CHINA
Freeze upsets travel plans
Tens of thousands of Lunar New Year travelers yesterday were stranded at train stations in Guangzhou after snow and ice elsewhere disrupted schedules. Many trains to Guangzhou were delayed after the north and center of the country were hit by the big freeze, leaving no transport available for those waiting to leave. Police said the numbers stuck at two of the city’s stations totaled nearly 100,000 on Monday afternoon, prompting the mobilization of almost 4,000 police and security guards. By noon yesterday, there were still more than 50,000 people waiting, as 24 trains were behind schedule, Xinhua news agency said. The freeze also delayed 55 trains at a station in Shanghai on Monday, delaying about 30,000 travelers.
CHINA
Legal aid center closed
The Zhongze Women’s Legal Counseling and Service Center in Beijing was probably ordered to close because it took money from overseas donors, the state-run Global Times said yesterday. Beijing police ordered the closure of the center, which represented low-income women free of charge, the paper said. “The request may have resulted from funds that came from overseas organizations,” it said, adding that the center received funding from the US-based Ford Foundation. In an opinion piece attributed to Shan Renping (單仁平), a penname for the paper’s editor Hu Xijin (胡錫進), the paper said the center’s willingness to “take on sensitive cases and take foreign funds provides a perspective on this issue.”
AUSTRALIA
Threat calls are hoaxes
Threatening telephone messages that prompted school evacuations and lockdowns yesterday appeared to be hoaxes from overseas designed to cause disruption, police said. It was the second such scare in days after thousands of students were released from schools in New South Wales and Victoria states on Friday last week. “There is no evidence these are anything other than hoaxes designed to cause unnecessary disruption and inconvenience,” New South Wales police said in a statement. Media said eight New South Wales schools were affected and about 20 schools in Victoria.
INDIA
Mandatory fetal tests urged
Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi on Monday proposed the introduction of mandatory tests to determine the sex of fetuses in a bid to counter the high levels of female feticide. Gandhi said the sex of a fetus should be recorded at the outset of the pregnancy and its progress monitored. “Every pregnant woman should be compulsorily told whether it is a boy or girl,” Gandhi said.
CHINA
Washington protest rebuffed
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lu Kang (陸慷) yesterday said that it was “not proper” for the US to comment on the nation’s domestic affairs, after Washington called on Beijing to explain the disappearance of five men who own or work for a Hong Kong publishing house and its bookstore. US Department of State spokesman John Kirby on Monday said that the incidents “raise serious questions about China’s commitment to Hong Kong’s autonomy”
EL SALVADOR
Funeral held for Flores
Politicians, diplomats and business leaders on Monday bid farewell to former president Francisco Flores, who died over the weekend aged 56 while awaiting trial on graft charges. No government representative turned out for a funeral mass in his honor. Flores, who led the country from 1999 to 2004, was to have been tried of charges of embezzling US$15 million donated by Taiwan for victims of a 2001 earthquake, but he died on Saturday while in a coma brought on by a massive stroke suffered a week earlier.
GUINEA-BISSAU
Politician’s home robbed
Heavily armed assailants on Sunday stormed the home of a politician, attacked his guards and made off with about 3 million euros (US$3.3 million) and pieces of jewelry, police sources said on Monday. The assailants broke in at about 10pm to the home of Secretary of State for Transport and Communications Joao Bernardo Vieira II, officials said. The minister was not at his residence at the time of the break-in, the sources said. Vieira’s wife was at home, but unharmed in the break-in, while four of the family’s personal guards were seriously hurt and hospitalized.
GUATEMALA
War crimes trial begins
A retired military officer and a former paramilitary fighter on Monday went on trial for alleged abuses against women during the nation’s long and bloody civil war. Former second lieutenant Esteelmer Francisco Reyes Giron and Heriberto Valdez Asij are accused of crimes against humanity for the alleged rape, sexual enslavement, killing and disappearance of at least 15 women. Prosecutor Hilda Pineda said Reyes Giron authorized and permitted soldiers under his command to commit sexual violence and other “inhuman treatment” against indigenous Mayan women.
UNITED STATES
Prisoner trade challenged
A federal judge has challenged the federal government’s move to drop charges against an Iranian man accused of sanctions violations as part of a prisoner trade agreed with Iran last month. Federal prosecutors filed a motion on Jan. 16 to drop the case against Alireza Moazami Goudarzi, an Iranian man accused in 2012 of trying to buy aircraft parts for Tehran. New York District Judge P. Kevin Castel last week threatened in a court order to deny the government’s dismissal of charges against Goudarzi unless prosecutors could justify the “significant foreign policy interests” they had cited to drop the case. Assistant Attorney John Cronan on Monday said that the prisoner swap was a “one-time, unique agreement based on extraordinary circumstances” that had been reached in order to obtain the release of US prisoners held in Iran.
FRANCE
Authorities avert ship crash
Maritime experts on Monday successfully managed to tow a stricken South Korean cargo ship and prevent it from crashing into the country’s picturesque Atlantic coast. Local maritime authorities spokesman Louis-Xavier Renaux said a tugboat had successfully connected to the ship, which is tilting heavily, “and managed to pivot it, point it towards the open sea and begin towing it.” The Modern Express was carrying diggers and 3,600 tonnes of timber from Gabon to the port of Le Havre in Normandy. After seven days adrift in rough seas, the Panamanian-registered ship was 44km from the coast when authorities launched a final bid to attach a tow line and stop it from hitting the coast.
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
‘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