PAKISTAN
Afghanistan meeting begins
A key gathering opened yesterday in Islamabad in which four countries — Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the US — hope to lay the roadmap to peace for the war-shattered Afghan nation. The meeting comes as battlefield losses in Afghanistan are mounting and entire swaths of the country that cost hundreds of US-led coalition and Afghan military lives to secure slip back into Taliban hands. Taliban representatives are not invited to the talks, vowing to talk only to the US and not to the Afghan government. As the gathering got under way, Islamabad cautioned of the difficulties ahead. Adviser to the prime minister on foreign affairs Sartaj Aziz warned against prematurely deciding which Taliban factions are ready to talk, urging instead “confidence building” measures to get even the recalcitrant Taliban to the negotiating table.
INDIA
Swallowed gold recovered
Police successfully deployed an unusual technique to retrieve a gold chain that a thief had swallowed while officers were in hot pursuit — they force-fed him more than 40 bananas. The man denied snatching the chain from a woman in the street in Mumbai and swallowed it in a bid to conceal his crime last week, but hospital X-rays suggested otherwise. Police in the western Indian city administered an enema which failed to yield the desired result. “He was fed more than 40 bananas throughout the day,” Mumbai police Senior Inspector Shankar Dhanavade told reporters. “Eventually the chain was found. We made him wash and disinfect it,” the policeman added.
BENIN
Voodoo fans get political
The national voodoo holiday in the west African country of Benin had a distinctively political accent this year as practitioners from Africa and the Americas on Sunday gathered to offer prayers and sacrifices for peace. Hundreds of followers of the traditional religion gathered in the Atlantic coast town of Ouidah, once an important port in the slave trade, to pray for calm during the tiny country’s presidential election scheduled for February. Benin has no history of significant electoral violence. However, well-known priest David Kofi Aza last month said that an oracle named Fa had predicted dozens of deaths in post-electoral violence because the loser would refuse to cede to the winner.
HONDURAS
Six men shot dead
Shooters killed six people on Sunday, the first mass killing of the year in one of the world’s most violent countries, police said. Police spokesman Leonel Sauceda told local media that the attack, in a house in the town of Tejeras in central Comayagua Province, took place in the early hours of the morning, leaving six males dead. Authorities said narcotics trafficking appeared to be involved.
SOUTH KOREA
Pastor jailed in North speaks
A 60-year-old Canadian pastor, jailed for life with hard labor in North Korea, said he spends his days digging holes in an orchard in a prison camp where he is the sole inmate. In an interview in Pyongyang with CNN, Hyeon Soo Lim said it had been tough adapting to the physical rigors of his internment, following his conviction last month on charges of “subversive” acts against the state. “I wasn’t originally a laborer, so the labor was hard at first,” said Lim, his head shaven and wearing a gray prison outfit with the number 036. The interview was conducted in a Pyongyang hotel room.
CHINA
‘Star Wars’ makes US$53m
Star Wars: The Force Awakens broke records in the country with US$53 million in ticket sales on its first weekend, propelling the movie to become the third highest-grossing film globally in history, Walt Disney Co said on Sunday. The China figures represent the highest Saturday or Sunday movie opening in the country in industry history, the Disney film studio said in a statement. Internationally, The Force Awakens, the seventh installment in the science fiction franchise created by George Lucas, brought its worldwide haul to US$1.73 billion, Disney said. It has now shot past Jurassic World’s US$1.67 billion global gross to become the third-biggest movie ever. The country’s box office will help decide if Force Awakens tops Avatar as the highest-grossing film in Hollywood history. Avatar took in US$2.8 billion after its December 2009 debut. The Star Wars film saga that began in 1977 had not been a cultural phenomenon in China like it was in other countries. The original movies were not shown in Chinese theaters until June last year. Disney launched a marketing blitz to build buzz, featuring 500 Stormtroopers on the Great Wall and promotions with a pop star dubbed China’s answer to Justin Bieber.
THAILAND
King has infection, fever
The royal palace has released a vaguely worded health report on the country’s 88-year-old king, the world’s longest-reigning monarch, who has been ailing for years, describing what appears to be a new bout of lung infection and occasional fever with rapid breathing. The statement issued on Sunday said King Bhumibol Adulyadej has battled a fever for the past two weeks and was being looked after by doctors. It said tests found “an infection in the lower part of the lungs” and a blood infection and inflammation in his right knee joint. The king was given oxygen, intravenous antibiotics and other medication, the statement said, adding that “currently, the king’s fever has eased, but his breathing is occasionally faster than normal, while his pulse and blood pressure are normal.”
PHILIPPINES
Military funds sought
Congress on Monday asked the government to study a proposal to issue a 150 billion peso (US$3.2 billion) retail bond to fund a long-term military modernization plan to secure its strategic reserves in the South China Sea. Ariel Try, deputy minority leader at the lower house of Congress, said Congress will ask the Treasury to consider a bond issue to help secure the country’s maritime borders against China’s rapid expansion in the South China Sea. “The bulk of the additional funds raised from the bond offering may be set aside to acquire new warships, like frigates and corvettes, for deployment to the West Philippine Sea [South China Sea],” Ty told reporters. “We have to invest in new warships to secure the potential huge oil and gas deposits in the West Philippine Sea, which are the key to our energy independence.”
CHINA
Dispute angered bus arsonist
A man accused of causing a fire on a bus that killed 17 people and injured 33 last week told prosecutors that he was angered by a financial dispute with a construction contractor, Xinhua news agency reported late on Sunday. Police caught the suspect after mounting a manhunt in Ningxia last week, but initially did not identify a possible motive for the arson attack. Bus fires are not uncommon in China. In 2013, a bus fire blamed on a suicidal man killed 47 people in Xiamen. Regulators have blamed recent blazes on flawed design.
‘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