FRANCE
Chinese protest continues
About 6,000 people on Sunday took part in angry protests in Paris against the death of a Chinese man shot and killed when police responded to a call at his apartment last month, police said. The rally was organized by several Chinese associations and as with previous rallies held over the past week, there were sporadic skirmishes between protesters and security forces. Some of the demonstrators threw bottles, eggs and fruit, prompting the police to respond with tear gas during clashes that lasted more than an hour. On March 26, Liu Shaoyo (劉少堯), a 56-year-old father of five, was shot by a police team called to his apartment in northeast Paris over a suspected domestic dispute.
FRENCH GUIANA
Workers demand US$2.7bn
Labor leaders behind massive strikes have rejected a US$1 billion aid package offered by the French government, demanding instead more than US$2.5 billion right away. The South American territory, which is administered as a region of France, has been in the grip of industrial unrest for the past 10 days, with representatives of the Guianese calling for the area to be given “special status.” “We demand 2.5 billion euros [US$2.7 billion] immediately,” said Olivier Goudet, a spokesman for the grouping of unions, who had earlier met with French Minister of Overseas Ericka Bareigts.
ARMENIA
Ruling party wins election
Early results in Sunday’s parliamentary election shows the country’s ruling party has won just under half of the vote. The election was the first since the ex-Soviet nation amended its constitution to expand the powers of parliament and the prime minister. The Central Election Commission yesterday said that 94 percent of the ballots counted showed Republican Party of Armenia President Serzh Sargsyan winning 49 percent of the vote. The bloc led by businessman Gagik Tsarukian trailed with 28 percent. Two more parties also looked set to clear the 5 percent barrier necessary to get seats in parliament.
UNITED STATES
Teen arrested over rape
Police in Chicago have arrested a 14-year-old boy and are seeking a 15-year-old in connection with the gang rape of a teenage girl that was broadcast on Facebook Live last month, authorities said on Sunday. Police were working to identify other suspects — the Facebook video, since taken down, showed as many as six — but the trauma suffered by the 15-year-old victim was complicating the investigation, area commander Brendan Deenihan told a news conference. “She’s just having a difficult time even communicating what occurred to her,” Deenihan said, adding that the teen had been cyberbullied by people belittling her ordeal and that her family had received threats. More arrests were expected soon, he said. The 14-year-old suspect faces at least three juvenile felony charges, including aggravated criminal sexual assault, police said.
SOMALIA
Indian ship hijacked
An Indian commercial ship off the coast of the country has been hijacked and the vessel is heading toward the shore, a former government anti-piracy official said yesterday. “We understand Somalian pirates hijacked a commercial Indian ship and [it is heading] toward Somalia shores,” said Abdirizak Mohamed Dirir, a former director of the anti-piracy agency in the Puntland region.
MYANMAR
Karaoke fire kills 15
At least 15 people have died after a fire ripped through a karaoke bar on Sunday night, trapping revelers inside smoke-filled rooms. Eleven men and four women died when the blaze consumed the top floor of the Shwe Myat Min Thamee KTV bar in the town of Magway, northwest of the capital, Naypyidaw. Magway region fire department Director Aung Win Sein yesterday said the electrical system had apparently overheated and set fire to the sound-proof lining inside the singing rooms. Police have opened two cases against the bar owner for negligence.
MYANMAR
NLD wins many by-elections
The National League for Democracy (NLD) won nearly half of the seats contested in by-elections on Sunday, in the first vote since it swept to power a year ago and an early indication of support for State Councilor Aung Sang Syu Kyi’s administration. The party won nine out of 19 seats in the national and regional parliaments, the Union Election Commission said. The outcome of the by-elections will not affect the balance of power within the parliament.
Cambodia
Adoptions to go ahead
The government is set to allow foreign couples to return home with babies conceived to surrogates before the “womb for rent” business was banned last year, a Ministry of Interior official said yesterday. Secretary of State Chou Bun Eng said Prime Minister Hun Sen has approved an “exit strategy” allowing babies who were born to — or being carried by — surrogates before the ban to leave. Foreign couples had to show a DNA match to claim their babies, while the surrogate’s husband had to testify that the baby did not belong to him, she said.
