PHILIPPINES
Abu Sayyaf militants caught
Security forces have captured two Abu Sayyaf militants in a southern city, including one who was allegedly involved in the kidnappings of a US teenage boy and an Australian man. Officials say police and army troops captured Jimmy Nurilla and Bakrin Haris on Monday in the port city of Zamboanga in a volatile region where the Abu Sayyaf has carried out kidnappings for ransom, extortion and other acts of banditry. The Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission yesterday said that Nurilla was believed to be involved in several kidnappings, including of American Kevin Lunsmann, who escaped from his Abu Sayyaf captors in 2011 at the age of 14 after five months in captivity, and Australian Warren Richard Rodwell, who was freed in March last year after being held for 15 months.
VIETNAM
Top Chinese diplomat to visit
A top Chinese diplomat is to visit this week after China’s deployment of a giant oil rig off the country’s coast last month increased tensions. Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi (楊潔篪) and Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh are to discuss the oil rig at an annual bilateral event Yang is attending, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Le Hai Binh told reporters on Monday. Yang’s visit will be the highest-level meeting between the two governments since the rig was deployed on May 2. Minh and Yang spoke by telephone early last month. The foreign ministry said in a statement at the time that Minh denounced China’s placement of the oil rig, saying it seriously violated the country’s sovereignty and demanding China immediately withdraw the oil rig and its escorting vessels.
KENYA
Al-Shabaab killings continue
At least 10 people have been killed in a new overnight attack near the coast, police said yesterday, with Somalia’s al-Shabaab rebels claiming responsibility. Police said gunmen, apparently part of the same group that massacred close to 50 people in the town of Mpeketoni overnight on Sunday, attacked a village in the same region overnight on Monday and left 10 dead. “We carried out another attack last night. We killed 20 people, mainly police and Kenyan wildlife wardens. The commandoes have been going to several places looking for military personnel,” al-Shabaab military spokesman Abdulaziz Abu Musab said by telephone. Police spokeswoman Zipporah Mboroki confirmed an attack had occurred overnight, although local police and a county official said there were at least 10 dead. “Our officers are trying to access the scene and the details are sketchy,” she said.
SRI LANKA
Buddhist mob burns houses
More deadly violence flared in a coastal resort where Buddhist hardliners set shops and homes alight for a second night running in defiance of a curfew, police and residents said yesterday. Amid mounting international concern over the unrest, residents of a town that has borne the brunt said a security guard was killed in an attack outside a Muslim-owned farm, raising the overall toll to four. “More than a dozen houses and shops have been burnt overnight,” a police source said from the mainly Muslim town of Alutgama after another night of mob violence by followers of the extremist Buddhist Force. Hundreds of soldiers have been deployed to help police put a lid on the violence. Although the unrest on Monday was not as widespread as the previous night, it came despite the announcement of an indefinite curfew.
UNITED STATES
Man hid pot in fat: police
A man who weighs about 200kg faces multiple charges for allegedly hiding cocaine and 23g of marijuana under his “stomach fat,” Florida police said. According to a news release, a Volusia County sheriff’s deputy stopped a vehicle on Friday after noticing that the passenger was not wearing a seatbelt. Officials said 42-year-old Christopher Mitchell told the deputy that he was too big to wear a seatbelt. The deputy said he requested a drug-detecting dog because Mitchell and the driver appeared nervous. The dog detected the presence of drugs in the vehicle. In addition to the drugs on Mitchell, deputies said they found a handgun and US$7,000 in cash in the vehicle.
UNITED STATES
Picasso found in Picasso
Curators and scientists say they have found a hidden painting beneath the surface of one of Pablo Picasso’s earliest masterpieces from 1901, The Blue Room, at the Phillips Collection in Washington. Over the past five years, conservators and scientists from the museum, the National Gallery of Art, Cornell University and Delaware’s Winterthur Museum have developed a clearer image of the mystery picture under the surface. It is a portrait of an unknown man painted in a vertical composition by one of the 20th century’s great artists. Advances in infrared imagery reveal a man’s face resting on his hand with three rings on his fingers. He is dressed in a jacket and bow tie. Curators say a technical analysis confirmed it is a work by Picasso.
UNITED STATES
Army probes Bergdahl case
The military said on Monday it had begun an investigation into the 2009 disappearance in Afghanistan of Bowe Bergdahl, the US soldier freed last month after five years in Taliban captivity. “The Army has initiated its investigation into the facts and circumstances surrounding the disappearance and capture of Sgt. Bowe R. Bergdahl from Combat Outpost Mest-Lalak in Paktika Province, Afghanistan on or about June 30, 2009,” the army said in a statement. Major General Kenneth Dahl will head the investigation, the army said. Bergdahl, who is being treated at a Texas medical base after returning to the country last week, will not be interviewed until a military team that specializes in returning prisoners of war clears him to do so.
Afghanistan
Finger cutters killed: police
Police hunted down and killed two Taliban insurgents who cut off the fingers of 11 elderly men who voted in the presidential election run-off, officials said yesterday. All voters had their fingers marked with ink after voting to prevent them from casting more than one ballot, but the ink also identified those who participated in the election in defiance of Taliban threats. “Insurgent commander Mullah Shir Agha and one of his officers were killed in a police operation yesterday in Herat,” a statement from the interior ministry said. “The pair were accused of having cut off the ink-dyed finger of 11 voters.” The ministry said another insurgent was injured and held by police.
norway
Oslo imam attacked: report
The imam of Oslo’s main mosque was recuperating in hospital yesterday after a masked assailant repeatedly hacked him with a small axe, the Aftenposten reported. Nehma Ali Shah was attacked as he returned home from the Central Jamaat Ahle-Sunnat mosque late on Monday, the daily said. Ali Shah, who suffered wounds to his face and hands, was in a stable condition after undergoing an operation, it said.
‘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
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
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