SOUTH SUDAN
Peace talks begin
The country’s warring parties were due to start peace talks yesterday in the Ethiopian capital in a bid to end nearly three weeks of conflict that has left thousands dead in the world’s newest nation. Government and rebel negotiating teams arrived in Addis Ababa on Wednesday evening and while talks were expected yesterday, formal negotiations may not open for several days, Ethiopia’s foreign minister said. UN special envoy Hilde Johnson said in Juba it was “positive that they are sending delegations” after the violence that has forced 200,000 people to flee their homes. Fighting erupted on Dec. 15, when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar of attempting a coup. Machar has denied this, in turn accusing the president of conducting a violent purge of his opponents, and the fighting has spread across the country, with the rebels seizing several areas in the oil-rich north.
INDIA
Gang-raped, burned teen dies
A teenager was gang-raped in two separate attacks and then died after being set on fire, sparking protests in the eastern city of Kolkata, police said yesterday. The 16-year-old was assaulted first on Oct. 26 last year and then again the day after by a group of more than six men near her family’s home in Madhyagram, about 25km north of Kolkata. The second rape occurred as she was returning home after reporting the first attack at a police station. She was then set on fire on Dec. 23 and died in a state-run hospital late on New Year’s Eve, police said. “She gave us a dying declaration in front of the health officials that she was set on fire by two persons close to the accused when she was alone at home on Dec. 23,” policeman Nimbala Santosh Uttamrao said. Police made their first arrests on Wednesday, two months after the initial crime, police chief Rajiv Kumar said. Several hundred activists on Wednesday protested in Kolkata over the crime.
PAKISTAN
Musharraf’s lawyers walk
Lawyers for former military ruler Pervez Musharraf walked out of a hearing in his treason case yesterday, complaining of being threatened and harassed. The 70-year-old had been expected to attend the special tribunal for the first time after failing to show up for two previous sessions due to security threats against him. It was unclear whether he would come to court following his lawyers’ walkout. Anwar Mansoor Khan, one of the lawyers representing the former general, told the court he has been receiving threats and was unable to sleep the night before the hearing. “I was under total threat ... from 1am to five in the morning. Someone was banging on my door and ringing my bell,” Khan told the court. When one of the judges asked who was threatening him, Khan answered: “This very government.” The court promised to investigate, but Khan walked out of court, followed by other members of Musharraf’s legal team.
SOUTH KOREA
Army fights to keep sex ban
The military yesterday said it would fight a court ruling quashing its move to kick an officer candidate out of the elite Army Academy for having sex with his girlfriend while on leave. An appeals court ruled on Wednesday that the Academy abused its authority to discipline cadets when it expelled a candidate for having sex with his girlfriend while on a weekend leave. It ruled his conduct did no harm to the institution’s honor. The academy maintains rules against sexual relations as part of its code of conduct that also bans drinking, smoking and marriage and it intends to take the case to the Supreme Court.
‘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