UNITED STATES
Obama to meet Canada PM
President Barack Obama is to roll out the red carpet for a planned visit next year by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, hosting a formal state dinner for the new leader, the White House said on Tuesday. Obama and Trudeau met for the first time in Manila at a summit last month, and discussed holding a bilateral meeting at the White House early next year. However, the meeting would also include the pomp and pageantry of a state dinner, a lavish honor that the Obama White House has extended to only a small, select group of world leaders who have visited Washington.
UNITED STATES
Study links e-cigs, disease
Three in four electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) were found to use a flavored liquid that has been linked to severe respiratory disease, US researchers said on Tuesday. For the study in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, scientists at Harvard University tested flavors that might appeal to young people such as Cotton Candy, Fruit Squirts and Cupcake. They found that 75 percent of tested samples contained diacetyl, which when inhaled has been linked to the respiratory disease bronchiolitis obliterans — sometimes called “popcorn lung” because over 10 years ago it was discovered in workers who inhaled artificial butter flavor in microwave popcorn processing facilities.
DENMARK
Antibiotic-resistance found
A gene that makes bacteria resistant to last-resort antibiotics has been found in Denmark, a new study has shown, after first being identified by researchers in China. Scientists had warned on Nov. 19 of a gene — found in southern China — called MCR-1 that makes bacteria resistant to a class of antibiotics, known as polymyxins, used to fight superbugs. “Bacteria with the same resistance gene have now also been found in Denmark,” the Technical University of Denmark said in a statement on the results of a study published late last week. Using a Danish database of bacterial DNA samples, the researchers found the gene in a patient who suffered from a blood infection this year, and in five samples of imported poultry from between 2012 and last year.
UNITED STATES
Bodyboarder saves surfer
Hawaii officials are crediting a South African man with saving the life of a professional surfer who almost drowned after a wipeout. Two-time world bodyboarding champion Andre Botha found the surfer, Evan Geiselman, unconscious in the water off Oahu’s Ehukai Beach on Sunday morning, Hawaii News Now reported. “His face was a dark blue, almost purple. He was foaming at the mouth. His eyes were rolled back and his body was completely limp,” Botha said. “The first thing that went through my mind at that point was that he was dead.” Botha attempted to resuscitate Geiselman while trying to swim to shore. Safety officials estimate that the pair traveled about 300m before other surfers and lifeguards reached them. “All the oncoming waves crashing on him, he was able to just hold on to that surfer’s body and help until we got there and got to him. It was amazing,” Ocean Safety and Lifeguard Services Division Captain Vitor Marcal said. Botha said that staying afloat while clinging to the 22-year-old Geiselman took a “huge amount of energy... I don’t think I’ve ever expended that amount of energy in that short amount of time ever.” Geiselman eventually regained consciousness after he was brought to shore. He was rushed to hospital in critical condition.
INDONESIA
No resolution on tuna stock
Environmental groups yesterday expressed frustration after a key Pacific fishing industry meeting failed to adopt measures to protect vulnerable tuna species from overfishing. The Pew Charitable Trusts said the bluefin and bigeye tuna species could become severely depleted due to inaction by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission. Critics said a commission meeting, which wrapped up in Bali late on Tuesday, also did nothing to prevent shark-finning and illegal fishing. Much of the discussion at this year’s meeting centred on saving bigeye tuna, which scientists estimate has fallen to just 16 percent of its “unfished biomass” — the population level before industrialized fishing began. Pew’s Amanda Nickson said there was great concern that scientific advice was being ignored on conserving bigeye and bluefin — which is at just 4 percent of unfished biomass. “After another year with no action, the sustainability of the world’s largest tuna fishing grounds remains in question,” she said.
JAPAN
Blast suspect arrested
Police in Tokyo have arrested a South Korean man suspected of causing an explosion last month in a public restroom at a controversial shrine in Tokyo that honors Japanese war dead. Jeon Chang-han, 27, was arrested yesterday after he returned to Tokyo from South Korea for voluntary questioning, police officials said. No one was injured in the Nov. 23 explosion at the Yasukuni Shrine. Police earlier said the suspect was identified from closed-circuit TV and had left Japan after the blast. The shrine, which honors 2.5 million Japanese war dead, including executed war criminals, is a focal point for lingering tensions with Japan’s neighbors over the country’s aggression before and during World War II.
FRANCE
Paris attacker identified
A third man who attacked the Bataclan concert hall in Paris on Nov. 13 has been identified as a 23-year-old from Strasbourg who went to Syria with a group of other young people at the end of 2013, a judicial source and other officials said yesterday. The sources named the attacker, who died in the assault, as Foued Mohamed-Aggad. Prime Minister Manuel Valls confirmed on BFMTV that the man had finally been identified. Other members of the group that went to Syria were arrested and jailed in May last year after their return, according to the judicial source and other sources close to the situation. Mohammed-Aggad’s elder brother Karim, who also visited Syria, is in jail in France, the judicial source said. The Bataclan shootings were part of a co-ordinated attack around Paris that killed 130 people.
MALAYSIA
Abandoned jets may be sold
Attention owners of three jumbo jets parked at the nation’s main airport: Please remove your aircraft immediately or the airport will. The airport operator took the unusual step of posting photos in two major newspapers of the three Boeing 747-200s that have been sitting idle for more than a year. The notice this week warns the owners that the airport has the right to sell or dispose of the planes unless they are collected within 14 days. Kuala Lumpur International Airport general manager Zainol Mohamad Isa yesterday said such notice is normal in a bid to recover debts owed to Malaysia Airports Holdings, after exhaustive, but futile efforts to locate the owners. The planes carry registration prefixes TF for Iceland. An Iceland-based air charter and cargo firm, Air Atlanta Icelandic, was quoted by the Star newspaper as saying it operated the planes until 2010.
‘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
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