VIETNAM
Drug addicts escape
Authorities were yesterday searching for 230 drug addicts still at large after a mass escape from a rehabilitation center in the nation’s south. Dong Nai Province Department of Labor Deputy Director Ho Van Loc said the breakout on Sunday night was started by two inmates, and eventually 562 inmates, including 58 women, escaped. Security guards who were overpowered by the inmates opened the main gate of the compound to let them out, Loc said. Police have recaptured 332 of the inmates and were searching for the others, he said. The center holds 1,481 inmates. Officials have said that rehabilitation programs — which combine education, communist ideology and physical labor for one to two years — have a high failure rate, with more than 90 percent of addicts relapsing within five years. There are an estimated 200,000 drug addicts in the country, many of them heroin users.
UNITED STATES
Escaped emu walks into bar
An escaped emu sent deputies on a wild goose chase after it walked up to a bar in central Florida. The long-legged bird on Friday last week hopped its 1.2m fence in Cape Canaveral and sauntered up to a local Irish pub. The emu’s owner, Paul Eaton, said the bird was spooked by a stray dog. It took Brevard County Sheriff’s deputies and an animal control officer more than an hour to capture the eight-year-old bird. A spokesman for the sheriff’s office said that it was like trying to catch a giant chicken. Emus are the second-largest living bird by height. They are fast sprinters and, when agitated, can jump and kick with considerable force. Florida Today reported that the emu, named Taco, also jumped the fence in October 2012 and ran amok on State Road A1A.
CHINA
CCP conclave begins
A key conclave of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) elite began yesterday in Beijing, Xinhua news agency reported, as President Xi Jinping (習近平) seeks to tighten his control over the organization. Nearly 400 top members of the world’s most powerful political party have gathered at the exclusive Jingxi Hotel to discuss changes to party structure and management over four days. They are to focus on reforming the “norms for political life” and the party’s internal rules for supervising cadres, Xinhua said.
UNITED STATES
Tom Hayden dies at 76
Tom Hayden, a famed 1960s anti-war activist who moved beyond his notoriety as a Chicago Eight defendant to become a California legislator, author and lecturer, has died. He was 76. His wife, Barbara Williams, said Hayden died on Sunday in Santa Monica, California, of a long illness. Hayden made headlines in the 1960s with his radical activism, his marriage to actress Jane Fonda and his trips to North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. However, he changed paths, winning election to the California State Assembly and State Senate, where he served for nearly two decades. He was the only member of the radical Chicago Eight to achieve such distinction in the mainstream political world. Hayden remained an enduring voice for progressive causes, including education and the environment. He wrote many books, among them a memoir and a retrospective look at the Chicago Eight.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in 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
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