HAITI
Poll results trigger protest
A protest on Saturday against alleged fraud in the recent presidential election turned violent, with some demonstrators hurling rocks and police breaking up the rally with tear gas. About 300 people took part in the traffic-snarling, three-hour demonstration in Port-au-Prince. The preliminary results announced on Thursday from the 54-candidate presidential election held on Oct. 25 showed government-backed candidate Jovenel Moise and former state construction chief Jude Celestin heading for a runoff vote next month.
PERU
New park for Amazon basin
The government is creating a national park to protect a vast territory in the Amazon basin that is vulnerable to drug trafficking and illegal logging and mining, Minister of Environment Manuel Pulgar Vidal said on Saturday. Called the Sierra del Divisor National Park, it covers an area of about 14,170km2 in a region inhabited by a variety of indigenous communities living in self-imposed isolation. President Ollanta Humala was scheduled to travel to the region yesterday to sign a decree creating the park, Pulgar Vidal said on his Twitter account.
UNITED STATES
Dog survives skewer
A dog in West Virginia that ate a barbecue skewer has won a national competition for most unusual pet insurance claim. The Bluefield Daily Telegraph reports that the five-year-old Boxer, named Curtis beat 11 other pets in online voting for Nationwide’s Hambone Award, named in honor of another dog that ate a ham while waiting to be rescued from a refrigerator. Valerie Mould of Princeton said Curtis ate the skewer during her daughter’s birthday party last year. Veterinarians initially could not find the skewer and sent the dog home, but a few months later they found it when they operated to remove a baseball-sized mass between the dog’s stomach and pancreas.
UNITED STATES
Missile sparks UFO tweets
A missile test on Saturday off the California coast sparked frenzy on social media and spooked residents who believed they had just seen a UFO. The Twitter hashtags #Navy, #comet and #UFO were trending as social media users uploaded videos and pictures of the mysterious bright light illuminating the night skies. “There’s a UFO in Los Angeles. I’m so excited. I’m so ready,” tweeted Shane Dawson. The San Diego Union-Tribune said that the streaking light was visible as far away as Nevada and Arizona and authorities were reportedly flooded with calls. However, Commander Ryan Perry issuded a statement to media saying: “Navy Strategic Systems Programs conducted scheduled Trident II [D5] missile test flight at sea from USS Kentucky, an Ohio Class SSBN, in the Pacific Test Range off the coast of Southern California.”
HAITI
Stories differ on missing boy
A four-year-old boy who was kidnapped during the killing of a missionary last month has been found and at least two suspects detained, a US-based church group said, but the national police said officials have not received reports about the boy being found. Jonathan “JoJo” Paul was snatched by gunmen last month after they fatally shot missionary Roberta Edwards in a late-night attack near the foster care home and food-distribution site she had run on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince since 2002. Two teenage passengers in her car escaped after the 55-year-old missionary told them to run for their lives.
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