PHILIPPINES
Ravine plunge kills twelve
At least 12 people died when the van they were riding in plunged into a deep ravine in the mountainous north of the country, a governor said yesterday. The van veered off a mountain road in remote Buguias town in Benguet Province on Saturday and plummeted into a 90m deep ravine, initially killing 10 people. Two more victims died later on Saturday and another victim was fighting for his life in a hospital, Benguet Governor Nestor Fongwan said. Five other people survived with injuries, Fongwan said by telephone, adding one of the 19 people in the van managed to jump out before the van fell off the cliff. The victims were mostly members of a family who attended an election victory party for a town mayor. Investigators were trying to determine if the driver, who was among the survivors, was at fault or if the van he was driving had mechanical defects, Fongwan said.
CHINA
Arsonist sentenced to death
Xinhua news agency yesterday said a court has sentenced a 25-year-old man to death for setting a building fire that killed eight people as part of a revenge attack. Xinhua said Lin Binwei (林斌偉) confessed to setting the February fire in revenge against a man he thought was having an affair with his girlfriend. A man on duty yesterday at the Intermediate People’s Court in Taizhou City confirmed a verdict had been handed down but said he had no details. Xinhua said Lin’s arson attack targeted the rival man’s warehouse, where he stored products for his online shoe business, and that the fire spread to homes upstairs, killing eight and injuring one.
MALAYSIA
Man killed himself: police
A Japanese man who was found dead in a detention cell is believed to have hanged himself, police said. Authorities arrested 33-year-old Nobuhiro Matsushita on Sunday last week near a college outside of Kuala Lumpur where he was accused of trespassing while armed with a knife that he used to threaten police, Selangor State police official A. Thaiveegan said in a statement on Saturday. A guard found Matsushita dead before dawn on Saturday in a cell where he appeared to have hanged himself using his clothes, Thaiveegan said. Deaths in custody have drawn greater public attention in the past month. Three other men, all Malaysians, have been found dead in police detention cells since last month. In one case, three police officers were charged with murdering a suspect. Thaiveegan said authorities will submit a report on Matsushita’s death to the attorney general’s office.
PAKISTAN
Soldiers killed in blast
Three soldiers were killed and four wounded in bomb attacks on military convoys in North Waziristan while two policemen were gunned down in Karachi yesterday, officials said. “A military convoy of 35 vehicles was on its way to the northwestern town of Bannu from Razmak when an improvised explosive device planted along the roadside went off, killing three soldiers,” an intelligence official said. The official, who requested anonymity, said two soldiers were wounded in the explosion 70km south of Miranshah, the main town in the region. Another two soldiers were wounded in a second bomb attack on a military convoy 20km east of Miranshah. In Karachi, four gunmen riding two motorbikes opened fire on a police vehicle and killed two policemen yesterday, senior local police official Usman Bajwa told reporters.
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
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
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