UNITED STATES
‘Sorry’: Alabama governor
Alabama Governor Robert Bentley has apologized to India after police seriously injured an Indian grandfather who was visiting relatives. The incident on Feb. 6 in the city of Madison was captured on a police car’s dashcam video and widely seen on the Internet. “I deeply regret the unfortunate use of excessive force by the Madison Police Department on Sureshbhai Patel,” Bentley said in a letter sent Tuesday. “Please accept our sincere apology for this tragic incident to your government, Mr Patel, and the citizens of India who reside and work in our state,” he said in the letter, which was addressed to India’s consul general in Georgia.
FRANCE
Vandalism charges filed
Five teenagers were charged on Wednesday with vandalizing hundreds of Jewish graves last week in a suspected anti-Semitic act that shocked the nation. The boys, aged 15 to 17, were charged with “the desecration of burial places due to the religion of the deceased” and with deliberately vandalizing property on public land, according to prosecutor Philippe Vannier. About 250 tombs were vandalized at a Jewish cemetery in the Sarre-Union, with tombstones pushed over and vaults opened. Vannier said the vandalism appeared to be part of a game that went wrong.
UNITED STATES
Indian workers win lawsuit
A New Orleans jury on Wednesday awarded US$14 million to five Indian men who were lured to the country and forced to work under inhumane conditions after Hurricane Katrina by a ship repair firm and its codefendants. After a four-week trial, a jury ruled that Alabama-based Signal International was guilty of labor trafficking, fraud, racketeering and discrimination and ordered it to pay US$12 million. Its co-defendants, a New Orleans lawyer and an India-based recruiter, were also found guilty and ordered to pay US$915,000 each. The trial was the first in more than a dozen related lawsuits with more than 200 plaintiffs.
UNITED STATES
Jenner blamed for crash
Video shows Bruce Jenner started a chain-reaction crash that resulted in a woman’s death on a Malibu highway, a law enforcement official said on Wednesday. Jenner was hauling an off-road vehicle on a trailer behind his Cadillac Escalade on Feb. 7 when he steered to avoid cars slowing for a traffic light in front of him on Pacific Coast Highway, the official said. Jenner’s SUV rear-ended two cars, pushing a Lexus into oncoming traffic, the official added. The driver, Kim Howe, 69, was killed when it was struck head-on by a Hummer. The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department is investigating the cause of the wreck and will consider whether to issue a citation that could result in criminal charges.
UNITED STATES
Marijuana tricks brain: study
Using marijuana on a full stomach might still cause the munchies, flipping a switch in the brain that usually tells the body it is not hungry, a study found. The findings were the opposite of what researchers said they expected — the neurons should have been turned off since the mice in the study had just eaten, said senior study author Tamas Horvath, a professor of biomedical research and comparative medicine at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. “It fools the brain’s central feeding system,” he said. The results may provide a way to help cancer patients who lose their appetite during treatment, he said.
JAPAN
China talks planned: report
The government plans to resume security talks with China as early as April after a four-year hiatus amid simmering tensions over territorial disputes, Kyodo News said yesterday. The talks, which will likely focus on maritime issues, will involve top foreign and defense officials from both sides, including Deputy Foreign Minister Shinsuke Sugiyama, it said. Asked about the report, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters “there is nothing decided at this point.” “It’s important that both countries exchange communications in various fields... as Japan and China are neighbors, whom the global community is watching closely,” he said.
NORTH KOREA
Kim signals more purges
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has signaled he may further purge top cadres, ordering senior Workers’ Party members to carry out a “campaign against abuse of power, bureaucratism, irregularities and corruption.” The party adopted the resolution at a politburo meeting to review his three years in power, the official Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The statement called on members to implement the behests of his late father Kim Jong-il, “unconditionally carrying out them to the last without an inch of deflection and a single step of concession.”
NIGER
Dozens killed in airstrike
At least 36 civilians were killed when a military plane bombed a funeral party in a border village, the government said, in an incident its deputy mayor blamed on the Nigerian air force. The air crew was likely to have mistaken the villagers, who had gathered near a mosque, for Boko Haram militants, Niger military sources in the nearby town of Bosso said. The Nigerian military did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment about Tuesday’s incident, into which the Niger government said it had launched an inquiry. The government decreed three days of national mourning.
MALAYSIA
PM trashes ‘order to kill’
Prime Minister Najib Razak yesterday dismissed as “rubbish” a former police commando’s claim that he was ordered by “important people” to kill a woman linked to highly sensitive corruption allegations. “It’s total rubbish. Total rubbish,” Razak, in a rare comment on the affair, said in a brief remark to reporters, according to news Web site Malaysian Insider. Policeman Sirul Azhar Umar, who fled abroad to avoid being hanged and is now in Australian custody, is a key figure in a scandal relating to the government’s 2002 purchase of French submarines. That deal has long been clouded by accusations of huge kickbacks to Malaysian officials and the murder of a Mongolian woman who purportedly acted as a translator in the negotiations.
AUSTRALIA
Abbott denies being a bully
Prime Minister Tony Abbott yesterday attempted to play down allegations of bullying Indonesia as a diplomatic rift deepens between the uneasy neighbors over Jakarta’s planned executions of two Australian drug smugglers. Abbott drew strong criticism from Jakarta on Wednesday for linking his pleas for clemency for the pair to Australia’s aid to Indonesia after the 2004 tsunami. He said he was referring to “the obvious strength of the relationship” between the two countries. “I was pointing out the depth of the friendship between Australia and Indonesia and the fact that Australia has been there for Indonesia when Indonesia has been in difficulty,” he 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