JAMAICA
Billboards to help find kids
The government plans to set up electronic billboards to help find missing and abducted children in a nation where violence against children is a growing concern. The Office of the Children’s Registry said on Friday that billboards will be installed in the upcoming months in cities including Kingston, Montego Bay, Ocho Rios and Spanish Town. There are currently more than 1,100 missing children in the island of about 2.6 million inhabitants. UNICEF last month said it was extremely concerned about what it described as “unrelenting violence” against youngsters in the country, citing the 40 children killed there last year.
UNITED STATES
Court extends phone spying
A secret court has renewed the government’s authority to carry out a controversial telephone surveillance program exposed by fugitive intelligence leaker Edward Snowden. The panel’s decision, made public on Friday in an unprecedented move, extends the program, which affects millions of Americans, by three months, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a statement. Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor, sparked outrage early last month when he divulged to The Guardian that Washington was collecting phone records of millions of customers of carrier Verizon under a secret court order.
UNITED STATES
Jail told to let Muslims pray
A federal judge has given the government 30 days to start allowing US Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh and other Muslim inmates to hold ritual group prayers outside their cells in a high-security prison in Indiana. Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson on Friday said the Bureau of Prisons might have misconstrued her Jan. 11 ruling granting Lindh’s request to pray in groups at the prison at Terre Haute. Officials are allowing only two Muslims to pray together in a cell. The judge clarified her order by saying the prison is to allow Muslims to pray together outside their cells at any Islamic prayer time that comes when other prisoners are allowed out in groups.
COLOMBIA
FARC hostage a tourist: US
A former US Marine who the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) says it “captured” a month ago in a turbulent southeastern region is a tourist, not a member of the US mission in the country and should be released immediately, US Ambassador Michael McKinley said on Saturday. A police general said Kevin Scott Sutay, 26, entered a hot zone despite warnings. The rebel group offered to free Sutay as a good-faith gesture after announcing on its Web site on Friday night that he was in their custody. The FARC said Sutay had described himself as a veteran of the Afghanistan war who left the US armed forces in March. The group did not say how it came to have Sutay, but suggested he was “a mercenary.”
HAITI
Hundreds protest gay rights
More than 1,000 people participated on Friday in a rare street demonstration to protest homosexuality and a proposal to legalize gay marriage. The protest brought together a mix of religious groups, from Protestant to Muslim, who carried anti-gay placards and chanted songs, including one in which they threatened to burn down parliament if its members make same-sex marriage legal. A gay rights group has said it plans to submit a proposal allowing homosexuals to wed. The demonstration came two days after watchdog groups held a news conference to condemn an increase in threats against homosexuals.
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
‘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