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.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing