NEW CALEDONIA
Fifth person confirmed dead
A fifth person was yesterday confirmed dead after torrential rain triggered landslides in the French overseas territory, while three others were still missing, officials said. Rain has been battering the remote islands in the South Pacific since the weekend, sparking two mudslides in the Houailou area, about 235km northwest of the capital, Noumea, early on Tuesday. A man’s body was recovered yesterday in mountainous Gouareu, one of two remote communities hardest hit by the disaster, where an eight-year-old girl and 60-year-old woman were confirmed dead on Tuesday. A seven-year-old child and a woman in her 30s were also found dead in a nearby area. Rescuers, including an army medical team and 30 troops, were deployed to search for those still missing. About 400mm of rain fell in the mountainous region in 12 hours before the landslides struck. The island’s road network has been severely damaged, but electricity supplies initially cut off had been restored to around half of Houailou, local officials said. “We’ve never seen anything like it. It’s the worst natural disaster to hit New Caledonia,” Houailou Mayor Pascal Sawa said. “A huge amount of rock fell down the mountain.” He blamed old nickel mines and forest fires for loosening up the ground and contributing to the disaster.
NETHERLANDS
King in gay rights visit
King Willem-Alexander on Tuesday visited the nation’s main gay rights association to mark its 70th anniversary, in what was said to be the first such visit by a head of state. The king met in Amsterdam with representatives from COC Netherlands, which has been advocating for gay rights since 1946. It was an “immense honor for all LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] people in the Netherlands and I think the world,” COC Netherlands president Tanja Ineke said. “When you’re 13 and think you might be a lesbian and wondering whether to come out of the closet or not, and you see that the king is visiting the COC and supports you, then it’s a huge boost.” The nation was the first in the world to legalize same-sex marriage.
AUSTRIA
Robber turns up too early
One robbery failed before it began. The bank was closed. Police have arrested a man who they say tried to rob a bank in Vienna — but arrived too early. Police spokesman Patrick Maierhofer said the 45-year-old suspect entered the bank foyer on Tuesday armed with a gas pistol and with a hood drawn over his head, but 15 minutes before opening time. He said that passersby alerted police after the man hid his weapon under newspapers and paced nervously as he waited for the main doors to open. The man was not identified in line with the nation’s privacy laws. Police said his planned getaway vehicle was a stolen scooter.
UNITED KINGDOM
Dodo fetches US$416,300
Summers Place Auctions has sold a composite dodo skeleton to a private collector for £336,100 (US$416,300), including the buyer’s premium. The unique specimen of a creature once found on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean was created by a dodo enthusiast who collected the bird’s bones for 40 years until he realized he had enough to create an almost complete skeleton. Hunted into extinction, the Dodo has come to epitomize the cruel impact that humans can have on an ecosystem. The bird’s name recognition was enhanced by Lewis Carroll, who included a dodo in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
CANADA
Massacre planner sentenced
A man was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Tuesday for plotting to massacre shoppers at a mall in the port city of Halifax, home to the nation’s Atlantic fleet. Randall Shepherd, 21, described by the defense as a disenfranchised youth, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder. “I’m deeply sorry this has happened,” he reportedly told the Nova Scotia court. A court spokesperson told reporters that the prosecution and defense jointly recommended to the judge a 10-year sentence. Meanwhile, alleged co-conspirator Lindsay Souvannarath, 24, an American, still faces prosecution in the plot. Her case is scheduled to go to trial in May. The Crown said the pair along with a third man, James Gamble, 19, who was found dead in his home on the eve of the would-be attack, planned to shoot shoppers and throw Molotov cocktails at storefronts at the Halifax Shopping Centre on Valentine’s Day last year.
GUATEMALA
Dengue vaccine to be sold
The world’s first vaccine against dengue, a mosquito-borne virus that causes fever and pain and can be fatal, is to go on sale in the nation within weeks, the French company making it said on Tuesday. Regional executives of the firm, Sanofi Pasteur, presented the Dengvaxia vaccine in a news conference in the capital and said it was indicated for people aged nine to 45 in endemic zones. The three-dose vaccine, which took 20 years to develop, became commercially available late last year after it was proved to be effective against the four types of dengue. Thus far, it is approved for sale in the Philippines, Brazil, Mexico and El Salvador.
GERMANY
Grandpa Trump homesick
Archivists have found a letter written by US president-elect Donald Trump’s grandfather, asking to be allowed to return to his homeland after his wife failed to settle in to life in the US. The letter, signed by Friedrich Trump, who left Bavaria at the age of 16 in 1885, was unearthed at the state archives in the western region of Rhineland-Palatinate. After the turn of the century, Friedrich Trump returned from the US, where he met and married his wife, Elisabeth, with whom he returned to New York. “She lasted for around two years before making it known that she wanted to return to Germany,” Franz Maier of the Rhineland-Palatinate state archives in Speyer said. However, Friedrich had failed to deregister properly before he left Germany and was not therefore allowed to be renaturalized in Bavaria, which was then its own kingdom. An accompanying document in the archived dossier read: “The settlement in Bavaria cannot be permitted.”
COLOMBIA
FARC to sign peace accord
The government and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas will sign a new peace accord today, after a previous agreement to end their half-century-old war was defeated in a referendum, the two sides said. The new accord will be submitted to Congress for approval, rather than put to another referendum, they added. Last month voters taking part in that referendum surprisingly snubbed the first accord. Critics said it went too easy on the rebels, who have been waging what is now Latin America’s last major insurgency. “The government and FARC delegations have agreed to sign the final agreement to end the conflict and build a stable and lasting peace,” negotiators from both sides said in a statement on Tuesday.
‘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