UNITED KINGDOM
Earl selling mountain
The Earl of Lonsdale is putting a mountain up for sale in a bid to pay off part of his hefty inheritance tax bill. Hugh Lowther has put Blencathra, a 868m peak in the Lake District in northwest England, on the market for £1.75 million (US$3 million). He felt forced to sell the 1,083 hectare mountain, known as Saddleback due to its shape, to help pay off the reported £9 million he owes the Treasury from his father’s death duties. Inheritance tax, set at 40 percent, is payable on the amount of an estate above a £325,000 threshold. “My family have owned Blencathra and its manor for over 400 years, so the sale of this iconic property will be a great loss,” the earl said. “However, we need to realize capital for inheritance tax following the death of my father in 2006 and our aim is to retain the core portions of the Lonsdale estates intact as far as is possible.” The buyer will be entitled to use the feudal title Lord of the Manor of Threlkeld and will hold grazing rights for 5,471 ewes, 732 hoggs (young sheep before the first shearing) and 200 lambs.
UNITED STATES
Pussy Riot pair name names
Two members of the Russian dissident punk group Pussy Riot on Tuesday asked members of Congress to add 16 officials to the list of Russian human rights violators who face Washington’s sanctions. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on human rights was damaging their country. “Putin is not leading Russia to stability, but to complete instability and chaos,” Tolokonnikova said through a translator. The pair spent nearly two years in prison over an anti-Putin performance at Moscow’s main cathedral. The 16 people the women want sanctioned include Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev and officials at the prisons where the pair were incarcerated.
UNITED STATES
Obamas’ daughters tailed
A car trailed an official motorcade that was carrying President Barack Obama’s daughters home from school on Tuesday, sparking a brief lockdown at the White House. The Secret Service said the vehicle followed the motorcade past a security barrier about 200m from the White House. The driver, 55, was arrested and has been charged with unlawful entry, Secret Service spokesman Edwin Donovan said. The White House declined to comment on the incident.
BOLIVIA
Mayor’s hands cause trouble
The mayor of the nation’s largest city has had to make a televised apology after grabbing the thigh of a woman during a broadcast event. Santa Cruz Mayor Percy Fernandez appeared on television on Monday night to express “anguish for this mess that’s been created.” He said he had not intended to offend journalist Mercedes Guzman, “nor have I done so.” He did not specifically apologize for touching her. Television images show Guzman holding a microphone in one hand and struggling to lift the mayor’s hand from her thigh with the other during a public appearance last week. Several legislators, journalists’ organizations and women’s rights activists denounced the 75-year-old mayor and Guzman’s husband, Marco Antonio Espindola, threatened to bring a legal complaint if the mayor did not apologize. In 2012, the mayor was filmed running his hands over the bottom of a female legislator at a ceremony. At another event, he planted a lengthy kiss on a seemingly unwilling female engineer.
‘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