FRANCE
Refugee killed by train
A refugee was killed overnight on Thursday after being hit by a freight train on the site of the Channel tunnel near Calais, firefighters said, taking the death toll there among people trying to reach Britain to 16 since June. The body was found by firefighters alongside a train platform in Coquelles. The force of the impact made it impossible to immediately identify the victim’s sex, age or nationality.
SOUTH AFRICA
ICC extends deadline
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has given the nation more time to explain why it failed to arrest Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who is accused by the court of war crimes, when he visited the country in June. As a court signatory, Pretoria is obliged to implement warrants from the court. However, when al-Bashir visited for an African Union summit, the government refused to arrest him, and allowed him to leave the nation in violation of a domestic court order. The government said it needed more time to respond. Pretoria should report back to the ICC on the progress of legal proceedings no later than Dec. 31, the ICC said in a statement.
CHINA
Corpse theft brings arrests
Police have detained three people suspected of stealing a corpse to sell as a bride in the ancient rite of ghost weddings, which join single people who died for a belated marriage in the afterlife. Xinhua News Agency said the main suspect had heard about the death of a young woman in a nearby village in Shanxi Province and thought of selling the corpse to relatives of a single dead man, citing police in Ruicheng County. Xinhua said the three suspects pretended to be relatives of the woman and negotiated a sale price of 25,000 yuan (US$4,000) with a buyer. However, while raiding a tomb for the body on Saturday last week, they were caught by villagers.
DENMARK
Zoo dissects lion cub
Zoo staff on Thursday dissected a nine-month-old lion cub in front of an audience of enthralled young children, as a social media storm about the gruesome display raged outside. Some of the youngsters held their noses as zookeepers methodically sliced up the cat.
UNITED KINGDOM
Bridge ruling upheld
Legions of bridge players in Britain might feel they have been dealt a rotten hand after a court decision endorsed an earlier ruling that the popular card game is not a sport. A High Court judge on Thursday backed Sport England’s assertion that bridge is not a sport because it does not involve physical activity.
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
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