INDIA
Poachers kill rhinoceros
Poachers shot dead a rhinoceros at a wildlife park in the northeast hours after Britain’s Prince William and his wife, Kate, visited the sanctuary, a wildlife official said yesterday. Rangers found the dead rhino with its horn missing on Thursday — the day the royal couple left the Kaziranga National Park in Assam, home to two-thirds of the planet’s remaining one-horned rhinos. “Poachers used AK-47 assault rifles to kill the adult male rhino and after killing the pachyderm they took away its horn,” senior forest officer Subasish Das said. It was the second rhino killing in the past four days.
JAPAN
Runaway chimp survives fall
A runaway chimpanzee was shot with a tranquilizer gun only to hang precariously from a power line before falling to the ground and surviving in a drama shown live on national television. The chimp, 24-year-old Chacha, was more fortunate than a zebra that escaped from a Tokyo zoo last month, its bid for freedom ending in death when it collapsed in a water trap after also being shot with a tranquilizer. The chimp had escaped from Sendai Yagiyama Zoological Park.
UKRAINE
Stolen Dutch paintings found
Authorities on Thursday said they had recovered four 17th-century paintings that were stolen a decade ago from a Dutch museum and whose alleged presence in the hands of an ultranationalist Ukrainian militia had sparked a row. They said the four paintings are part of a group of 24 Dutch Golden Age masterpieces that went missing from the Westfries Museum in 2005. At the time of their disappearance, the paintings were valued at a total of 10 million euros (US$11 million). “We have found several paintings that were stolen from the Dutch museum,” Minister of Foreign Affairs Pavlo Klimkin said at a press conference. Klimkin did not explain how authorities had retrieved the missing paintings, but said the works had been “in the possession of criminal groups.”
ITALY
Priceless jewels recovered
Art detectives on Thursday said they had recovered precious jewels stolen in a 2013 heist organized by a wealthy Russian woman with a penchant for gold. The jewel-encrusted gold pieces, made by Italy’s Castellani — which rose to fame in the 19th century for recreating jewelry found in archeological digs and embellishing them with gems or mosaics — were snatched from Rome’s Villa Giulia museum. “It’s a great day, now the gold returns to the museum,” Minister of Culture Dario Franceschini said. The Russian woman, who was not named, had been planning to smuggle the stolen earrings, bracelets and necklaces to Saint Petersburg, police said, but was spooked by the publicity surrounding the robbery.
‘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