INDIA
Border defense vow made
The government yesterday said it would firmly defend the nation’s 3,500km long border with China after domestic media reported a new face-off on the disputed frontier, just days ahead of a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). More than 200 soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army crossed into what New Dehli considers its territory in Ladakh last week, and used cranes, bulldozers and a Hummer vehicle to build a 2km road within it, the Hindustan Times said. Indian soldiers challenged the Chinese troops and asked them to withdraw, and on Wednesday night last week, they demolished a temporary track built by Chinese forces, the newspaper said. There was no immediate comment by Ministry of Defense. Xi arrives today, after visits to the Maldives and Sri Lanka, where he has been promoting a maritime “Silk Road.”
THAILAND
Suicide by crocodile
A 65-year-old woman committed suicide on Friday by leaping into a pond of crocodiles at a tourist attraction about an hour from Bangkok, police said yesterday. The incident on Friday occurred during opening hours at the farm, which doubles as a zoo, and draws visitors who can feed the reptiles from a walkway. The woman jumped from a resting point on the walkway into the middle of the pond, which contains hundreds of adult crocodiles, a police officer said. “Her sister said the victim was suffering from stress and depression,” he added.
JAPAN
Taiji dolphin cull begins
The first dolphins of the season were slaughtered yesterday in the small town of Taiji, campaigners said, commencing an annual cull condemned by animal rights groups. Activists from the environmentalist group Sea Shepherd have been monitoring a bay in Taiji since the six-month dolphin hunting season began earlier this month. “First pod of 2014-2015 being driven into cove now,” the activists from Sea Shepherd tweeted at 10:33am. About an hour later, they said: “First dolphin murder of the drive hunt season is complete.” The local fishermen’s association said it could not immediately confirm the report.
JAPAN
Quake rocks Tokyo
Buildings in Tokyo shook yesterday as a strong quake hit, but no damage was reported. The Meteorological Agency said the earthquake was centered in Ibaraki Prefecture, about 44km north-northeast of Tokyo, and was located about 50km below the surface. The US Geological Survey said the quake had a magnitude of 5.6. Japan Atomic Power Co and Tokyo Electric Power Co reported no irregularities at their three nuclear plants in the east of the country.
FIJI
Leader urges calm for polls
President Epeli Nailatikau yesterday called for a violence-free election as the nation prepares to return to democracy almost eight years after a military coup. Nailatikau said there was no room for threats or intimidation in today’s poll and all parties should accept the result of a ballot he described as “the first free and fair elections in our history.” He urged “all political parties and their supporters not to intimidate anyone or engage in any untoward activity… Democracy is about allowing all individuals to vote freely without fear or favor. We must all accept the will of the people and unify as a nation.” Military commander Mosese Tikoitoga said the army was on standby after receiving reports about voters being intimidated, but he did not give details of alleged threats.
FRANCE
Widow sues factory
The widow of a man who hanged himself at work began legal action on Monday against his employer after receiving a package in the post with his T-shirt, socks and the rope he hung himself with. Lysiane Reboul claimed her husband had been bullied by colleagues at his factory near Calais. She told local media she had written several letters to the factory to get back his personal effects from his locker, but she was shocked when she opened a package sent to her home in Berck-sur-Mer to find the long and thick rope with which her husband had killed himself. “An eight kilo package was delivered to me. Inside was a T-shirt, some socks, a bag of pencils and the rope... Imagine the shock,” Reboul told La Voix du Nord.
UNITED STATES
More New Yorkers smoking
For the first time in years, more than a million New Yorkers are smoking, according to data released on Monday, marking a rise of tobacco use in the city that pioneered a number of anti-smoking initiatives that were emulated nationally. Sixteen percent of adult New Yorkers smoked last year, up from 14 percent in 2010, which was the city’s lowest recorded rate, according to the findings released by the New York City Department of Health. The rise last year is striking since it comes as smoking rates fall across the US. “We’ve had a plateau in the smoking rate for a couple of years, but now it is a statistically significant increase,” said Mary Bassett, the city’s health commissioner.
GERMANY
Former SS member charged
A 93-year-old former member of the Nazi Waffen-SS was charged on Monday with at least 300,000 counts of accessory to murder over his time at the Auschwitz death camp. The charges relate to the about 425,000 people believed to have been deported to the camp in occupied Poland between May and July 1944, at least 300,000 of whom were killed in the gas chambers. The accused helped remove the luggage of victims so that it was not seen by new arrivals, prosecutors in Hannover said. His main role was to count the banknotes gathered from prisoners’ luggage and pass them on to the SS authorities in Berlin, they added. Prosecutors said the accused was aware that the predominantly Jewish prisoners deemed unfit to work “were murdered directly after their arrival in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.”
BELGIUM
Rapist to be euthanized
The government has accepted a serial rapist’s request that he be allowed to die, his lawyer said on Monday. Frank van den Bleeken, who has spent the past 30 years in prison for repeated rape convictions and a rape-murder, has for years requested that the state help him end his life due to “unbearable psychic suffering,” lawyer Jos Vander Velpen told Belgian television. Van den Bleeken is to be transferred from his prison in Bruges to a hospital within the next few days, where he will be euthanized, he said.
TURKEY
Brotherhood are welcome
The nation would welcome exiled leaders of Egypt’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood who have come under pressure to leave Qatar, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. A Brotherhood official said on Saturday that several members of the group were relocating after Qatar came under pressure from other Gulf Arab states to cut support for the group. “If they make any request to come to Turkey, we will review their request,” Erdogan 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
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