showed footage of a doctor touching her finger to the device, then using two fake digits to do the same for colleagues, and taking delivery of slips of paper indicating they had in fact clocked in to work. It had happened at Ferraz de Vasconcelos, in Greater Sao Paulo. The woman told police six other doctors were in on the scam. “She says she was innocent because it is a condition they imposed on her to keep her job,” said her lawyer, Celestino Gomes Antunes. Another television network said it was the head of the emergency room that ran the scam and that his daughter had not worked a day in three years, but got paid all that time. So far, five doctors have been suspended as part of the investigation. The mayor of Ferraz de Vasconcelos, Acir Fillo, said there might be as many as 300 hospital employees who do not work, but who get paid anyway.
‘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
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in