JAPAN
Envoy returning to S Korea
Tokyo is sending its ambassador back to South Korea almost three months after recalling him over a statue commemorating Korean women forced to work in military brothels during World War II. The two nations in 2015 agreed that the issue of “comfort women” would be “finally and irreversibly resolved” if all conditions of the accord were met. Tokyo had said that the statue depicting a young woman sitting barefoot in a chair, which was erected at the end of last year near its consulate in Busan, violated that agreement. Minister of Foreign Affairs Fumio Kishida told reporters that Ambassador Yasumasa Nagamine is to return to Seoul today.
AUSTRALIA
Shark attacks kayak
A police boat rescued a man after a shark bit the back off his kayak and left him sinking off the in Moreton Bay off Brisbane. The man, 39, made an emergency phone call from his damaged watercraft after the attack on Sunday, a police statement said. Brisbane water police were able to track his location with the help of planes coming in to land at nearby Brisbane Airport, it said. Police retrieved the man on Sunday afternoon, as well as his formerly 6.5m kayak that was missing its stern. The man was uninjured, the statement said.
HONG KONG
Warhol’s Mao painting sold
An Andy Warhol portrait of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東) on Sunday sold for US$12.6 million at a Sotheby’s auction in Hong Kong, less than the US$15 million it was expected to fetch. A private Asian collector bought the painting. Warhol began his series of Mao portraits in 1972 when ties between China and the US began to thaw after then-US president Richard Nixon’s trip to Beijing.
THAILAND
Police attacked in south
Insurgents yesterday fired hundreds of shots into a police booth in Muslim-majority Yala Province, wounding 12 officers. Closed-circuit TV footage showed what appeared to be about 30 insurgents surround a police booth and firing more than 500 shots inside the building, said Police Major General Kritsada Kaewchandee, head of the provincial police. “This was the biggest attack in the deep south in many years,” he said.
INDIA
German woman raped
A German tourist has accused two men of taking her captive and raping her in Tamil Nadu state, police said yesterday. The woman told police two men dragged her to a secluded spot from a private beach resort in the town of Mamallapuram and raped her. “We have registered a sexual assault complaint and a manhunt has been launched to track the attackers,” district police chief Santosh said. “We are questioning suspects, but no arrests have been made yet.” He said medical tests had confirmed sexual assault and the German embassy had been informed. The German woman’s complaint comes three weeks after a 28-year-old Irish woman was raped and murdered in Goa.
JAPAN
Detainee died of stroke
A Vietnamese man who died in solitary confinement at an immigration detention center last month died from a stroke, a Ministry of Justice official said yesterday. An autopsy on Wednesday found that Nguyen The Hung died of a subarachnoid hemorrhage, the official said, requesting anonymity. Fellow detainees said the man had repeatedly told guards he was suffering from pain in his head and neck after his arrival. He was prescribed painkillers by a doctor at the center, only for guards to ignore his later complaints of pain as he was held in a solitary cell and tell him to be quiet, the detainees said in a letter.
UNITED KINGDOM
Johnson firm on Gibraltar
The status of Gibraltar can only be changed by the territory’s people and by UK citizens, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said yesterday as the enclave became an issue in Brexit negotiations. Gibraltar’s sovereignty “is not going to change and cannot conceivably change without the express support and consent of the people of Gibraltar and the United Kingdom,” he said in Luxembourg where EU foreign ministers are meeting. Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis told Sunday’s El Pais newspaper that Madrid insists it should get a veto over any agreements regarding the strategic enclave on Spain’s southern tip. Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders has called for calm, saying that the Brexit divorce is already difficult enough without bringing in the centuries-old debate on the territory. “Let’s be cool and carry on, and not use too harsh language, I would say. Let’s just negotiate. I think that’s the most important,” he said.
NEPAL
Leopard closes airport
Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu was closed yesterday for about an hour after a leopard was spotted close to the runway. A spokesman for the airport said wildlife and security officers were searching for the animal, believed to be hiding in the drains, after it was spotted by a pilot. One international flight was delayed, but no other flight was scheduled during the closure. Leopards are occasionally known to stray into the city from the nearby hills.
‘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