COSTA RICA
Ranked No. 1 for balance
A London-based think tank has placed Costa Rica at the top of its “Happy Planet Index” for the third time. This does not mean that Costa Rica is home to the world’s cheeriest people, but rather that the country has reached a balance where its citizens lead relatively long and satisfied lives without an outsized impact on the planet. Because the index’s formula divides measures of wellbeing by each country’s ecological footprint, none of the world’s most developed countries figure in the top 10. Costa Rica is trailed by Mexico and Colombia in this year’s ranking. Vanuatu and Vietnam round out the top five. The index, published by the New Economics Foundation, takes a different approach to measuring national wellbeing. Rather than emphasizing production, it seeks to reward sustainability, it said.
BANGLADESH
Hundreds fight over TV show
A brawl broke out between villagers in eastern Bangladesh arguing over the plot of an Indian fantasy television serial, leaving 100 people injured, police said on Friday. The villagers had gathered at a restaurant in Habiganj District on Wednesday night to watch Kiranmala, a famous Bengali-language show about a warrior princess who saves mankind from evil, when the dispute erupted. Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the crowd as the argument escalated throughout the night, with angry viewers vandalizing the restaurant in Dhol village and attacking each other with sticks and knives. “Two men got involved into an argument over the story of the episode, which later turned into a group skirmish,” local police chief Yasinul Haque told reporters.
ISRAEL
Poison plotter rearrested
Police on Friday said they have rearrested a Palestinian man days after he completed a 14-year prison sentence for a plot to poison diners at an Israeli restaurant. A police statement said the man was detained on Thursday in the Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabal Mukaber, where he lives. “Police units arrest terrorist from Jabal Mukaber who served 14 years in prison for terrorism,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld posted on his official Twitter account. “He was arrested again for supporting terrorism.” Rosenfeld did not identify the man, but Israeli media named him as Sufian Abdu, an accomplice in a 2002 plan by Palestinian cook Othman Qihanya to kill customers at west Jerusalem landmark Cafe Rimon, on behalf of the militant group Hamas.
INDONESIA
Two detained in police death
Police on Friday arrested an Australian woman and a British man in connection with the killing of a police officer in Bali. Sarah Connor and David Taylor were arrested as they were seeking protection at the Australian Consulate in Denpasar, Bali’s capital, two days after the killing of traffic police officer Wayan Sudarsa. Bali Police Chief Major General Sugeng Priyanto said statements from nine witnesses led to the arrests. Sudarsa’s bloodied body was found early on Wednesday on the beach outside the Pullman Hotel in Kuta, while Connor’s handbag was discovered nearby. Priyanto said he interrogated Connor and she said that she had been at that location with Taylor, but had been drunk and could not remember what happened. She also said her handbag was missing, Priyanto said. Ngurah Rai Immigration Office chief Yoseph Renung Widodo said both Connor and Taylor have been banned from leaving Bali on police request.
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