MALI
State of emergency declared
The government yesterday declared a state of emergency, a day after an attack in the center of the nation left 17 soldiers dead and 35 wounded. The government said the state of emergency would last “for a duration of 10 days,” following the attack at an army base in Nampala on Tuesday. It also said a period of national mourning would begin yesterday “in homage to the victims of the terrorist attack.”
MYANMAR
Census data released
Muslims make up just over 2 percent of the nation’s population, government census figures showed yesterday, undercutting claims by Buddhist hardliners that Islam poses a threat to the dominance of their faith. Full details from the 2014 count, the first of its kind in decades, was withheld for almost a year to avoid stirring tensions in the Buddhist-majority nation ahead of elections in November last year. The new data shows that Buddhists make up 90 percent of the population of 51.48 million, followed by Christians (6.3 percent) and Muslims (2.3 percent). However, the survey does not include the 1 million strong Rohingya Muslim minority, who were banned from self-identifying during the census taking. If they were included, Muslims would account for about 4 percent of the population, an estimate that has been in circulation since the last census in 1983.
PHILIPPINES
Duterte not ‘excellency’
President Rodrigo Duterte yesterday told his government not to call him “your excellency.” Duterte, 71, in a statement from his office, said he wanted to be referred to simply as “president” in all official communications. “In keeping with his populist presidential style, he encourages less ‘ceremonial’ communications,” Duterte’s spokesman Ernie Abella said. He also ordered that his Cabinet members be called “secretary” instead of “honourable,” as previously was the practice.
CHINA
Group wins lawsuit
An environmental group has won a landmark public interest lawsuit against a glass manufacturer, with the firm fined more than US$3 million for excessive pollution, a court said. Jinghua Group Zhenhua Decoration Glass Limited Co, based in Dezhou, Shandong Province, was ordered to pay nearly 22 million yuan (US$3.3 million) for its surplus emission of pollutants and told to make a public apology, the Intermediate People’s Court said. The suit was filed by the government-affiliated All-China Environment Federation in March of last year. The company had emitted hundreds more tonnes of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and smoke dust than the maximums stipulated by regulations, the court said in its ruling on Wednesday.
BANGLADESH
Zia’s son sentenced
The High Court yesterday sentenced a son of former prime minister Khaleda Zia to seven years in jail in a money laundering case, overturning an acquittal by a lower court. Tarique Rahman, senior vice chairman of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, lives in exile. Defense lawyer Zainul Abedin said the court also fined Rahman 200 million takas (US$2.54 million). A Dhaka trial court in 2013 acquitted Rahman of charges that he and a businessman friend siphoned off 204.1 million takas to Singapore between 2003 and 2007. However, the court upheld a seven-year jail term for Rahman’s friend, Giasuddin al-Mamun, given in 2013. He is in prison.
ARGENTINA
Nuns under investigation
The Catholic Church is launching an investigation into whether a group of nuns helped a former government official who allegedly tried to hide US$9 million in cash at their convent. The four nuns will be investigated “to determine if there was a canonical crime and help the actions of the civil justice,” the Reverend Tom O’Donnell, a leading member of the probe, told local radio on Wednesday. Jose Lopez, a former public works secretary, was arrested last month at the convent on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. Police discovered wads of US dollars and three other currencies. Local media recently aired closed-circuit TV footage showing Lopez carrying a rifle and cash in through the convent’s main entrance aided by two nuns.
FRANCE
Massacre profiteer jailed
An unemployed man was jailed for 10 months on Wednesday after trying to sell objects he had advertised online as found at the scene of the Bastille Day massacre in Nice. Police specializing in online crime detained the man after seeing his offer of “Items from the July 14 massacre — price to be discussed” on the Internet four days after 84 people were killed when a Tunisian man rammed crowds with a truck. The ad included photographs of a ring, a pair of glasses and a flag, as well as a note offering to send photographs of about 20 other items on request. The man was found guilty of fraud and of trying to sell items that did not belong to him. In his defense, the man, who has no previous convictions, said the advertised items actually belonged to his family and that the ring was a gift from his mother to his sister.
MEXICO
Gillnets to be banned
The government said it will ban the use of gillnets for shrimp fishing in an area of the northern Gulf of California that is the habitat for the endangered vaquita marina porpoise. The national fisheries commission on Wednesday said the permanent ban on gillnets used in shrimp fishing will go into effect in September. The population of vaquita marinas has dropped sharply in recent years to the point that only about 60 survive in the northern Gulf of California, the only place in the world they are found. A spokeswoman for the environmentalist group Sea Shepherd said the shrimp net ban was a “good start,” but not enough to save the rare porpoise.
GERMANY
Attacked tourists critical
The Wuerzburg university hospital yesterday said that two of the three Hong Kong tourists it is treating for wounds inflicted during an axe and knife attack by an Afghan refugee are in a critical, but stable condition. A fourth victim, who is being treated at a hospital in Nuremberg, is to be transferred to Wuerzburg as well, it said. The four were attacked on Monday night on a commuter train near Wuerzburg by a 17-year-old Afghan refugee, who also wounded a woman walking her dog before he was shot and killed by police.
BRAZIL
Wounded dog recovering
A dog that was shot five times during a firefight in a Rio de Janeiro slum is recovering from surgery and will soon be put up for adoption, an animal shelter said. The dog is nicknamed Netinho Coragem, or “little brave one” in Portuguese. He was hit during a gunbattle between rival gangs in northern Rio on Monday last week. The shelter group said it rescued the black-coated mutt after getting a call from residents.
‘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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in