SOUTH KOREA
MERS a wake-up call: WHO
An outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in the country shows how deadly infectious diseases may strike at any time, but MERS is not yet a global health emergency, the WHO said yesterday. In a statement after a meeting of its emergency committee on MERS, the WHO said the conditions for a public health emergency of international concern have not been met. “This outbreak is a wake-up call and [shows] that in a highly mobile world, all countries should always be prepared for the unanticipated possibility of outbreaks of this, and other serious infectious diseases,” the Geneva-based UN health agency said.
CHINA
Man wielding brick killed
Police at a train station in Xian shot an ethnic Uighur man who had charged into a ticket line holding a brick, police said yesterday, adding the man later died. Public sensitivity to security at the country’s railway stations has increased following a series of incidents, including a mass stabbing at a train station last year in the southwestern city of Kunming that left 31 dead. Authorities said that was carried out by separatist militants from Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uighur people. In a brief statement on its official microblog, Xian railway police said that at about 6am, a Uighur man holding a brick “charged into” a line of people waiting to buy tickets. “On duty police quickly got to the scene to stop [him], and after repeated warnings were ignored opened fire and injured [him],” police said. The man died of his wounds in hospital, police said, adding that the situation had returned to normal at the station. The statement was later amended without explanation to remove reference to the man’s ethnicity.
THAILAND
Elephant kills diner
An elephant killed a 28-year-old man and injured his colleague as they were eating dinner at a beachside restaurant in the east, police said yesterday. The local telecoms employee died in hospital on Tuesday after the elephant gored his chest with its tusk as he ate hotpot with a fellow worker in the coastal city of Rayong late on Monday. “They were talking to the mahout [elephant keeper] about buying food for the elephant when it suddenly stabbed one man in the chest with its tusk and kicked the other,” local police Lieutenant Thawat Nongsingha said. The mahout has been charged with offenses including violating animal welfare legislation and negligence causing death, Thawat said.
FRANCE
D&C ‘risks premature births’
One of the commonest surgical procedures in gynecology greatly increases the risk that a woman will give birth prematurely in later pregnancies, a study said on Tuesday. Dilation and curettage — D&C — is routinely used by doctors after miscarriage or pregnancy termination, but researchers found it upped the risk of very premature births by nearly 70 percent. The procedure entails dilating the cervix and removing any tissue remaining in the womb to prevent infection. Generally considered safe and easy to preform, the 15-minute operation is being rivaled by less invasive methods, but remains common. In a review of 21 studies covering 2 million women, Dutch researchers found that D&C increased the risk of premature birth — when a baby is born before 37 weeks — in a subsequent pregnancy by 29 percent. However, the risk of very premature birth — before 32 weeks — rose by 69 percent.
‘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