THAILAND
Bangkok blast wounds seven
A bomb hidden near garbage cans in a busy suburban Bangkok shopping area left seven people wounded, police said yesterday. The homemade device exploded at about 9pm on Sunday in Ramkhamhaeng, a university area of the capital, Police Colonel Narongrit Promsawan said. He said none of those hurt was in serious condition. Deputy government spokeswoman Sunisa Lertpakawat said security forces were urgently probing who was behind the blast.
AUSTRALIA
Nurse admits to 11 murders
A man accused of deliberately lighting a deadly blaze that ripped through a Sydney nursing home in 2011, killing 11 elderly residents, pleaded guilty to murder yesterday. Roger Dean, 37, was a nurse at the facility and entered 11 guilty pleas to murder on the first day of his trial in the Supreme Court. He also admitted eight counts of causing grievous bodily harm to other mostly infirm residents of the home, some of whom suffered from dementia or were blind. Three residents perished during the inferno Dean started and eight others died later from their injuries. Dean will be sentenced at a later date.
VIETNAM
Blogger arrested for articles
A prominent blogger has been arrested for posting articles critical of the government, reports said yesterday. Truong Duy Nhat, 49, was arrested on Sunday at his home in Danang and escorted to Hanoi for questioning, the state-run Tuoi Tre newspaper said. He stands accused of “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe on the interests of the state,” a charge that could result in a maximum seven years in jail, the report said. Nhat, who had worked for the official press, but quit in 2011, writes the popular blog “A Different Viewpoint.”
CHINA
Netizens track teen vandal
A teenaged tourist who defaced an ancient Egyptian monument was hunted down by Internet users, who prompted his parents to apologize, state media reported yesterday. A photograph posted on Sina Weibo showed crudely drawn Chinese characters written over an ancient sandstone panel lined with hieroglyphics, the Global Times newspaper said. According to the China Daily, the vandalism took place in a temple at Luxor, Egypt. Internet users hunted down the perpetrator, a 15-year-old boy named Ding Jinhao (丁錦昊), and hacked the Web site of his school, forcing users to click on a sign parodying Ding’s graffiti before entering. The furor prompted his parents, who said Ding “cried all night” after learning of the cyberattacks, to issue an apology in a local newspaper.
JAPAN
Radiation leak affects 30
The number of researchers exposed to low level radiation in an accident at a nuclear laboratory last week has hit 30, officials said yesterday, with human error likely exacerbating the problem. The accident occurred on Thursday as 55 people were working at a laboratory in Tokaimura, northeast of Tokyo, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency said. The agency, which had initially said six researchers were exposed to radiation, announced late on Sunday that 24 more people were affected. “None of them required medical attention,” an agency spokesman said. According to the agency, radiation was accidentally released during the experiment “due to overheating, which we suspect was caused by some technical problems.” Radiation then leaked from the facility.
‘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