NORTH KOREA
Kim walks with limp on TV
State TV has aired footage of leader Kim Jong-un for the first time in more than two months, showing the leader walking without a stick, but with a pronounced limp. The video footage, aired late on Thursday by Chosun Chungang TV, showed Kim on stage at a meeting of military commanders in Pyongyang that took place on Monday and Tuesday. Following an extended absence from the public eye, Kim resurfaced with a walking stick in the middle of last month. In the footage shown on Thursday, Kim was seen limping as he walked past a crowd of soldiers for a photo opportunity, but avoided showing his legs. The South Korean intelligence agency has said that Kim had surgery on his left ankle due to complications from a cyst.
INDIA
Politician staged photo
Ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi wielded a broom to launch his “Clean India” campaign last month, high-profile figures have been falling over themselves to be photographed sweeping the streets. However, the move backfired for Satish Upadhyay, a New Delhi leader of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, after a worker was photographed scattering leaves just so he could pose sweeping them up. The images went viral on social media after they were published by the Mail Today newspaper this week. By yesterday morning, #CheatingCleanIndia was trending as the nation’s most used hashtag as Twitter users rushed to condemn the photo opportunity. Upadhyay defended himself, saying he had been invited to a clean-up event and blamed the organizers. “Whoever has done it, it hasn’t been done right,” he told CNN-IBN news channel.
PAKISTAN
Officer kills ‘blasphemer’
Police say an axe-wielding officer killed a Shiite man in police custody, claiming he had committed blasphemy by insulting companions of the Prophet Mohammed. Officer Mukhtar Ahmed said the incident took place at a police station in the city of Gujrat in eastern Punjab Province early on Thursday. Ahmed said the suspect, officer Sarfraz Naveed, was questioning Syed Tufail Hyder who was detained on Wednesday following a street fight. He said Naveed killed Hyder with an axe, gave himself up and said he did it because Hyder allegedly repeatedly insulted companions of the prophet.
NEW ZEALAND
HK tourists die in crash
Three Hong Kong tourists were killed when their rental van apparently crashed into a truck at the intersection of two major highways, police said yesterday. The crash, which occurred on Thursday near Luggate in the South Island, resulted in “carnage,” police said. Police refused to speculate on the cause of the crash, saying it was still under investigation.
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
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