PAKISTAN
Sharif indictment postponed
A court yesterday postponed the indictment of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif for a week after his children, who are co-defendants in the case, did not appear in court. The court set Monday next week for the indictments against Sharif, his two sons, daughter and son in-law. Mohsin Shahnawaz Ranjha, an attorney and lawmaker from Sharif’s party, said that Sharif’s children were in London with their ailing mother, who is undergoing treatment for throat cancer. Sharif was present in the court. The Sharifs face a graft case ordered by the Supreme Court following an investigation into documents leaked from a Panama law firm indicating that Sharif and the others had undisclosed assets. The Supreme Court disqualified Sharif in July, forcing him to step down. Sharif has denied any wrongdoing.
INDIA
Two killed in shootings
Indian and Pakistani troops yesterday fired at each other in the disputed Kashmir region, killing a 10-year-old boy and 15-year-old girl and injuring nine other civilians on the Indian side, officials said. The boy and girl were killed in a firing by Pakistani soldiers in the Poonch sector on the Indian-administered side of Kashmir, police said, adding that the injured included a five-year-old girl. Military spokesman Colonel Nitin Joshi said Pakistani soldiers targeted several posts with automatic gunfire and mortar shells and the Indian army was “retaliating strongly and effectively.” He called Pakistan’s firing an unprovoked violation of the 2003-ceasefire accord between the two nuclear-armed rivals. Pakistan had no immediate comment on yesterday’s firings.
INDIA
Dalit killed at dance show
A Dalit man has been killed by a group of upper-caste men for attending a traditional Hindu dance performance, police said yesterday. Jayesh Solanki, 21, and his cousin, Prakash, were allegedly attacked late on Sunday when they went to watch garba — a folk dance performed during the nine-day Hindu festival of Navratri — in the state of Gujarat. “We have arrested eight persons for allegedly beating to death one Jayesh Solanki in Borsad town of the district,” local police superintendent Anand Saurabh Singh said. Police said they had received a complaint from Prakash, who said one of the men demanded to know why they were watching the dance. The accused “hurled caste-based abuses” before going away and returning with seven others who began beating the pair, police quoted Prakash as saying. The attackers said Dalits “do not have any right to watch garba,” the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
RUSSIA
Saudi king to visit: Kremlin
Saudi Arabian King Salman is to visit Russia on Thursday, senior Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov was quoted by TASS news agency as saying yesterday. The visit comes a month before members of the OPEC oil cartel, of which Saudi Arabia is the biggest producer, are due to meet with the other nations that have joined them in cutting crude output, including Russia, to discuss extending the pact that has helped prop up prices. OPEC and its allies agreed from the beginning of the year to cut their production by about 1.8 million barrels per day for six months. It was subsequently extended through March next year. The pact has helped reduce the glut of crude supplies on the market and the price to climb to around $55 per barrel currently. While the two nations are allies on the global oil market, they are on the opposite sides in the Syria conflict.
‘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
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in