CHINA
Haiyan cancels incinerator
Authorities in eastern Zhejiang Province said they have halted plans to build a trash incinerator after rowdy street protests by residents and the arrests of two women. The Haiyan county government said in a statement yesterday that residents began to gather illegally on Wednesday and blocked roads. It said the demonstration escalated on Thursday evening, when the mob attacked a local government building, smashing objects and causing injuries to a police officer and bystanders. The government said a 19-year-old woman was detained on charges of spreading unverified gory pictures and videos on the Internet, which were viewed more than 5,000 times. Another woman was charged with spreading insults against local officials.
CHINA
Warehouse explodes
A warehouse storing chemicals and fuel yesterday exploded and caught fire in the eastern city of Jingjiang, the local government and media reports said, but the blaze was under control with no casualties. The blast recalled huge explosions caused by the improper storage of chemicals in the northern city of Tianjin in August last year, when at least 165 people were killed and fears were raised of toxic contamination. The latest accident was at the premises of a company called Jiangsu Deqiao Storage, which is authorized to keep hazardous chemicals, reports said. The Jingjiang government said on its verified microblog that the fire was “under control” with no deaths or injuries. One photograph posted online showed dark clouds of smoke, with the fire still burning amid what appeared to be storage tanks. The Jingjiang government statement said activity near the site had returned to “normal.” Industrial accidents are common due to often lax safety standards, but the massive blast in Tianjin sparked widespread anger over a perceived lack of transparency by officials about its causes and environmental impact.
SOUTH KOREA
One dead after train derails
A passenger train that took a curved section of track at three times the recommended speed derailed yesterday, killing an engineer and injuring eight people, police and rail officials said. According to national rail operator KORAIL, the locomotive and four of the train’s seven carriages jumped the tracks near Yulchon Station, about 330km south of Seoul. The train was carrying 27 people, including two locomotive engineers, one of whom was killed in the accident. Yonhap news agency quoted police as saying the train was rounding a bend at 127kph, when it should have been moving at less than 50kph. The second engineer was reportedly in a serious condition, while another seven people suffered mostly minor injuries.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the