PAKISTAN
Homes, schools attacked
Assailants in a series of attacks yesterday threw grenades at a school and four homes in a northwestern town, wounding 15 people before fleeing, police official Zaman Khan said. The attacks took place in the town of Shabqadar, which is located near Mohmand Agency, in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, which caused panic among residents, Khan said. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of Pakistani Taliban militants, has claimed previous bomb attacks in the region in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province bordering Afghanistan, where Pakistan’s army has been fighting militants for the past several years.
CHINA
PLAN says ships in Myanmar
People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) ships are visiting Myanmar and are to conduct communications, search and rescue and other joint exercises with the Myanmar Navy, Ministry of Defense spokesman Colonel Wu Qian (吳謙) said yesterday. The ships arrived in Yangon on Thursday for a four-day visit, Wu said in remarks posted on the ministry’s Web site. Wu said China was willing to strengthen strategic communication and deepen cooperation with Myanmar, while making joint efforts to safeguard regional peace and stability, and promote bilateral ties. The ship visit started the day China and ASEAN agreed to a framework for a long-mooted code of conduct for the disputed South China Sea. It comes after Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met Burmese State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi in Beijing earlier this week following China’s Belt and Road Forum.
INDONESIA
Boat catches fire off Java
At least five people were killed when a boat carrying nearly 200 people caught fire in Indonesia, rescuers said yesterday. The vessel caught fire on Friday afternoon in the waters off Java Island, prompting the captain to order people to abandon the boat, the National Agency for Disaster Management said. The agency said the fire might have been caused by a short circuit in one of the trucks carried on board. Rescuers evacuated 141 people and recovered five bodies, East Java Province Search and Rescue Office director Mochammad Arifin told reporters. Authorities are checking the manifest to determine whether anyone else is missing, Arifin said.
AFGHANISTAN
Roadside bomb kills family
Eleven members of the same family, mostly women and children, were killed on Friday when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb while they were traveling to an engagement ceremony in the country’s volatile east. The attack occurred in the Mohammad Agha District of Logar Province, but no militant group has so far claimed responsibility. “The bomb struck their Toyota sedan when they were going for an engagement ceremony,” Logar Governor Mohammad Halim Fidai said. “The victims included five women and five children.” Provincial authorities blamed the Taliban, who launched their annual “spring offensive” last month, for the killings. The Taliban were not immediately reachable for comment, but roadside bombs have been the militants’ weapon of choice in their war against foreign and Afghan security forces. The bombs also increasingly kill and wound civilians. A total of 987 child casualties were reported from conflict-related incidents in the first four months of this year, a record high for the period since the UN began documenting such cases.
‘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