INDONESIA
Frenchman given parole
A Frenchman was freed on parole from a prison in Jakarta yesterday more than 14 years after he was caught smuggling drugs into Bali, his mother said. Michael Blanc, 40, was arrested the day after Christmas in 1999 at Denpasar Airport in Bali with 3.8kg of hash hidden in diving canisters. “He has come out of prison. He has signed his release papers,” his mother, Helene Le Touzey, said. It is rare for authorities to grant a foreign prisoner parole.
MEXICO
‘Cartel leader’ detained
A government official says federal forces have detained three members of the Knights Templar drug cartel, including one he describes as a leader who was behind a lot of the bloodshed in Michoacan State. National Public Safety System Executive Secretary Monte Rubido on Sunday said that Jesus Vazquez Macias, 37, was detained along with two other men as part of the strategy to bring security back to Michoacan. However, a vigilante group spokesman says Vazquez Macias was not a cartel leader, but a top hit man. Spokesman Estanislao Beltran says the self-defense groups will applaud the government’s work only after the cartel’s top four leaders are arrested.
GUYANA
Small plane crashes
A Canadian pilot was among two people feared dead on Saturday when the small plane he was flying went down in thick Amazon jungle two minutes after takeoff, authorities said. Civil Aviation Authority Director Zulfikar Mohammed said an all-day search failed to locate the single-engine Cessna Caravan aircraft. Trans Guyana Aviation spokesman Kit Nascimento said the plane was being piloted by Canadian Blake Slater. Also aboard was Dwayne Newton of Guyana. Special forces troops and the air corps have joined several privately owned aircraft to search for the missing plane.
NORWAY
Fire destroys historic village
A large blaze on Sunday raged through a historic village in the west, destroying many of its famed 18th and 19th-century wooden houses and forcing the evacuation of residents, police said. The fire in the riverside village of Laerdalsoyri, about 200km northwest of Oslo, began in a house on Saturday evening. The blaze raged out of control overnight and it took firefighters until Sunday afternoon to extinguish it. Laerdalsoyri is located in the West Norwegian Fjords area, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Police said 23 buildings, including 16 homes, were destroyed, and hundreds of residents had to be evacuated. Local media said several buildings listed as historic monuments were affected. In all, 177 people were admitted to hospitals for observation or treatment for smoke inhalation.
ITALY
Conductor Abbado dies
Claudio Abbado, a star in the great generation of Italian conductors who was revered by musicians in the world’s leading orchestras for developing a strong rapport with them while still allowing them their independence, has died. He was 80. Raffaela Grimaudo, spokeswoman for the Bologna mayor’s office, said Abbado died yesterday morning. Abbado made his debut in 1960 at La Scala in his home city of Milan and went on to be its musical director for nearly 20 years. He served as musical director of the Vienna State Opera, the Berlin Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra and chief guest conductor of the Chicago Philharmonic. He also founded his own all-star orchestra in Lucerne, Switzerland.
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