AFGHANISTAN
Report slams US civilian toll
The families of thousands of civilians killed by US forces have been left without justice or compensation, an Amnesty International report said yesterday. The report said it had gathered evidence of “a deeply flawed US military justice system that cements a culture of impunity” in dealing with civilian deaths and injuries caused in NATO coalition operations since 2001. The report said Amnesty researchers interviewed 125 Afghans with first-hand information about 16 attacks that resulted in civilians casualties, as well as collating data from 97 reported incidents since 2007. It detailed a bombing in 2012 in which seven women and girls were killed in Laghman Province. Ghulam Noor, who lost his 16-year-old daughter Bibi Halimi in the attack, brought the bodies to the district center after hearing NATO forces claim only insurgents had been killed. “We had to show them that it was women who were killed,” he told Amnesty. “I have no power to ask the international forces why they did this. I can’t bring them to court.” Amnesty said villagers filed complaints with the provincial governor, but international forces in the country are immune from legal processes and no one ever contacted family members to investigate the attack.
CHINA
Man held for Web ‘rumors’
Authorities have detained a man in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region for spreading what they said were Internet rumors about attacks last month in which nearly 100 people were killed, state media said yesterday. Authorities have said 59 “terrorists” were gunned down by security forces in Xinjiang’s Shache County and 37 civilians killed in attacks by masked militants on July 28. The Xinjiang Government news site said police detained a 22-year-old suspect for circumventing the nation’s online censorship system to post a fake account of the incident on overseas Web sites. “So-called reports that were seriously inconsistent with the facts emerged on overseas Web sites, which fabricated horrifying details and deliberately incited ethnic hatred,” Tianshan.net reported. It said the rumor, which included graphic depictions of extreme violence by police, was circulated by “hostile foreign forces” and had an “evil influence.” Tianshan said police detained the suspect, a man with a Uighur name, on Wednesday last week and that he confessed to the charges. “I didn’t care if what I was writing was real or not. I just wanted to attract people’s attention and have an influence on public opinion,” it quoted him as saying.
EGYPT
HRW decries ‘gag order’
Human Rights Watch (HRW) yesterday accused the government of trying to silence criticism after two of the group’s staff were held denied entry to the country for “security reasons.” HRW executive director Kenneth Roth and Middle East and North Africa director Sarah Leah Whitson had flown to Cairo to deliver a report on the mass killings of protesters by security forces a year ago, weeks after the army removed former president Mohamed Morsi. The report is the fruit of a year-long investigation, including interviews with more than 200 witnesses. Airport authorities said Roth and Whitson were turned away on instructions from unnamed security officials. Principal author and researcher Omar Shakir said he and his colleagues had looked forward to discussing the report with civil society. “It seems the authorities have decided, though, that only one narrative can be heard in Egypt,” he said. The report is to be released today as scheduled.
‘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