FRANCE
Eiffel Tower evacuated
The Eiffel Tower was evacuated on Saturday night after an anonymous caller called in a bomb threat, police said. Nearly 1,400 people were sent away from the tourist attraction following a request from tower operators after the warning, a Paris police official said. Police then searched the monument with sniffer dogs, and set up a security perimeter. No explosives were found and the site was reopened after about two-and-a-half hours. The government has stepped up counter-terrorism measures in recent weeks amid heightened concern about threats to France over its military campaign against al-Qaeda-linked fighters in Mali that began more than two months ago. The tower is occasionally evacuated because of such warnings — at least once last year and twice in 2011.
ITALY
Shroud of Turin displayed
The Shroud of Turin went on display for a special TV appearance on Saturday amid new research disputing claims it is a medieval fake and purporting to date the linen some say was Jesus’ burial cloth to about the time of his death. Pope Francis sent a special video message to the event in Turin’s cathedral, but made no claim that the image on the shroud of a man with wounds similar to those suffered by Christ was really that of Jesus. He called the cloth an “icon,” not a relic — an important distinction. “This image, impressed upon the cloth, speaks to our heart and moves us to climb the hill of Calvary, to look upon the wood of the Cross, and to immerse ourselves in the eloquent silence of love,” he said. “This disfigured face resembles all those faces of men and women marred by a life which does not respect their dignity, by war and violence which afflict the weakest ... And yet, at the same time, the face in the Shroud conveys a great peace; this tortured body expresses a sovereign majesty.” Many experts stand by carbon dating that date it to the 13th or 14th century, but some have suggested the dating results might have been skewed by contamination and have called for a larger sample to be analyzed.
FRANCE
Thief takes Sun King tusk
A man broke into the Paris natural history museum early on Saturday and used a chainsaw to hack off the tusk of an elephant that belonged to King Louis XIV, officials said. Police arrested the man in a nearby street as he was making his escape and recovered the 3kg tusk, museum workers said. The elephant whose skeleton is preserved in the popular museum was given as a gift in 1668 by the king of Portugal to Louis XIV, who was also known as the Sun King. The animal’s tusks are not the original ones, but were added to the skeleton in the 19th century. Police made no immediate comment about why the man tried to steal the tusk, but the incident comes amid a series of thefts in recent years of ivory from European museums and zoos.
GERMANY
Bieber’s monkey seized
Canadian teen heartthrob Justin Bieber had his pet monkey Mally confiscated when he arrived with the animal at Munich airport, officials and media reports said on Saturday. Customs officials put the capuchin monkey in quarantine on Thursday because the 19-year-old pop sensation was unable to present the necessary documents for importing a live animal. Officials declined to confirm the monkey owner’s identity, but several media reports said it was the singer, who is on a tour of Germany and Austria.
‘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