GREECE
Grenade attack claimed
A far-left group on Monday claimed responsibility for last week’s grenade attack on the French embassy in Athens, which slightly wounded a police officer on duty. Police were trying to verify a claim by the Organization of Revolutionary Autodefense, published on the alternative Web site Indymedia, for Thursday’s attack. The grenade left a tennis ball-sized hole in the pavement and shrapnel marks on the embassy gate and guard box. Reports said the policeman, who sustained leg injuries, had barely enough time to take shelter in the bullet-proof box as the grenade exploded. The same group had claimed responsibility for firing shots at the Mexican embassy in Athens in July 2014. The lengthy claim said France was targeted for several reasons — the death of environmentalist Remi Fraisse, who was killed by a bullet fired by a French policeman in October 2014 during a protest, the clearing of the “Jungle” camp in Calais housing thousands of refugees trying to cross into Britain, and the life sentence being served by Lebanese national Georges Ibrahim Abdallah in France for terrorist acts.
ITALY
Refugee drownings rise
Another five people have been added to the tally of more than 4,200 refugees who have died trying to cross the Mediterranean this year, the coast guard said yesterday. The coast guard, which coordinates search and rescue operations in the waters between Libya and the nation’s southern coast, said a total of 550 people had been saved during five separate operations on Monday. The rescues all involved efforts to get people off overcrowded rubber dinghies in waters off Libya. Five corpses were recovered, the coast guard said.
ITALY
Sculpture incident probed
Police in Rome were examining CCTV footage in a bid to identify vandals who damaged one of the city’s most famous pieces of public sculpture, Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Elephant and Obelisk. The landmark work, tucked away in a little square near the Pantheon, features an elephant carrying the obelisk on its back and was first placed in the Piazza della Minerva in the 17th century. Bernini oversaw the sculpture of the elephant, which had the tip of its left trunk broken off in the overnight incident. The elephant was commissioned by then-pope Alexander VII to support an obelisk from ancient Egypt that had only recently been excavated.
UNITED STATES
Franklin grave funds sought
A fundraising campaign has been launched to save the damaged gravestone of Benjamin Franklin at the Christ Church Burial Ground in Philadelphia. The Christ Church Preservation Trust told the Philadelphia Inquirer that the marble ledger tablet marking Franklin’s final resting place had recently developed a significant crack. The ritual of tossing pennies onto Franklin’s grave has been blamed for causing the crack. Tens of thousands of coins are thrown onto the marker each year in tribute of Franklin’s famous adage, “a penny saved, is a penny earned.” Franklin, who died in 1790, was one of seven signers of the Declaration of Independence buried at the graveyard across from Independence Mall. The trust has received grants to restore the site, but is seeking another US$10,000 for the project.
‘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