SYRIA
Airstrikes kill 82
At least 82 people, including 58 civilians, were killed in Russian and regime airstrikes on an Islamic State group-held area, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said yesterday in a new toll. “Three Russian and Syrian regime air raids on the region of al-Quriyah, southeast of Deir Ezzor city, killed 58 civilians,” the Observatory said. It added that 24 other people were killed, without specifying whether they were civilians or fighters.
CHINA
Launch sets milestone
The government says the launch of a new-generation rocket marks a milestone in its increasingly ambitious space program, keeping it on schedule to place its second space station into orbit this year. The national space agency said the lift-off of the Long March 7 rocket on Saturday brought the nation closer to establishing a permanent presence in space. The rocket yesterday was expected to send back an experimental module with data about its performance. A second space station is due to be sent into space in September.
MYANMAR
Seized drugs torched
Police yesterday torched drugs with a street value of nearly US$60 million as authorities struggle to tackle poppy cultivation and shut down pill laboratories in lawless border zones. To mark the UN’s annual anti-drugs day, more than half a tonne of opium and 80kg of heroin was torched along with 768kg of methamphetamines and 10 million other stimulant pills, a police official said. Vice President Myint Swe told a Naypyidaw ceremony that the battle to stem drug production was far from being won. “People in very remote rural areas are trafficking drugs and cultivating poppies for a living,” he said. “Once we have development and success in the local peace process, our drugs control process will strengthen.”
THAILAND
Hunt on for helicopter
Rescuers are searching for an air force helicopter a day after contact was lost during heavy rains. Radar contact with the Bell UH-1 helicopter with three crewmen aboard was lost on Saturday afternoon and an initial search was suspended due to the rains. Air force spokesman Air Vice Marshal Pongsak Semachai yesterday said that the helicopter was on a mission to resupply a radar station in Chanthaburi Province. It departed from a base in Lopburi, about 150km northeast of Bangkok.
IRAN
Armed rebels killed
The Revolutionary Guards said five armed rebels were killed in recent clashes along the border with Iraqi Kurdistan, state media reported. A statement from the Guards, published late on Saturday by the official Islamic Republic News Agency said “five armed rebels linked to counter-revolutionary groups” were killed on Friday night.
ITALY
Group to sue over artwork
A consumer group on Saturday said it suspected artist Christo’s floating walkway on Lake Iseo had involved an unreasonable waste of public money. Codacons said it would be filing a complaint to the Lombardy region’s spending watchdog today. The Floating Piers has been a smash hit, with visitors flocking to experience the 3km walkway of 200,000 floating cubes since it opened on June 18. However, Codacons said the huge cost of cleaning up after tens of thousands of visitors and ensuring their safety made it questionable whether the installation should have been authorized.
GUYANA
Jungle highway proposed
The nation and the Brazilian government are to try to tap China’s US$10 billion Latin American infrastructure fund to finance a 563km-long jungle highway linking the two South American nations. Guyanese Minister of Finance Carl Greenidge on Saturday said the two nations have agreed to begin talks with China to finance the project, which is aimed at spurring trade and opening up jungle areas for development. The project would provide Guyana quick access to jungle and mountain regions and give Brazil’s landlocked Amazonian states access to the Caribbean and Central America. Officials said a feasibility study needs to be undertaken to determine the project’s costs. The two nations are also in talks to develop shipping and hydroelectric projects adjacent to the proposed jungle highway.
BRAZIL
Bike path deaths pursued
Police are asking prosecutors to file charges against 14 people in connection with the deaths of two men in the April collapse of an elevated bike path that was heralded as a top legacy project of Rio de Janeiro’s Olympics. Police said in a statement on Friday night that the 14 people include employees of the construction company that built the bike path and the municipal agency responsible for inspecting construction projects. A 50m stretch of the oceanfront Tim Maia bike path fell on April 21 after it was apparently hit by a powerful wave. The statement said the path was built without taking into account the possibility of strong waves, adding that “the construction company failed to anticipate that which was predictable.”
UNITED STATES
Stanford mayor carjacked
Police say a central Florida mayor was carjacked early on Saturday while standing outside his home. Television channel WESH reported that Sanford Mayor Jeff Triplett was outside at about 2:15am when three men approached, pointed a gun at him and stole his car keys. Police say the suspects also stole Triplett’s wallet before driving off in his Mercedes. Triplett gave a detailed description of the suspects to police and 18-year-old Jermine Jacques Horne and a 17-year-old were arrested a short time later. The third suspect has not been caught. It was not immediately known if either suspect had a lawyer. Triplett said: “Being a victim of a crime is unnerving, yet it was reassuring to witness both speed and diligence from the Sanford Police Department.” Sanford is about 40km northeast of Orlando.
UNITED STATES
Bear cub escapes enclosure
A black bear cub scaled a 3.7m-high fence in its new enclosure at an Ohio zoo and escaped for about 15 minutes before being corralled and sedated. The Columbus Zoo was put on lockdown on Saturday morning for a few minutes until workers could contain the seven-month-old black cub named Joan, zoo spokeswoman Patty Peters said. No one was hurt. Two rescue cubs that had been abandoned in the wild and arrived at the zoo just a few months ago were being moved into a new habitat. The one named after rocker Joan Jett climbed the fence and managed to evade a “hot wire” that would have given her a jolt, Peters said. The cub stayed between her habitat and a wolverine exhibit before going over a wooden fence, The Columbus Dispatch reported. Animal-care specialists were standing near the area when the cub started up the fence, but were unable to stop her.
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
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was