SYRIA
Journalist wins award
Media activist Hadi Abdallah yesterday was awarded the Reporters Without Borders’ Freedom Prize for covering his country’s war from its shattered, opposition-held areas. Chinese news Web site 64Tianwang (六四天網) and citizen journalists Lu Yuyhu (盧昱宇) and Li Tingyu (李婷玉) were also honored. Abdallah, who publishes on social media networks such as Facebook and Telegram, is known for his harrowing, on-the-spot reporting about government airstrikes and artillery attacks.” This prize honors the Syrian journalists who have offered their lives in order to convey the truth to the people,” Abdallah told The Associated Press. He did not attend yesterday’s award ceremony in Strasbourg, France. He says the government has flagged his passport with Interpol, making it impossible for him to travel internationally.
PAKISTAN
‘Afghan Girl’ deported
A government official says National Geographic’s famed green-eyed “Afghan Girl” has been deported to Afghanistan. Fayaz Khan says Sharbat Gulla and her four children were handed over to Afghan authorities early yesterday at the Torkham border crossing, about 60km northwest of Peshawar. Gulla was arrested late last month on charges of carrying fake identity papers and being in the country illegally. She gained international fame in 1984 as a refugee after war photographer Steve McCurry’s photograph of her was published on the magazine’s cover.
UNITED STATES
Age hurts bonobos’ sight
Older wild bonobo apes might be able to benefit from magnifying eyewear, new research shows. Bonobos — among the closest primate relatives to humans — begin showing symptoms of far-sightedness when they reach 40 years old, according to research recently published in the journal Current Biology. “We were surprised that the pattern found in bonobos is strikingly similar to the pattern in modern humans,” Heungjin Ryu of Kyoto University’s Primate Research Institute said. Just like elderly people holding newspapers at arm’s length, aging bonobos stand back to better spot insects and twigs on their friends.
ITALY
Mom’s names count too
The Constitutional Court on Tuesday ruled that regulations automatically giving children of married couples only their father’s surname are unlawful. The judgement was welcomed by campaigners as a milestone in a long legal and political battle to overturn regulations and practice they say are based on outdated patriarchal ideas. The court made its judgement in a case in which an Italian-Brazilian couple wanted to give their son both their surnames, as is traditional in Spain and much of South America. The couple’s lawyers had argued that not allowing the son to have his mother’s surname, as well as his father’s, violated the principle of equality between the sexes.
UNITED KINGDOM
Harry upset by press
Prince Harry on Tuesday lashed out at the media for intruding on the privacy of his new girlfriend, US actress Meghan Markle. The 32-year-old royal said the media had crossed a line with articles that had “racial undertones,” and pleaded: “This is not a game.” Kensington Palace described how journalists tried to break into Markle’s Toronto home, offered “substantial bribes” to her ex-boyfriend, and said nearly everyone she knows has been bombarded for information.
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
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