JAPAN
Military shift splits nation
Half of voters oppose dropping a ban that has kept the military from fighting abroad since World War II, a survey by the Nikkei Shimbun showed yesterday, as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe readied a landmark shift in security policy that would ease the constraints of the pacifist constitution on the armed forces. A man set himself on fire at a busy Tokyo intersection on Sunday in an apparent protest against the policy change, police and witnesses said. The change will end the ban on exercising “collective self-defense” or aiding a friendly country under attack. It will also relax limits on activities in UN-led peacekeeping operations and “gray zone” incidents short of full-scale war, according to a draft proposal.
CHINA
Xinjiang sentences 113
Courts in Xinjiang have sentenced 113 people to jail on mostly terrorism-related offenses, state-run media said, as authorities press a crackdown following several deadly attacks. Four people were sentenced to life in prison, while 109 others were given sentences for crimes ranging from “organizing and leading terrorist groups” to “bigamy and drug dealing,” the regional government’s Web portal Tianshan said late on Sunday. The latest sentencings, held in Kashgar on Wednesday last week, were “public,” Tianshan said. It did not give the ethnicities of those sentenced, but names provided suggested they were Uighurs.
NEW ZEALAND
Push for envoy’s prosecution
The government yesterday said it would push for a foreign envoy to be prosecuted in his home country after he escaped sex charges by invoking diplomatic immunity. Neither the man’s name nor his home nation can be published because of a court suppression order, but officials in Wellington said they did not want the case “swept under the carpet.” Police say the man, aged in his 30s, was arrested in Wellington last month and charged with assault with intent to rape after he allegedly followed a 21-year-old woman home and attacked her. He was also charged with burglary. However, the prosecution had to be dropped when the diplomat’s country refused to waive his right to immunity and whisked him home a day after he was charged.
PHILIPPINES
Estrada refuses to enter plea
Senator Jose Estrada yesterday refused to enter a plea on charges he plundered US$4.2 million from his congressional fund, saying the charges were politically motivated. Jose Estrada, the eldest son of former president and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada, stood silently in the court when the charges were read out. One of the three judges then entered a plea of “not guilty.” The senator faces life imprisonment if convicted for plundering. After the court proceeding, the senator said President Benigno Aquino III was not serious about fighting graft, but was persecuting the opposition.
INDIA
Two more people rescued
Rescuers yesterday said they had pulled two survivors from the huge pile of broken concrete left by the collapse of an 11-story building that killed at least 19 people near Chennai, police said. Monsoon rains were complicating the search, but rescuers said they hoped to find more people alive after rescuing a woman and a man. So far, 39 people have been rescued, and police have arrested six construction company officials. The building crashed down Saturday night while in the final stages of construction.
BULGARIA
First hit by bank run
Dozens of depositors yesterday waited outside branches of the First Investment Bank to withdraw savings despite reassurances from the government that their money was safe after a run on the bank and one other lender. Authorities are investigating attempts to destabilize the banking system and say there has been a concerted phone and Internet campaign to spread rumors, creating a crisis that has thrown a spotlight on weak economic governance in the poorest EU state. At one branch in Sofia, about 30 people were waiting in line, about half the number seen at midday on Friday. The run on First Investment Bank started days after the central bank took over Corporate Commercial Bank and shut down its operations following a similar run.
UNITED STATES
Shootout injures nine
Nine people were shot and injured after being caught in the crossfire when a gunbattle erupted between two men on touristy Bourbon Street in New Orleans’ French Quarter, police said. Images captured from a surveillance camera above a bar showed people running down the famous street in the chaos of the shooting at 2:45am, the Times-Picayune on NOLA.com reported. New Orleans Police Chief Ronal Serpas said six victims were hospitalized in stable condition. The other victim’s condition was not available. Police have not determined whether the shootings might be gang-related, Serpas said.
UNITED STATES
NASA tests Mars landing
NASA has tested new technology designed to bring spacecraft — and one day even astronauts — safely down to Mars, with the agency declaring the experiment a qualified success even though a giant parachute got tangled on the way down. Saturday’s US$150 million experiment is the first of three involving the Low Density Supersonic Decelerator vehicle. Tests are being conducted at high altitude on Earth to mimic descent through the thin atmosphere of the Red Planet. The craft made a hard landing in the Pacific Ocean. NASA engineer Dan Coatta with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said engineers are looking at the parachute problem as a way to learn more and apply that knowledge during future tests.
NIGERIA
Dozens killed by ‘militants’
Suspected Islamist militants killed dozens of people on Sunday in an attack on three villages, including one targeting worshippers at a church, a few kilometers from Chibok, the scene of an abduction of more than 200 school girls. A local pro-government vigilante, who declined to be named, said residents had now recovered 15 bodies from the village. He added that many of the deaths occurred when worshippers were locked in a church, which was then sprayed with bullets.
FRANCE
Hailstorm wrecks vineyards
Hailstones as big as golf balls, buffeted by 97kph winds, swept across the Cote de Beaune region on Saturday, causing winegrowers to predict between 40 percent and 80 percent of the grape harvest would be lost. “It’s a disaster,” Pommard winegrowers’ association president Jean-Louis Moissenet said. “We were gearing up for a good year, but now it’s gone by the board.” A spokeswoman from the Domaine Chauvenet in Pommard said it would take a few days for insurers to determine the extent of the damage. Other vineyards hit by the storms include Volnay, Meursault and Beaune, home to a total of 2,000 winegrowers
‘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