UNITED STATES
Amazon, Google ban flag
Google Inc joined Amazon.com Inc and eBay Inc on Tuesday in pulling Confederate flag merchandise from their shopping sites, following brick-and-mortar retailers in reacting to last week’s racially motivated mass shooting at a South Carolina church. Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Sears Holdings Corp on Monday banned sales of products bearing the image of the Confederate battle flag. The “Stars and Bars” has become a lightning rod for outrage over the killing of nine men and women at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church in Charleston on Wednesday last week. Accused gunman Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old man, is seen posing with the flag in photographs posted on a Web site reported to be his.
MEXICO
Nursing home fire kills 16
A fire engulfed a nursing home in Tijuana on Tuesday, killing at least 16 elderly residents in a predawn inferno that might have been intentionally ignited, authorities said. Another five elderly people had burns and smoke inhalation injuries, while one person was listed as missing after the blaze at the “Beautiful Dusk” facility, which cared for former homeless people in a rural area of the border city of Mexicali. “The people in charge of the facility are looking into the presumption that there was an intent [to set the place on fire],” Mexicali Mayor Jaime Diaz Ochoa told Radio Formula. “We have to wait and see what the investigation comes up with.” A possible motive could have been linked to “problems in management within the civil association” that operates the nursing home, Diaz said.
CANADA
Suspect seeks refugee status
A businessman on China’s most-wanted list of people accused of corruption argued in a court on Tuesday that he deserves refugee protection. Cheng Muyang (程慕陽), known in Vancouver as developer Michael Ching, asked a judge to review a ruling in November last year by the nation’s refugee board that denied him protection. In April, China’s Interpol office released the names of 100 people wanted in its “Sky Net” antigraft campaign. The list included Cheng Muyang, son of a once high-ranking Chinese official removed from office for graft in 2003. Ching’s lawyer David Matas contested the board’s position that there was reason to consider that Ching committed a crime. Matas said the allegations centered around a 10 million yuan (US$1.61 million) sale of Beijing property to the province of Hebei, where Ching’s father was a top official. Matas said there was no evidence other than testimony obtained by torture, and that the Chinese Communist Party was trying to get to Ching’s father.
POLAND
British teens released
A court on Tuesday found two British teenagers guilty of stealing historical artifacts during a school history trip to the former Auschwitz death camp, but allowed them to go free after handing down a suspended sentence. The two boys, both aged 17, spent Monday night in a police cell after being caught with items including a fragment of a razor, a piece of spoon, buttons and two pieces of glass, believed to have once belonged to inmates at the Nazi concentration camp. A police spokesman had said earlier on Tuesday that they could face up to 10 years in prison. Krzysztof Lach, a spokesman for the regional police in Krakow said the two had pleaded guilty at a court hearing. They were given suspended sentences and ordered to report to a police station back in Britain at regular intervals, he said.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in 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
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