COLOMBIA
Search for survivors ends
Officials on Friday formally abandoned the search for survivors of floods that killed at least 314 people in the small southern city of Mocoa, although 106 people remain listed as missing. Emergency workers are to turn to excavating roads and buildings, distributing aid and trying to avoid the outbreak of epidemics in the town, where water and power services remained cut a week after the avalanche of debris-filled water poured down from the mountains. “Without adverse conditions, a person can survive a long time, but with the quantity of mud and rocks in Mocoa, that is very difficult,” said Manuel Infante, who has been leading volunteer firefighters who arrived from Cali. “I’d say that the missing are dead.” Minister of National Defense Luis Carlos Villegas said it “will take a generation” to completely restore the city.
ECUADOR
Authorities raid pollster
Prosecutors and police on Friday searched the office of a Gallup polling affiliate whose presidential election exit poll fueled protests by projecting a six-point win for the losing opposition candidate. An exit poll by Cedatos and two other firms showed conservative banker Guillermo Lasso winning the race on Sunday last week. Official results wound up showing him losing by two points to ruling party candidate Lenin Moreno. Outgoing President Rafael Correa accused people close to Lasso’s campaign of hiring Cedatos to intentionally spread false results and sow confusion. Cedatos executive president Polibio Cordoba said in an interview with Notimundo radio that the firm has nothing to hide. “If honesty brings us to this point, then this is the price of honesty,” he said. The raid appeared to be linked to a formal complaint by National Assembly Vice President Rosana Alvarado, which echoed the president’s allegation. Cedatos accurately predicted the results of the eight-way first round. Lasso has cited Cedatos’ exit poll in his allegations that the race was stolen.
FRANCE
ETA surrenders arms caches
Basque militant group ETA has handed a list of eight arms caches to police through intermediaries, sources close to the matter told reporters yesterday. The surrender of its weapons is expected to end the group’s more than four decades of armed struggle that gained it notoriety as one of Europe’s most intractable separatist movements. The hidden caches could include about 130 handguns and two tonnes of explosives, French anti-terrorism experts have said. The orchestrated handover in the city of Bayonne will not dissolve the group, which declared a ceasefire in 2011 after killing more than 850 people during a campaign for an independent state in northern Spain and southwest France.
INDONESIA
Gay couple face caning
Two men in conservative Aceh Province each face up to 100 strokes of the cane after neighbors reported them to Shariah police for having gay sex. Shariah police chief investigator Marzuki yesterday said that residents in a neighborhood of the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, reported the men, aged 23 and 20, to police on March 29. He said the two men had “confessed” to being a gay couple and that this was supported by video footage taken by a resident. Aceh is the only province to practice Shariah law, which was a concession made by the central government to end a years-long war with separatists. A Shariah code implemented two years ago allows up to 100 lashes for morality offenses, including gay sex.
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
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was