UNITED STATES
White House security raised
The Secret Service late on Saturday bolstered security at the White House after a man was arrested after making threats at one its checkpoints, an official said. CNN reported that the man made a threat claiming he had a bomb in his car, and that he was immediately arrested and the car in which he was in was seized. President Donald Trump was in Florida at the time. Just hours earlier, a person was arrested after jumping over a bike rack in an apparent bid to reach the fence outside the White House, the Secret Service said. The individual was detained immediately and criminal charges are pending, the agency said in a statement, without identifying the suspect.
GERMANY
Cyberalert level boosted
The government has raised its alert level against cyberattacks to “heightened readiness” ahead of parliamentary elections, saying government Web sites are already subjected to daily assault, newspaper Welt am Sonntag said yesterday. “We are noticing attacks against government networks on a daily basis,” Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) president Arne Schoenbohm told the paper. BSI is in close contact with election officials, political parties and the nation’s states to discuss how to guard against cyberattacks, Schoenbohm said.
INDIA
Rioting workers sentenced
A court on Saturday sentenced 13 factory workers to life imprisonment for taking part in violence at the nation’s largest automobile factory that led to the death of a manager nearly five years ago. Four other were sentenced to five years in prison for the rioting that broke out at the Maruti Suzuki plant in Manesar, Haryana state, in July 2012 following a dispute between workers and management. A day after the violence erupted, the body of human resources manager Awanish Kumar Dev was found badly charred. The court also fined 14 other workers accused of rioting and vandalism at the factory.
CHINA
Last Beijing coal plant shut
The last large coal-fired power plant in Beijing has suspended operations, with the city’s electricity now generated by natural gas, Xinhua news agency reported late on Saturday night. as smog enveloped the city over the weekend. The Huangneng Beijing Thermal Power Plant was the fourth plant to be closed and replaced by a gas thermal power center. Smog has cloaked Beijing for several days and is expected to continue through the week, with harmful particulates four to five times above the WHO’s recommended maximum average daily exposure.
AUSTRALIA
Teen punches croc, escapes
A teenager is lucky to be alive, the Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) said yesterday, after he reportedly escaped the jaws of a crocodile by punching it in the head during a late-night swim. The 18-year-old, named in local media as Lee de Paauw, suffered extensive injuries to his left arm after he was attacked in Johnstone River on the northeastern coast early yesterday morning, the QAS said. He had jumped into the river as a dare while “reveling with frien,” QAS Cairns senior operations supervisor Neil Noble told reporters. “He’s very fortunate that he survived this incident and was able to be rescued... [he’s] due to undergo surgery for extensive injuries to his arm.” De Paauw’s friends’ efforts to get him out of the water quickly helped him survive, Noble added.
‘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