MEXICO
Protesters rush law office
Protesters on Monday stormed the prosecutor’s office of the southern state of Guerrero to protest the handling of the disappearance of 43 students, days before the case’s first anniversary. Students, parents of the young men and other protesters demonstrated at the building in the state capital, Chilpancingo, and placed pictures of the missing on the windows. A group of protesters entered the offices, breaking computers and surveillance cameras and causing damage to four vehicles. Vidulfo Rosales, an attorney for the relatives of the 43 missing students, said the protest was held to press the government to find the young men, “which is the movement’s main demand.”
GERMANY
Auschwitz worker to be tried
A 91-year-old woman who worked at Auschwitz has been accused of complicity in the murders of at least 260,000 Jews during World War II, the Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) said on Monday. The woman, who worked as a telegraph operator in Auschwitz, is to be tried in a court for minors, because she was under 21 at the time of alleged crimes, the agency said. A court in Kiel is to decide whether to proceed with a trial next year, taking both the charges against her and her health into consideration, DPA said, quoting the city’s chief prosecutor, Heinz Dollel.
CANADA
Celebrities fight wolf cull
Pop star Miley Cyrus and former Baywatch actress Pamela Anderson added their voice to opposition to a government plan to shoot wolves to reduce their population and save caribou herds in British Columbia. The provincial government said the killings are needed to save herds of caribou, whose numbers have plummeted to 1,500 and are now at risk of extinction. The province’s wolf population, which is estimated to top 8,500, is not endangered. Cyrus traveled to the Great Bear Rainforest over the weekend to meet a group of conservationists opposed to the cull. “When I first spoke out, I knew in my heart that the wolf cull was wrong, but after this visit, I know science is on my side,” Cyrus said.
ITALY
Samnite tomb unearthed
Archeologists have discovered a pre-Roman era tomb in perfect condition at Pompeii, the team at the archeological site buried in a 79 AD volcanic eruption announced on Monday. “Pompeii continues to be an inexhaustible source of scientific discoveries,” Massimo Osanna, superintendent at the ancient city site, said in a statement. The tomb at the Herculaneum Gate at Pompeii, unearthed by a team from the French Centre Jean Berard in Naples, dates back to the Samnite era. The Samnites were a group of tribes involved in fierce battles with the Romans in the fourth century BC.
UNITED STATES
Poynter unveils new network
Fact-checking has a new global network after the Poynter Institute for Media Studies on Monady announced plans for a new body to support efforts to root out false claims from the media. The project “will support and study the work of 64 fact-checking organizations spanning six continents,” Poynter said in a statement. Funded by grants from eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s Omidyar Network and the US-based National Endowment for Democracy, the International Fact-Checking Network is to be based at Poynter’s headquarters in St Petersburg, Florida.
CHINA
Border stability urged
Minister of National Defense Chang Wanquan (常萬全) has urged Myanmar to maintain stability along their common border as the Burmese prepare for elections in November, the ministry said yesterday. Chang on Monday told Myanmar’s deputy commander-in-chief General Soe Win, who was visiting Beijing for talks, that their nations should “jointly maintain stability in the border area.” Ties soured this year over fighting between Myanmar’s military and the ethnic Chinese Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army along part of the shared border.
NIGERIA
Bombing wave kills 80
At least 80 people were killed and about 150 injured in multiple bomb attacks in northeastern Borno state on Sunday evening, police and witnesses said on Monday. Three bomb blasts in the state capital, Maiduguri, about 7:30pm left at least 54 people dead and 90 injured. About two hours later, two bombs exploded at a checkpoint about 135km away at a market in Monguno. Locals residents and a hospital source said that attack killed 27 people and injured 62. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
SOUTH AFRICA
Freezer find leads to court
A Danish national on Monday appeared in a court in Bloemfontein on sexual assault charges after 21 pieces of female genitalia were found stuffed in his freezer, police said. The 58-year-old gunshop owner was arrested last week. Anesthetic drugs and surgical equipment were also found in his house. He “allegedly sedated his victims before performing illegal operations on them,” police said in a statement. Police suspect most of his victims were from the neighboring kingdom of Lesotho. Some media reports suggest he had in the past admitted to a journalist that he performed female genital mutilation. Police said the man is wanted in Denmark for illegally dealing in firearms.
INDIA
Road workers bury drunk
Police yesterday said road construction workers killed a man when they accidentally buried him in a pit while repairing a road in Madhya Pradesh state. Constable Dhruvsingh Thakur said that a road crew working in the evening failed to notice that a drunken man had fallen into a crater on the side of the road. They dumped gravel and an asphalt mixture into the pit, burying the man, before using a large roller to smooth the road. Villagers noticed part of the man’s hand in the road and police on Monday dug out his body. The workers have been charged with homicide.
MALAYSIA
Opposition alliance formed
Three opposition parties have formed a new alliance after the collapse of a former coalition in June following months of internal bickering. The leaders of the People’s Justice Party, the Democratic Action Party and the newly created Parti Amanah Negara held discussions and negotiations to form Pakatan Harapan, they said at a news conference yesterday.
NEPAL
Curfews being eased
The Home Ministry yesterday said that protests against the nation’s new constitution are abating, just hours after police opened fire on a crowd and injured three in the east of the country. The ministry said that curfews imposed amid weeks of violent demonstrations that left more than 40 dead are now being relaxed in some areas. The new constitution was adopted on Sunday after a 10-year effort.
‘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