CHINA
Floods kill at least 87
Heavy rain in China has killed at least 87 people and forced 16 million from their homes, state media reported yesterday. Seventy-two people had been reported killed and 78 missing in the northern province of Hebei after rain triggered floods and landslides, Xinhua news agency reported, citing the Department of Civil Affairs. Nearly 50,000 homes had collapsed and about 8.6 million people have been affected, it said. In the central province of Henan, 15 people were killed and eight were missing after thunderstorms and strong winds forced 7.2 million people from their homes and damaged 18,000 houses. The central bank on Friday issued a statement saying it would provide financial support for flooded areas.
PANAMA
Ship scrapes canal wall
A Chinese container ship has scraped its side against the wall of a newly inaugurated lock on the enlarged section of the Panama Canal. The canal expansion had drawn concern about the relatively tight space and lack of maneuvering room it leaves for the bigger vessels it handles. The canal authority on Friday said the incident was under investigation, but that it had not interrupted canal operations. The container ship was one of a number of New Panamax ships to cross the locks on Thursday. They are the largest ships that can use the new locks after a US$5.25 billion project to expand the facility, but it is a challenge to safely guide them through.
GERMANY
Hospital reports on HK men
One of two Hong Kong men critically injured in an axe attack on a train is out of danger, the hospital treating them said on Friday, but the other was still in a coma. The university clinic in the southern city of Wuerzburg said in a statement that it was still treating four of the five people injured in the attack by a teenager late on Monday and the condition of all had improved and stabilized. “However one patient is still in a critical condition and being kept in an artificial coma,” it said, without identifying him. Previously the 62-year-old father of the family of tourists from Hong Kong and his daughter’s 30-year-old boyfriend were fighting for their lives after the brutal assault by the teenage refugee. The Islamic State group on Tuesday released a video purportedly featuring the assailant announcing that he would carry out an “operation” in Germany, and presenting himself as a “soldier of the caliphate.” German authorities are trying to determine whether the attacker was from Afghanistan, as he said on his application for asylum, or in fact Pakistan.
CANADA
Two chase ‘Pokemon’ to US
US Border Patrol officials said two Canadian teenagers were briefly apprehended after they accidentally crossed the US border into Montana while playing the game Pokemon Go. Border Patrol agent John South said the teens were engrossed and wandered into the US. South said agents detained them while contacting their mother, who was nearby on the Canadian side. The agents then released the children to their mother. South on Friday declined to release the teenagers’ names, ages or describe what sort of terrain they crossed. He said they were detained on Thursday near Sweet Grass, Montana, which borders the town of Coutts in Canada’s Alberta province. Pokemon Go is a game in which players go to different locations to find virtual characters that appear on their cellphones.
‘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