CHINA
Bus crash kills 10 people
A collision between a bus and a cement truck in the nation’s southwest has killed 10 people and injured another 38, local authorities said yesterday. The bus carrying 47 people collided with a cement truck late on Thursday night near a tunnel in Lincang City in Yunnan Province, according to a statement from the city government’s press office. The truck carrying two people left the road and the bus ended up on the roadside. Nine people died at the scene and one person died after receiving medical treatment, the statement said.
SOUTH AFRICA
Hospital roof collapses
Part of a hospital roof collapsed in Johannesburg on Thursday, injuring five people and forcing some patients wrapped in gowns and blankets to temporarily leave the building. As night fell, rescue workers were assessing whether anyone was trapped in the rubble at the Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital. Construction workers were fixing part of the roof when it collapsed, Gauteng Health Minister Gwen Ramokgopa said. The injured were two patients, two construction workers and one hospital staffer, she added.
ZIMBABWE
Floods prompt call for help
The government has appealed for international help for victims of floods that have left 246 people dead and displaced hundreds since December last year, when torrential rains started pounding the country following severe drought. An El Nino-induced drought last year scorched crops in the southern African country, leaving more than 4 million in need of food aid, but Zimbabweans are now having to contend with floods after receiving above-normal rain. Zimbabwean Minister of Local Government Saviour Kasukuwere said floods had swept through villages in the southern and southwestern parts of the country, destroying roads, crops and livestock.
AUSTRALIA
Course to teach cybersecurity
The government yesterday said it will offer the world’s first university course to train intelligence analysts to fight cybercrime, prompted by innovative methods of transferring money among organized crime and militant groups. The measure expands on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s attempts to ratchet up policing of money transfers amid concerns that organized crime and militant groups are using technology such as the “dark Web” and cryptocurrencies to make their payments hard to trace. In the past year, Turnbull has expanded the role of the money-tracking agency Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Center and agreed to share financial crime intelligence with China.
‘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
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in