HAITI
Electoral campaign begins
The country on Thursday launched its ill-fated presidential campaign for the fifth time in a year, but people in the hurricane-destroyed southwestern town of Jeremie have more pressing concerns, such as staying alive and finding a home. “We don’t have anywhere to live, cholera is killing people,” said Joselyne Saint Preux, who, along with dozens of others, has stayed in a school being used as a shelter since Hurricane Matthew flattened much of the port town a month ago. “We’d like the elections to take place, but we need the government to make decisions about us,” said 29-year-old Saint Preux, who had made a living as a street vendor before the disaster struck.
UNITED STATES
Woman found chained
A woman missing since August was on Thursday found chained up “like a dog” in a padlocked metal container in rural South Carolina, officials said. Kala Brown, 30, was discovered inside a shipping container after police heard a banging sound when they arrived at a property in the town of Woodruff with a search warrant. Todd Kohlhepp, a registered sex offender who owned the property, was arrested, CNN and WYFF reported. “It was pretty emotional, to say the least, when she was found. Especially, you know, when she was chained like a dog,” Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright told WYFF, a local affiliate of NBC. “She had a chain around her neck. It’s only by God’s grace we found that little girl alive,” Wright added.
ITALY
Shipwrecks kill hundreds
Survivors say as many as 240 people have died in two shipwrecks off Libya, the UN refugee agency,
UNHCR, reported on Thursday, bringing this year’s toll to more than 4,220 refugees dead or missing in risky Mediterranean Sea crossings, the highest count on record. UNHCR spokeswoman in Italy Carlotta Sami said 31 survivors of two shipwrecks who arrived on the southern island of Lampedusa reported that the rubber dinghies they were traveling in had capsized on Wednesday in heavy seas shortly after leaving Libya. The first dinghy — which carried about 140 people, including six children and about 20 women, some pregnant — sank when wooden planks laid at the bottom broke, causing the dinghy to capsize 40km off the Libyan coast, the UNHCR said. Twenty-nine people were rescued and 12 bodies were recovered. In a separate operation, two women found swimming at sea told rescuers that 128 other people had died in their wreck.
UNITED STATES
Man ambushes policemen
An Iowa man who had several run-ins with police and was banned from his daughter’s high school after waving a Confederate flag was on Thursday charged with murder for the ambush-style slaying of two police officers. Scott Michael Greene, 46, was arrested after turning himself in to authorities hours after the separate shootings early on Wednesday in Des Moines and the city’s suburb of Urbandale. Police have not commented on a motive for the ambush-style assaults. Greene was taken to jail in the handcuffs of the officers he is accused of ambushing — Urbandale officer Justin Martin, 24, and Des Moines Police Department Sergeant Anthony Bemino, 38, the Des Moines Register reported. If convicted, Greene faces an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole.
INDONESIA
Boat death toll rises
The death toll in the sinking of an overcrowded boat carrying Indonesian migrant workers yesterday climbed to 51 after rescuers found more bodies. Police and rescue agency officials said that by late yesterday morning a further 33 bodies had been recovered from the sea off Batam island. There were 101 people on the boat carrying migrant workers and their families that capsized in stormy weather early on Wednesday morning. Thirty-nine of the passengers were rescued. Two of the boat’s three crew members also survived and were later arrested. Nine people are still missing. “This search is not easy,” said Abdul Hamid, head of the local search and rescue agency. “Strong winds and currents were hampering our efforts and the sea was murky, making it difficult for rescuers to look below the surface,” he said. The boat was carrying Indonesian workers home from Malaysia.
KENYA
Camp deadline approaches
Another major aid group is warning the country not to close the world’s largest refugee camp, saying it is pressuring tens of thousands of Somalian refugees to return to a deeply unstable country. A new Refugees International report says Somalian refugees in the Dadaab camp report feeling pressured to leave for Somalia, where attacks by extremist group al-Shabab continue and hunger is widespread. The report says a Nov. 30 deadline to close the camp should be lifted. The camp has existed for 25 years and holds more than 250,000 people. Groups including Medecins Sans Frontieres, Human Rights Watch and the Norwegian Refugee Council have also expressed alarm in recent weeks over Nairobi’s reported pressure on Somalian refugees to leave. They say Somalia remains insecure and aid is limited.
UNITED STATES
Arrest made over NY murder
Federal officials have arrested a man in connection with the fatal ambush of the owner of a famed New York City pizza restaurant. Andres Fernandez appeared in federal court in Brooklyn on Thursday to face murder, robbery and weapons charges. He did not enter a plea. A message left with his lawyer was not immediately returned. Court documents say investigators believe surveillance video, cellphone data and witness accounts tie Fernandez to the killing. L&B Spumoni Gardens pizzeria owner Louis Barbati was gunned down in the backyard of his Brooklyn home in June after arriving from work carrying a large amount of cash. The shooter fled on foot empty-handed in what appeared to be a botched robbery. The restaurant has been run by Barbati’s family for generations and has been featured on several television food shows.
‘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