TURKEY
Helicopter crash kills 13
A military helicopter crashed on Wednesday near the border with Iraq, killing all 13 personnel on board, the military said. The crash occurred in the border province of Sirnak, where government troops are engaged in operations against Kurdish militants. A military statement said the crash appeared to be accidental, with initial information indicating that helicopter had hit a high-voltage transmission line shortly after taking off from a base in Sirnak’s Senoba region. The private DHA news agency said a delegation led by a major-general was on board.
BANGLADESH
Navy rescues fishermen
The navy yesterday said that it has rescued 23 fishermen from the Bay of Bengal and is searching for scores more missing since Cyclone Mora hit two days ago. Most of those rescued were plucked from a sinking boat which had broken down, stranding them at sea. “At least 15 ships have been deployed to search for survivors in the Bay of Bengal after the storm,” a senior navy official said. Mushtaq Ahmed, a local fishing industry representative, said that eight boats carrying about 150 fishermen have so far failed to return.
ISRAEL
Palestinian stabs soldier
A Palestinian woman was shot and critically wounded yesterday after stabbing a soldier outside a Jewish settlement in the northern West Bank, the army and medics said. The soldier was taken to hospital with a stab wound to his upper body, medics from Magen David Adom emergency service said. The attack took place at the entrance to Mevo Dotan, a Jewish settlement southwest of Jenin.
UGANDA
Chinese envoys investigated
President Yoweri Museveni has ordered an investigation into possible collusion between the Ugandan Wildlife Authority (UWA) and two Chinese diplomats in the trafficking of ivory. The Chinese embassy officials are suspected of colluding in the movement of ivory from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic and South Sudan, a government official said. Ali Munira, spokeswoman for the Inspectorate General of Government ombudsman, did not name the Chinese diplomats, but said the UWA was under suspicion. Museveni has also ordered a new probe into the theft of ivory worth more than US$1 million in November 2014.
JAPAN
Satellite launched
A rocket carrying a satellite with a local version of the US global positioning system (GPS) was launched yesterday, part of a government bid to increase the precision of location information used in smartphones and car navigation systems. The rocket that carried the satellite called “Michibiki No. 2” was launched from Tanegashima.
SOUTH AFRICA
Warning over pangolins
A conservation group said the seizure of 6.35 tonnes of pangolin scales in Hong Kong this week indicates that the heavily poached creature “could soon vanish for good” if urgent steps are not taken to protect it. The International Fund for Animal Welfare on Wednesday said that the size of the seized shipment from Nigeria was 10 times bigger than a confiscation of pangolin scales in Malaysia three weeks earlier. The fund wants China and other countries to take steps to curb the demand for pangolins, whose scales are used in traditional medicine in parts of Asia.
UNITED KINGDOM
Arrested man released
Manchester police on Wednesday released without charge one of the men arrested in connection with the terrorist attack on Monday last week at a pop concert in the city. Ten men remained in custody following the suicide bombing at the Manchester Arena, where US singer Ariana Grande was performing. Twenty-two people, including seven children, were killed in the attack. The 21-year-old man released had been arrested on Wednesday last week in the town of Nuneaton in central England, more than 180km from Manchester. “As it stands 16 people in total have been arrested in connection with the investigation, of which six people have since been released without charge,” police said in a statement.
UNITED STATES
Jerry Garcia guitar sold
A guitar that Jerry Garcia played everywhere from San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom to Egypt’s Great Pyramids fetched more than US$1.9 million at an auction on Wednesday. The Grateful Dead frontman’s guitar — named Wolf — was sold at the Brooklyn Bowl, a bowling alley, restaurant and music venue. The proceeds are earmarked for the Montgomery, Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center. The guitar was owned by devoted Deadhead Daniel Pritzker, a philanthropist, musician and film director who bought the instrument in 2002 for US$790,000. “I’ve been a fan of The Dead since I was a kid, and playing this iconic guitar over the past 15 years has been a privilege, but the time is right for Wolf to do some good,” Pritzker said.
FRANCE
Property deal probed
Prosecutors yesterday said that they were opening a preliminary investigation into a property deal involving one of President Emmanuel Macron’s ministers. Macron on Wednesday defended Richard Ferrand, a close ally of the president, over allegations that Ferrand favored his wife in a lucrative deal with a public health insurance fund when he headed the company. The timing of the announcement by prosecutors in the western port of Brest is embarrassing for Macron because the government was to unveil a draft law on cleaning up politics. The pledge to rejuvenate the corruption-plagued political class was one of the central planks of the campaign that swept 39-year-old Macron to the presidency on May 7. Ferrand, one of Macron’s first prominent backers and formerly secretary general of the president’s Republique En Marche party, has denied any wrongdoing. He told France Inter radio: “I am an honest man.” The Canard Enchaine investigative newspaper reported last week that an insurance fund that Ferrand headed in his native Brittany — where he is a lawmaker — agreed in 2011 to rent a building from his wife and carry out renovations that boosted its value. Ferrand, 54-year-old minister for territorial cohesion, has dismissed the report as a “welcome present” from the media for the new government. He says his wife made the fund the best offer and that he had no say in the matter.
MEXICO
Gillnet ban extended
The Agriculture and Fisheries Department said it is extending a ban on gillnets in much of the upper Gulf of California as part of an effort to save the endangered vaquita porpoise. A statement on Wednesday by the department said it would continue to provide monetary and other support for fishermen affected by the measure.
‘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