INDIA
Arrest made in train killing
Police have arrested one Hindu for suspected involvement in the killing of a Muslim man who was attacked with a knife on a train near New Dehli. The arrested man told reporters late on Saturday that he was drunk when he attacked four men on the train on Friday after he was told by his friends that they were “beef-eaters.” Police said another three Muslims were injured in the attack by about 20 Hindus. Police said an altercation over seat space between the two groups triggered the attack.
SOUTH KOREA
Anniversary message sent
Seoul yesterday marked the anniversary of the start of the Korean War with a call for North Korea to halt development of its missiles and nuclear programs. “The North continues provocative military actions such as launching a ballistic missile,” Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon told war veterans and government officials at a ceremony in Seoul. Lee said the North “should stop developing missile and nuclear programs and come out on to the path of denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.”
CHINA
Crisis intervention urged
Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) has urged the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan to improve relations and establish a crisis prevention and management mechanism during visits to both countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. Wang yesterday was scheduled to speak in Islamabad, a day after meeting Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul. A three-way conference mechanism involving the two countries and China could promote dialogue and cooperation, ministry said.
INDONESIA
Police station attacked
Two suspected militants yesterday attacked a provincial police headquarters in North Sumatra’s provincial capital of Medan, leaving an officer and an assailant dead. The men, wielding a knife and a machete, stormed the police headquarters and stabbed to death an officer who was at his post, National Police spokesman Setyo Wasisto said in Jakarta. Responding officers shot the two attackers, killing one and seriously wounding the other, he said. Wasisto said the attackers were allegedly part of an extremist group that has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group in Syria.
VIETNAM
Dissident blogger deported
A dual-national dissident blogger was deported to France on Saturday after the government stripped him of his citizenship last month, drawing criticism from international human rights groups. The California-based Vietnam Reform Party (Viet Tan) said Pham Minh Hoang was forcibly taken from his home in Ho Chi Minh City on Friday. New York-based Human Rights Watch yesterday said the government’s moves against Hoang should be condemned. “By effectively forcing Pham Minh Hoang into indefinite exile, the Vietnam government has demonstrated its readiness to violate its citizens’ human rights however it deems necessary to preserve its political power,” it said.
SOUTH CHINA SEA
Sailors play Spratly games
Philippine and Vietnamese navies have been playing soccer, volleyball and tug-of-war games together on Southwest Cay (Nanzih Reef, 南子礁) in the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島). The two sides played on Thursday, in the third event of its kind since 2014. Manila held the island decades ago, but it is now under Hanoi’s control.
UNITED STATES
Teenager falls from ride
A teenager on Saturday night fell from a stopped gondola ride at the Six Flags Amusement Park north of Albany, New York, tumbling into a crowd of park guests and employees gathered below in an effort to catch her before she hit the ground. The Warren County Sheriff’s Office said the unidentified 14-year-old girl from Delaware is at Albany Medical Center with no serious injuries. The sheriff’s office said the girl was riding the attraction with a child relative and fell about 7.5m from a stationary car. The ride was stopped by an operator after word was received that there was a rider in distress, officials said. Authorities said the girl fell from the car and struck a tree before landing in the crowd.
RUSSIA
St Nicholas relics a big hit
More than 1 million people have visited the relics of St Nicholas, one of the Orthodox Church’s most revered figures, since they were brought to Moscow last month. A total of 1,021,500 people have paid their respects to the holy remains, according to data published on Saturday on an official Web site for the relics. The line to see the fragments of the saint’s bones has regularly extended several kilometers from the Cathedral of Christ the Savior since they went on display on May 23. The relics, on loan from Italy, are to be moved to St Petersburg later this month.
UNITED STATES
Deportation block urged
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Saturday asked a judge to expand an order that temporarily blocks the deportation of 114 Iraqis in Michigan to cover Iraqis nationwide, according to a court filing. The group filed an amended complaint seeking to keep Immigration and Customs Enforcement from deporting Iraqis from anywhere in the nation while a federal judge weighs the Michigan case. District Judge Mark Goldsmith on Thursday ordered a stay in the Michigan Iraqis’ deportation for at least two weeks while he decides whether he has jurisdiction. The ACLU said in its filing that those being deported could face persecution or torture because many were Chaldean Catholics or Iraqi Kurds and that both groups were recognized as targets of ill-treatment in Iraq.
ALBANIA
Voters go to the polls
People were to vote yesterday in a general election that follows a landmark agreement between the nation’s two biggest political parties to look past their differences and back efforts to join the EU. Eighteen political parties were running for 140 seats in parliament. The main contenders were the Socialist Party led by Prime Minister Edi Rama and the opposition Democratic Party led by Lulzim Basha. Preliminary results are expected today.
UKRAINE
Putin visits Crimea camp
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday visited Crimea, which was annexed in 2014, a trip quickly denounced by Kiev as a violation of national sovereignty. Putin made a stop at the Soviet-era Artek holiday camp for young people on the shores of the Black Sea, the Kremlin said in a statement. “It wasn’t that long ago that Artek went through rather difficult times, but now it is being reborn, and it is reborn as an international holiday camp,” Putin said in a speech to the young people. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement saying Kiev “considers this visit ... to be a gross violation of the sovereignty of the state and the territorial integrity of Ukraine,” Russia’s TASS news agency reported.
‘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