INDONESIA
Ash cloud hinders flights
Flights into and out of Darwin were canceled yesterday and some to Bali affected due to huge ash clouds thrown up by an Indonesian volcano. Indonesia’s Sangeang Api volcano began erupting on Friday and its ash is sweeping south toward Australia, prompting Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin Australia to cancel Darwin flights. Virgin Australia canceled flights to Bali’s Denpasar airport yesterday, as did Qantas offshoot Jetstar. Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said it could take days for services to return to normal.
JAPAN
China ships in disputed sea
Two Chinese coast guard ships sailed into disputed waters off Japan-administered islands in the East China Sea yesterday, officials said, as the US warned Beijing over increasing territorial assertiveness. The coast guard said the vessels entered the 12 nautical mile (22.2km) band of territorial waters around one of the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), known in Japan as the Senkaku Islands, which Taiwan and China also claim, at about 10am.
CHINA
Earthquake injures 45
A moderately strong earthquake has injured 45 people and forced thousands to seek shelter in an area near the border with Myanmar, authorities said yesterday. Eight people were seriously injured, and 184,678 were moved to more than four dozen temporary shelters, according to a notice yesterday from the Dehong prefectural government in Yunnan. The quake in Dehong’s Yingjiang county was registered at magnitude 6.1 by the nation’s earthquake monitoring agency, but at 5.9 by the US Geological Survey.
CHINA
Sacked blogger troubling: US
The US State Department on Friday said it was “troubled” by reports that a Chinese blogger who met top US diplomat John Kerry had been fired by his employer. Journalist Zhang Jialong (張賈龍) was one of four bloggers who met Kerry in Beijing in February, when he urged the US to help “tear down the great Internet firewall.” Zhang on Sunday last week said he had lost his job at Internet firm Tencent for “leaking business secrets and other confidential and sensitive information,” in what he said was a reprisal for meeting Kerry. “We are deeply concerned by reports that one of the bloggers who met with the secretary has been fired from his job after meeting with secretary Kerry,” the US State Department said.
CHINA
Alleged cult killers held
Police have detained six people for beating to death a woman at a McDonald’s restaurant who refused to disclose her phone number, accusing them of being members of a religious cult, state media said yesterday. The woman became involved in an argument with the six people, including a juvenile, who then allegedly beat her on Wednesday evening in Zhaoyuan City in Shandong Province, Xinhua news agency said. They were seeking to recruit the woman into a “evil cult” called Quannengshen, it said. The group, which can be translated as Church of Almighty God, is a doomsday cult which was outlawed by the government in the mid-1990s, according to media reports. Photos circulating on social media showed the woman wearing a white shirt and blue trousers lying face down in a pool of blood. She died after being taken to hospital, Xinhua said. The six suspects included a man, his two daughters and a son, as well as two women, it said.
MEXICO
Investors to edit Baja resort
The developers behind a plan to build a huge resort near a protected coral reef in northern Mexico said on Friday that they have withdrawn their proposal, but plan to resubmit it with changes. The announcement marks another chapter in the lengthy fight over the site near the Cabo Pulmo reef reserve on the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula. The developers said in a statement that they were withdrawing an environmental impact statement “in view of the important concerns that the project has raised.” The developers, “Glorious Earth Group” and “Beijing Sansong International Trade Group,” are based in China and the US, but the main investors appear to be Chinese. They said they planned “to re-initiate the procedure with a new project ... that takes into account in a detailed way the legitimate criticisms.” Authorities rejected a similar plan in 2012. Environmentalists said plans for a 22,000-room resort called “Cabo Dorado” threatened the reserve, the only coral reef of its type in the Gulf of California.
MEXICO
Tycoon opens aquarium
Mexican magnate Carlos Slim on Friday inaugurated a four-level, underground aquarium that is one of the biggest in Latin America, housing 3,000 animals belonging to 230 species. The first visitors took an elevator underground to start the tour of the 1.5 million liter glass tank where colorful fish swam among sharks and manta rays. Visitors can touch a ray at a small lagoon. Inbursa Aquarium director Alejandro Nasta says the water was brought from the Gulf of Mexico.
UNITED STATES
Press secretary retires
After more than three years of jousting with the White House press corps, US President Barack Obama’s chief spokesman, Jay Carney, is to step down this month to pursue yet-to-be-named opportunities, Obama said on Friday. Carney’s deputy, Josh Earnest, will take his place, the president said. Obama interrupted Carney on the podium, where he was answering questions during the White House daily news briefing, catching reporters by surprise. “One of Jay’s favorite lines is, ‘I have no personnel announcements at this time,’” Obama said. “But I do, and it’s bittersweet,” he said. Carney, 49, has been press secretary for longer than usual for such a high-pressure job.
UNITED STATES
Man orders epic iced coffee
It took a Texas man five days to finish one of the most expensive drinks from Starbucks, a frozen concoction with 60 shots of espresso and topped with whipped cream. Andrew Chifari, 27, entered a Dallas Starbucks on May 24 with a 3.8 liter glass and asked baristas to create the most expensive frappuccino that would fit in his container, “but still taste good.” The drink cost US$54.75, but Chifari used points in a loyalty plan to get “a free drink of [his] choice.” Starbucks did not say whether it would revise its policies in response to the order.
UNITED STATES
Mystery cash donor hits LA
An anonymous cash donor who touched off a treasure hunt across San Francisco by hiding envelopes full of bills and providing clues via Twitter has moved to Los Angeles, sparking a frenzy. The donor stashed the cash in Griffith Park on Wednesday night, and local television showed throngs of people searching for the loot. The feed @HiddenCash had more than 330,000 Twitter followers by Friday morning.
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