SOUTH KOREA
N Korean soldier defects
A North Korean soldier defected yesterday morning, sneaking across the countries’ land border, which is heavily fortified with armed sentries, minefields and barbed wire. The Joint Chiefs of Staff said military officials were investigating the soldier, who defected across the central-east portion of the military demarcation line, which is inside the 4km-wide Demilitarized Zone that separates the countries. The military provided no other details. The soldier is the second North Korean trooper to defect by crossing the Demilitarized Zone after another did so in June, the first in three years. He later told officials that he had fled because of widespread beatings and other abuse in the military.
FRANCE
Iranian activist jailed: RSF
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) late on Wednesday condemned a decision by an Iranian appeals court to uphold a 10-year jail sentence against journalist and human rights activist Narges Mohammadi. One of Iran’s best-known journalists, Mohammadi was the spokesperson of the Centre for Human Rights Defenders and campaigned for an end to the death penalty in Iran. Initially arrested in May last year, the mother-of-two was sentenced to a total of 16 years in April, an RSF statement said. RSF said her lawyers received the news as her colleague, 2003 Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi who founded the Centre for Human Rights Defenders, was meeting with Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo and RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire in Paris. “I condemn this sentence imposed by the Iranian judicial system as Narges’ only crime is to be a human rights defender in a country that flouts these rights,” Ebadi told RSF.
AUSTRALIA
Alleged smuggler indicted
An Iranian citizen extradited from Indonesia was yesterday charged in Sydney Central Local Court with attempting to smuggle 73 asylum seekers by boat into the nation. Mohammad Naghi Karimi Azar, 56, on Wednesday became the eighth suspected people smuggler to be extradited from Indonesia since 2008, a government statement said. Azar was charged with 43 counts of people smuggling, an offense that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. He appeared by video from a Sydney police station and did not apply for bail. One of his lawyers told the court that Azar needed time to read the 100-page prosecution case against him. His next court appearance is scheduled for Wednesday next week. Outside the court, another lawyer for Azar told reporters that his client intended to plead not guilty. The attorney said Azar told him he was a refugee registered with the UN and had fled Iran in fear of persecution because he was a member of an ethnic minority.
FRANCE
Printing plant reopens
A printing plant north of Paris reopened for the first time since it was damaged during a deadly standoff between police and two brothers who gunned down cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo newspaper. President Francois Hollande presided over yesterday’s reopening in a sign of the national significance of the drama that unfolded there in January last year. Cherif and Said Kouachi led police on a two-day manhunt after attacking Charlie Hebdo, then hid out in a printing plant in the town of Dammartin-en-Goele. Police surrounded the building and the brothers were killed in a shootout. The attacks that week on Charlie Hebdo, police and a kosher market killed 17 people.
‘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
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