SRI LANKA
Talks with China start
Officials began three days of talks on economic cooperation with China on Saturday, as Beijing improves relations with the country that is a focal point for its regional rivalry with India. “This visit will give an added impetus to opportunities accruing to Sri Lanka in the context of promoting the country as a regional ‘commercial hub,’” the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement. China has increased its investments into the nation’s airports, roads, railways and ports, something that has unsettled India, traditionally the closest economic partner of the island of 21 million people. The Chinese delegation visit comes after Minister of Foreign Affairs G.L. Peiris, on a trip to China this month, said a feasibility study on a free-trade pact “is on the verge of completion.” China’s diplomatic support was won in a human rights row this month when Beijing voiced support for Colombo after the US said it would table a UN resolution over human rights on the island. Among the issues to be discussed in the talks, which are to be held until tomorrow, is a bilateral maritime cooperation deal, dubbed a “21st century Maritime Silk Road,” that would cover issues such as fisheries, technology and environmental protection.
AUSTRALIA
TV star found dead
TV personality and former model Charlotte Dawson has been found dead at age 47. Famed for TV shows such as Australia’s Next Top Model, Dawson had also been an anti-bullying activist and was targeted by cybertrolls for personal attacks online. The New Zealand-born Dawson was found dead in her Sydney apartment on Saturday morning. Police said there were no suspicious circumstances. In 2012, she was admitted to a Sydney hospital after a suicide attempt following an ongoing tirade of abuse on Twitter. She revealed in her 2005 autobiography Air Kiss & Tell that she was frequently visited by the “depression bogeyman.” The tragedy was discovered the day after the birthday of her former husband, Scott Miller, an Olympic silver medal-winning swimmer, who became addicted to the drug, ice, and accrued multiple convictions for illegal drug and firearm possession.
MALAYSIA
Eight children drown
Eight schoolchildren drowned in the Muar River in Johor state, police said yesterday, in what officials described as a “shocking” and rare tragedy. The drownings occured on Friday after the boys, aged 13 to 16 years, went jogging along the river bank in Segamat District, local police chief Mohamad Kamil Sukarmi told reporters. He said one of the boys went for a swim in the river, close to where sand mining activities were being carried out, but got into difficulties. “Upon seeing their friend in trouble, the other seven boys jumped in to save him. Unfortunately all eight drowned,” he said. About 130 personnel including divers were involved in the two-day rescue.
JAPAN
Ships in disputed area
Three Chinese coast guard ships sailed through disputed waters off the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea yesterday, the latest such incident in a bitter territorial row. The Chinese vessels entered the territorial waters off one of the Senkakus, known as the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) in Taiwan, at about 9am and left the area about two hours later, the Coast Guard said. It was the fifth time this year that state-owned Chinese ships entered the zone and the first foray in six days.
UNITED STATES
Von Trapp daughter dies
Maria von Trapp, a member of the Austrian family whose escape from Nazi Germany and subsequent musical career inspired the famed musical The Sound of Music, has died at the age of 99, according to newspapers quoting her brother. Von Trapp died on Tuesday, but the news was confirmed Saturday by her half-brother Johannes von Trapp, according to the New York Daily News. Maria von Trapp died of natural causes at her home in Vermont, the paper said. She was one of seven children of Austrian Navy Captain Georg von Trapp and his wife Agathe Whitehead von Trapp. The von Trapp family left Austria in 1938 and performed across Europe and the US before settling in Vermont, where they ran a resort.
FRANCE
Police, anarchists clash
Riot police moved into the western city of Nantes on Saturday, clashing with hundreds of anarchists who broke shop windows, destroyed bus stops and pillaged the city center. At least eight police officers were hospitalized after violent confrontations with up to 1,000 so-called “radicals,” the prefecture of the Loire-Atlantique region said. Fourteen people were detained. The rioters had joined an estimated 20,000 people protesting plans to build a regional airport. Officials did not say whether protesters were injured. Minister of the Interior Manuel Valls said the rioters were from the “radicalized ultra-left” and were waging an “urban guerrilla” campaign.
RUSSIA
Siberian blast kills three
An explosion that investigators said may have been caused by gas killed three people at a shopping complex in the remote Altai region in southern Siberia yesterday, law enforcement authorities said. Authorities were on alert for any attacks during the Winter Olympics, which ended yesterday in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi. The federal Investigative Committee made no mention of any suspicion of a militant attack or foul play in the early morning blast that killed three female employees at the complex in the city of Biisk, more than 2,500km east of Sochi. “According to preliminary information, a household gas explosion may have been the cause,” it said, adding that the investigation was continuing and a criminal case on suspicion of lethal negligence had been opened.
UNITED STATES
Carbon monoxide kills man
One man died and dozens more were treated in hospitals or at the scene after suffering carbon monoxide poisoning at a mall restaurant on New York’s Long Island on Saturday evening, police said. Police responding to a call about an injured woman at the Legal Seafood restaurant in Huntington Station and found the 55-year-old manager unconscious in the basement, Suffolk County police said. The manager, Steven Nelson, died of cardiac arrest as he was being transferred by ambulance, said Julie Robinson-Tingue, a spokeswoman for Huntington Hospital. Soon after arriving, police and emergency personnel felt nauseated and dizzy, and recognized the symptoms as a carbon monoxide event, Suffolk County police said. At least three people taken to the hospital remained in a stable condition, while at least six were treated and released, she said. In all, 27 people were taken to hospital, according to Suffolk County police. Most victims were restaurant employees, but three police officers and four ambulance employees were among those who fell ill, police said.
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