GERMANY
Merkel defends US spy work
Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday said the country needed to work with US intelligence agencies, in the wake of claims that Berlin helped Washington spy on EU leaders and companies. Merkel’s government has faced growing pressure over the allegations, and while analysts expect the popular leader to weather the scandal, her interior minister has drawn media and opposition fire over the “BND affair,” referring to the nation’s foreign intelligence service. Merkel insisted on Monday that the BND was “under control” and repeated a pledge to testify before a parliamentary inquiry over the activities of the US National Security Agency, were she called to do so. “That said, the BND must continue to cooperate internationally, and will do so,” Merkel said at a joint news conference in Berlin with Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka. “To carry out its responsibilities combating international terrorist threats requires collaboration with other agencies, starting with the NSA,” she said.
SOMALIA
Kerry visit first of its kind
US Secretary of State John Kerry made an unannounced trip to Mogadishu yesterday in a show of solidarity with a government trying to defeat Muslim militants and end decades of war. He is the first top US diplomat to visit the nation. Kerry arrived at Mogadishu’s airport at about noon and immediately entered a series of planned meetings that included the president, prime minister, regional leaders and civil society groups. At the top of the agenda is the fight against al-Shabaab. Kerry’s presence in Somalia “will send a strong signal to al-Shabaab that we are not turning our backs on the Somali people,” a senior US Department of State official said. “We will continue to engage with Somalia until we bring al-Shabaab’s terror to an end,” added the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the trip and sought anonymity.
BURUNDI
Third-term bid approved
The constitutional court has approved President Pierre Nkurunziza’s bid for a third term, it said in a statement, as dozens of protesters marched in the capital to say they would “never accept” a campaign they call illegal. “The renewal of the presidential term through direct universal suffrage for five years is not against the constitution of Burundi,” a constitutional court statement said. The vice-president of the court fled the nation on Monday. Judge Sylvere Nimpagaritse told reporters that the court’s judges had come under “enormous pressure and even death threats” from senior figures he refused to name to pass the controversial candidacy.
AUSTRALIA
Koala explores hospital
An inquisitive koala nicknamed “Blinky Bill” sauntered into the emergency department of a hospital, exploring the waiting room for several minutes before wandering back out. The visit, captured on surveillance camera, delighted health workers and has gone viral on Facebook. Western District Health Service chief executive Rohan Fitzgerald said the furry animal was “very casual” when it marched into the facility in Hamilton Town about 300km west of Melbourne. “He was a koala that knew his own mind,” Fitzgerald said. “He came in around about 3:27am, the electronic eye on the doors picked him up and he accessed the waiting room by himself.” The incident happened on April 20, but the video was only posted on Facebook late on Monday. It has since been viewed more than 40,000 times.
COLOMBIA
Police hunt book thief
Police are investigating the theft of a first-edition copy of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s masterpiece One Hundred Years of Solitude. The book disappeared over the weekend from a guarded display case at Bogota’s book fair, which this year is honoring the Nobel Prize-winning author. The first edition is just one of 8,000 copies published in 1967, and a signed copy like the one stolen in Bogota can command as much as US$23,000 online. The book’s owner, Alvaro Castillo, said he spent years hunting for the copy before finding one in Uruguay. He then managed to get Garcia Marquez, who died last year in Mexico City, to sign a dedicatory note. “It’s a very painful loss,” Castillo said on Monday after pulling the rest of his collection from the fair.
ROMANIA
NATO to ‘shift’ command
A top NATO commander yesterday said the alliance will briefly move its allied joint force command from Italy to Cincu in the center of the country as NATO continues to react to Russia’s moves in Ukraine. Admiral Mark Ferguson, commander of Allied Joint Force Command based in Naples, Italy, said the command will be based in Cincu for 12 days next month to support an exercise involving 1,000 troops from 21 NATO states. Cincu is host to the nation’s largest military shooting range, about 180km northwest of Bucharest. “This deployment will be the first time a NATO Joint Force Command Headquarters has deployed to Romania,” Ferguson said. At the same time, NATO will conduct exercises in Poland, the Baltics and the Baltic Sea.
MEXICO
Metro crash injures 12
Two metro trains carrying passengers crashed in Mexico City on Monday, leaving at least 12 people injured, authorities said. They gave no immediate explanation for the crash, though media reports showed two cars smashed together and said that one train ran into another that had stopped at the platform. The accident occurred in the Oceania station on Line 5 near the city’s international airport. Officers loaded passengers into police trucks to take them to the next station. Patricia Rosas, 61, said her snack stand across the street shook with the force of the impact, which happened amid a hail storm. “It was shocking, bigger than thunder,” she said. “People were really nervous.”
PANAMA
Noriega trial date set
The Supreme Court on Monday set a trial date later this month for former dictator Manuel Noriega in a case alleging that he was involved in the kidnapping and murder of a political opponent in 1970. The May 21 trial date aims to shed light on the disappearance and death of Heliodoro Portugal at a time when Noriega, now 81, was the head of the nation’s now defunct national guard. Noriega’s lawyer, Ezra Angel, said in a telephone interview that the trial would amount to a violation the defendant’s rights given the terms of his extradition years ago.
MEXICO
Soldiers’ bodies found
The bodies of two soldiers who disappeared after a drug cartel brought down a military helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher have been found, officials said on Monday. Federal police boss Enrique Galindo said authorities believe a leader of the Jalisco New Generation drug cartel was in a convoy of gunmen when the Cougar helicopter’s tail rotor was hit on Friday last week. The downing killed three soldiers, wounded a dozen and left three others missing.
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
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
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