INDIA
Food subsidy plan passed
The upper house of parliament on Monday approved a US$20 billion scheme to distribute subsidized wheat and rice to 800 million people, backing anti-malnutrition drive that investors fear will mean missing the fiscal deficit target. The Food Security Bill is seen as a vote winner by the ruling Congress party as it prepares for elections due by May next year. Investors are worried that the government will struggle to contain the cost of subsidies. Before the bill becomes law it must be signed by the president, but that is a formality.
NEW ZEALAND
Warm winter sets record
Scientists yesterday said the nation had its warmest winter since record-keeping began more than a century ago. The average nationwide temperature was 9.5?C for June, July and last month. That is about 1.2?C above average and 0.3?C above the previous record set in 1984, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research said. Record-keeping began in 1909. The winter had a pattern of warmer winds from the north, but fewer southerly winds, which typically bring cold air from Antarctica, institute climate scientist Brett Mullan said. He said he believes that global weather remains variable but is in a warming pattern.
NEW ZEALAND
Search set for dead miners
The government yesterday announced plans to re-enter a coal mine where 29 men died in an explosion three years ago, but Resources Minister Simon Bridges warned there was little chance of finding any remains. The proposal follows lobbying by families of the men killed in the blast at the Pike River colliery in November 2010 to recover the victims of the nation’s worst mining disaster in almost a century. Bridges said the government had agreed to fund a NZ$7.2 million (US$5.6 million) plan to send a recovery team more than 2km up the mine shaft. He said a rockfall had blocked the shaft at that point and the team would not go beyond it to the coalface, where most of the bodies are believed to be located. Work to allow re-entry into the mine is set to begin next month.
HONG KONG
Ex-minister appeals
Former development secretary minister Mak Chai-kwong (麥齊光) has appealed against a conviction for housing allowance fraud, his lawyer said yesterday, in a case which has put the territory’s clean image under scrutiny. Mak, 63, was last month given an eight-month suspended prison sentence for defrauding the government of HK$700,000 (US$90,300) by “cross-leasing” apartments with a colleague when he was a civil servant in the 1980s. The pair leased apartments from each other’s wives in order to claim the government rental allowance. The appeal hearings are expected to begin next year. Mak’s arrest in July last year, less than two weeks after he was sworn in, rocked the territory. He is the highest-ranking former government official to be convicted of a criminal offence since the 1997 handover to China.
CHINA
Xi heads to Central Asia
President Xi Jinping (習近平) headed to Central Asia yesterday ahead of a G20 summit in Russia that begins tomorrow. His first stop was Turkmenistan, but he will also visit Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, Xinhua news agency and the China Daily newspaper said. Xi was set to sign agreements on oil, natural gas, transport and investment during his visits.
IRAQ
Militia leader survives attack
Wisam al-Hardan, a prominent militia leader opposed to al-Qaeda, on Monday escaped an assassination attempt in Baghdad, which killed six of his body guards and one civilian and wounded eight people, authorities said. Ozturk Yilmaz, the head of the Turkish consulate in Mosul, also avoided injury when a roadside bomb exploded as he traveled in a convoy in the northern city. No one was hurt in the bomb blast that damaged one of the vehicles, said a police official and a consulate official, who both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. Seven more people were killed and 15 wounded on Monday in separate bouts of violence.
UNITED KINGDOM
‘Walkie Talkie’ melts car
A cluster of new skyscrapers transforming the London skyline are often blamed for spoiling the view. Now one has been accused of “melting” a car. Motorist Martin Lindsay told the BBC that intense sunlight reflected from the “Walkie Talkie” — one of several flashy towers under construction in the City, London’s historic financial district — warped the wing mirror, panels and badge of his Jaguar, which he had parked across the road. The developers of the 37-floor skyscraper said they were seeking to rectify the problem.
ARGENTINA
Menem faces more charges
Another trial began on Monday for former president and convicted arms trafficker Carlos Menem. This time he is charged with falsifying his official declaration of wealth in 2000. Menem allegedly failed to mention four bank accounts, two properties, two ultra-light airplanes, stock in telecom companies and two vehicles. One of the bank accounts was opened in Liechtenstein with US$6 million while he was president in the 1990s. The 83-year-old senator faces a six-year sentence if convicted, but his defense argues that too much time has passed to try him now. For now, Menem remains free despite the seven-year sentence he received in June after being convicted of smuggling weapons while he was president to Croatia and Ecuador when those countries were subject to international embargos.
SERBIA
Cabinet reshuffle approved
Parliament approved late on Monday a reshuffled Cabinet of Prime Minister Ivica Dacic, tasked with reviving the country’s ailing economy and leading it closer to EU membership. After a three-day debate, the 250-seat parliament approved the government reshuffle including 11 new ministers. The reshuffle comes 13 months after Dacic’s government, praised for reaching a historic EU-mediated accord with breakaway Kosovo in April, took over.
UNITED STATES
Frogs hear with mouths
Some of the tiniest frogs on Earth have no middle ears or eardrums, but can hear by using their mouths, scientists said on Monday. Researchers thought that Gardiner’s frogs, which are about 1cm long and live in the rainforests of the Seychelles, might be deaf. However, advanced X-ray images showed that unlike other frogs, neither the lungs or the muscles of the Gardiner frogs help transmit sound to their inner ears. Instead, scientists realized that the frog’s mouth acts as an amplifier for the frequencies the frog emits. “The combination of a mouth cavity and bone conduction allows Gardiner’s frogs to perceive sound effectively without use of a tympanic middle ear,” Renaud Boistel of the University of Poitiers said.
‘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