BANGLADESH
Landslide death toll hits 146
The death toll from massive landslides triggered by heavy rains rose to 146 yesterday, with firefighters, police and soldiers struggling to reach the remote southeastern districts to distribute aid, officials said. It was not clear if any villagers were still missing after large chunks of mud swept over thatched homes and settlements in three hilly districts on Tuesday, a day after heavy rains began across the nation because of the influence of a depression in the Bay of Bengal. The search-and-rescue operation resumed yesterday morning after an overnight halt, said Reaz Ahmed, a senior official at the disaster management ministry. Officials said at least 98 of the victims died in Rangamati, one of the worst-hit districts, and 37 were killed in Chittagong, four died in Cox’s Bazaar and seven in Bandarban. Hundreds more have been injured.
EUROPEAN UNION
States warned over refugees
A top official said that a legal action was to be launched yesterday against the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland for failing to honor their pledges to accommodate refugees. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said that “for more than a year now they have not been taking any refugees at all,” under a two-year program to share 160,000 refugees. “That gives us no other choice than to implement sanctions against these countries today,” Juncker added. The relocation scheme is a major plank of the union’s migration policy and was lauded as a pan-European show of solidarity in 2015 when more than 1 million migrants entered Europe. However, just three months before the scheme’s end date in September, fewer than 21,000 people have been relocated.
ZAMBIA
MPs suspended over snub
The parliament on Tuesday suspended 48 opposition lawmakers for boycotting a speech by the president, widening a political rift that has alarmed rights groups. Speaker Patrick Matibini barred United Party for National Development (UPND) politicians from taking their seats for 30 days, a move that banned them from the building and stopped their pay. UPND, which was defeated in elections in August last year that it said were rigged, called the suspensions unconstitutional. The lawmakers boycotted President Edgar Lungu’s address at the official opening of the assembly in March, saying they did not recognize him as leader. A month later, UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema and five others were arrested and charged with treason after a column of opposition vehicles failed to make way for Lungu’s motorcade. Amnesty International has said the treason charges are “trumped up” and called for the politicians’ release.
INDONESIA
Inmates escape after flood
Authorities said that dozens of inmates had escaped from a prison on Sumatra Island after the penitentiary broke down due to floods. Torrential rain overnight has triggered floods in several places, inundating residential areas and buildings in Jambi. That caused a wall to collapse at the prison that houses 1,238 inmates. Local police chief Brigadier General Priyo Widyanto said police, soldiers and city security officers were deployed to safeguard the prison and to evacuate inmates from the prison that is still partly flooded. The provincial head of the law and human rights ministry Bambang Palasara said at least 21 inmates have been recaptured and about 30 are still at large.
UNITED STATES
Trump acts on troop levels
President Donald Trump has given Secretary of Defense James Mattis the authority to set troop levels in Afghanistan, an official told reporters on Tuesday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that no immediate decision had been made about the troop levels themselves, which are now set at about 8,400. The Pentagon declined to comment. The decision is similar to one announced in April that applied to troop levels in Iraq and Syria, and came as Mattis warned Congress that US-backed Afghan forces were not beating the Taliban. “We are not winning in Afghanistan right now and we will correct this as soon as possible,” Mattis said in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier on Tuesday.
UNITED STATES
Manhattan leak sickens 32
A carbon monoxide leak in a building three blocks from the World Trade Center in New York City sickened 32 people and raised alarms that shuttered several busy blocks in lower Manhattan at the start of the workday on Tuesday, authorities said. The problem was traced to a broken boiler pipe in a grocery store basement, New York Fire Department chief James Leonard said. People started feeling faint at about 8:30am. The grocery store, called Amish Market, and the apartments above in the 12-story building were evacuated as firefighters measured carbon monoxide levels that maxed out their meters in some places. The meters measure up to 1,000 parts per million, enough to “render you unconscious very, very quickly,” Leonard said.
UNITED STATES
Old painting heads to LA
A 16th-century painting that has been in private hands for more than four centuries and in Britain for nearly 250 years has been acquired by the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Virgin With Child, St John the Baptist and Mary Magdalene is to be the Getty’s first work by Parmigianino, who painted in Italy during the late Renaissance. The sale was contingent on whether a British buyer stepped forward to make a competitive offer, the Los Angeles Times reported on Tuesday. An export license allowing the Parmigianino to leave Britain had been deferred in February to allow British institutions a chance to bid for the work, but the deferral expired on Friday last week. Art News reported that the painting, dating from about 1530 to 1540, was sold via Sotheby’s by the Dent-Brocklehurst family of Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire. The publication put the value at more than US$31 million.
UNITED STATES
Altered photos probed
The superintendent of a New Jersey school district where yearbook photographs of two high-school students were altered to remove President Donald Trump’s name on their clothing said it does not appear that students were involved. Wall Township School superintendent Cheryl Dyer said the district’s investigation was ongoing. She told NJ.com that there was “no evidence” so far to suggest students played a role in making the changes. The teacher who served as the yearbook adviser has been suspended with pay, but district officials have not said why they took that action. One student wore a sweater vest with Trump’s name on it. Another student wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Trump Make America Great Again.” Neither feature appeared in the photos published in the yearbook.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in 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
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