UNITED STATES
Activists disrupt crude flow
Climate-change activists on Tuesday disrupted the flow of millions of barrels of crude oil from Canada in a rare, coordinated action that targeted several key pipelines simultaneously. Activists in Washington, Montana, Minnesota and North Dakota were arrested after they cut padlocks and chains and entered remote flow stations to turn off valves in an attempt to stop crude moving through lines that carry as much as 15 percent of the nation’s daily oil consumption. Protest group Climate Direct Action said the move was in support of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, which has protested the construction of a separate US$3.7 billion pipeline carrying oil from North Dakota to the Gulf Coast over fears of potential damage to sacred land and water supplies.
GERMANY
Nuclear decommission eyed
The government has reached an agreement in principle with utilities on a nuclear decommissioning pact that is probably to go into effect in February next year, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. Reactor owners would have to stump up an initial payment of 23.3 billion euros (US$25.8 billion) that was proposed by a government commission in April, as well as interest, to free them from their nuclear waste storage liabilities, the person said. Pressure has risen to determine how much the utility industry must pay when the last of Germany’s eight reactors closes in 2022 amid concerns that investors will punish RWE AG and EON SE if a line is not drawn under their nuclear liabilities.
BRAZIL
Rio security chief resigns
The security chief for the state of Rio de Janeiro, Jose Mariano Beltrame — the architect of a controversial “pacification” plan for impoverished neighborhoods — resigned on Tuesday amid a spike in violent crime. In the post since 2007, Beltrame is best-known for creating so-called Police Pacification Units to crack down on drug gangs in the slums that dot the city of Rio de Janeiro. His resignation came a day after gunbattles between police and drug traffickers killed at least three people and wounded five in two slums overlooking the chic beach neighborhoods of Copacabana and Ipanema.
UNITED STATES
Alaskans protect walrus
A remote Alaskan village is working with the Fish and Wildlife Service to reach out to potential visitors — and telling them to stay away. The Inupiat village of Point Lay on Alaska’s northwestern coast in recent years has seen walrus come to shore by the thousands. The marine mammals take refuge on shore when sea ice recedes beyond the continental shelf over water that is too deep for walrus to dive for clams. Disturbances by boats or airplanes can cause walrus stampedes that kill young, vulnerable animals.
SOUTH AFRICA
Bloodied priest turns meme
Images of a priest, bloodied by a rubber bullet as he stood in front of his church during a student protest on Monday, have spread quickly on social media, far beyond his the nation’s borders. “I had presumed they would recognize that it was a bad mistake to shoot a robed clergyman at the church gates,” the Reverend Graham Pugin said on Tuesday, a day after he was struck in the face. The episode came after a peaceful student protest at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg turned violent.
SOUTH KOREA
N Korean minister purged
North Korea has purged its vice foreign minister as punishment for the recent defection of the nuclear-armed country’s deputy ambassador to Britain, local media reported yesterday. The mass-circulation JoongAng Ilbo, quoting an anonymous source familiar with the North’s affairs, said that Kung Sok-ung had been removed from his post and expelled from Pyongyang to a rural farming area with his family. It said the purge was ordered by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un following the defection of the North’s deputy ambassador to Britain, Thae Yong-ho, and his family to Seoul two months ago. The report said four other high-ranking diplomats in charge of European affairs were also expelled from Pyongyang.
CHINA
Duterte to visit next week
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte will make a state visit to Beijing from Tuesday to Friday next week. The visit will include talks with President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) touching on ways to improve bilateral relations and deepen cooperation, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman said at a regular news briefing. About 250 Philippine business executives will accompany Duterte’s delegation, officials said. Meanwhile, in Manila, Duterte told Philippine coast guard personnel that the nation would not abrogate its existing treaties and would maintain all its military alliances.
PHILIPPINES
Fireworks blaze kills two
A blaze that ripped through a group of fireworks shops in the town of Bocaue yesterday killed two people and injured 24, officials said. The fire set off a series of explosions at a strip of shops that overturned a truck and badly damaged three other vehicles on a major road in town, which is about 30km north of Manila. “I was hurled to the back of the shop by the force of the explosion,” Mel Berbosa de Castro, 50, said from her shop across the street. Driver Ricky Salvador, 47, said he helped take a victim with a bloodied face to hospital. The area “was like a war zone. I saw shards of glass, nails flying up in the air. Firecrackers were flying all over,” he said.
AUSTRALIA
Shark nets sought after bite
New South Wales yesterday proposed installing protective nets off a coastal town after a second suspected shark attack in two weeks. A 25-year-old man was surfing yesterday with friends off Ballina, 600km north of Sydney, when something bumped his board and tipped him into the water, a state police statement said. Police said the man was bitten by something which inflicted a small wound to his lower right leg. He was treated in hospital and beaches around Ballina were closed for 24 hours as a precaution against shark attack. New South Wales Premier Mike Baird told the state parliament in Sydney that he would ask the federal government for environmental permission to install shark nets along the state’s northern beaches for a six-month trial.
AUSTRALIA
Guilty plea in murder
A man pleaded guilty in Brisbane yesterday to raping and murdering a young French business student whose naked body was found dumped in a park in March 2014. The body of Sophie Collombet, 21, was discovered near her apartment. Police said she had been beaten to death. Benjamin Milward, then aged 25, was arrested shortly afterwards. He is to be sentenced later this month.
‘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