IRAQ
Leader Talabani mourned
Iraqi Kurdish officials said Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region has declared a week of mourning after the death of former president Jalal Talabani. Sadi Ahmed Pire, a spokesman for the Kurdish party which Talabani headed, said flags would fly at half-staff yesterday. Talabani’s burial in Sulaimaniyah is planned for this weekend. Seen as a unifying elder statesman who could soothe tempers among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, Talabani suffered a stroke in 2012 after which he was moved to Germany for treatment and faded from political life. He died in a Berlin hospital on Tuesday afternoon at the age of 83, after his condition deteriorated rapidly. His death comes days after Iraqi Kurds’ controversial referendum on independence that has angered Baghdad.
GERMANY
EU to preserve nuclear deal
European countries will do their utmost to preserve a deal limiting Iran’s nuclear program despite misgivings by US President Donald Trump, a senior EU diplomat said yesterday. “This is not a bilateral agreement, it’s a multilateral agreement. As Europeans, we will do everything to make sure it stays,” European External Action Service Secretary-General Helga Schmid told an Iranian investment conference of the deal brokered by Iran, the US, France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China. Trump is weighing whether the pact serves US security interests as he faces an Oct. 15 deadline for certifying that Iran is complying, a decision that could sink an agreement strongly supported by the other world powers that negotiated it.
MYANMAR
Beauty queen dethroned
A beauty pageant yesterday denied that it dethroned a teen contestant because of a graphic video she posted accusing Rohingya militants of driving communal violence in the west — an issue that has stirred a fierce nationalistic reflex inside the Buddhist-majority country. Shwe Eain Si was stripped of her Miss Grand Myanmar title earlier this week. While pageant organizers said she had breached her contract, she alleged the move was linked to her comments on the humanitarian crisis. In the video, which was interspersed with gruesome photographs of mutilated bodies, Shwe Eain Si expressed a view widely held among the Burmese public that the Rohingya militants have led a “media campaign” to trick the world into thinking “they are the oppressed.”
MONGOLIA
PM named; bailout approved
Parliament yesterday confirmed the nomination of Ukhnaa Khurelsukh as prime minister, putting the country back on track to receive funds from a US$5.5 billion IMF economic rescue package. Khurelsukh, of the ruling Mongolian People’s Party (MPP), received unanimous approval from the lawmakers in attendance for his confirmation as the nation’s 30th prime minister. He will face challenges in bringing back foreign investment to the nation and managing its heavy debt load. The IMF has approved an economic bailout program to help relieve debt pressures and buoy the togrog, that includes austerity policies. An IMF visit to review the program that included the disbursement of US$37.82 million of the funds was delayed last month until a new government was formed. The IMF had said that once a new government was in place, it would engage with the authorities on how best to move forward. Khurelsukh succeeds Jargaltulga Erdenebat, who was voted out of office last month amid allegations of corruption and incompetence.
UNITED STATES
Wisconsin key ad target
Russia-linked Facebook ads during last year’s presidential election mainly focused on the states of Michigan and Wisconsin, CNN reported on Tuesday. The ads targeted key demographic groups and used divisive messages, including promoting anti-Muslim sentiment, the report said, citing sources. Wisconsin and Michigan were among the handful of battleground states that helped US President Donald Trump win the presidency over Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton. Trump carried Wisconsin by 22,748 votes and Michigan by 10,700 votes. About 10 million people in the country saw politically divisive ads on Facebook which were purchased in Russia in the months before and after the election, Facebook said on Monday.
UNITED STATES
Man admits sneaking snakes
A man who was caught trying to sneak snakes into Canada in his socks has pleaded guilty. Federal prosecutors in Buffalo said 28-year-old Chaoyi Le faces up to five years in prison after pleading guilty on Tuesday to violating wildlife regulations. He was arrested in 2014 at the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge in western New York after Canadian border agents discovered three live albino western hognose snakes hidden in his socks. At first, Le said he had found them in a New York park, but eventually admitted buying them. Authorities said Le, a Chinese who lives in Mississauga, Ontario, was trying to avoid a US Fish and Wildlife inspection. Court documents said that on the same day, Le also mailed several snakes from New York to China.
UNITED STATES
Man hallucinates on plane
A Turkish man on Tuesday pleaded guilty to interfering with a flight crew and blamed his inflight behavior that prompted fighter jets to escort the plane to its Honolulu destination on hallucinating that he was chasing a butterfly. A butterfly suddenly came out of the pocket of the seat in front of him, Anil Uskanli said in a Honolulu federal court in describing what he did during the May 19 American Airlines flight from Los Angeles. “The butterfly went crazy ... flew into the toilet,” he said. “I followed it. I tried to kill it by punching it.” Uskanli, 25, said he now realizes that he was ill and hallucinating.
UNITED STATES
O’Neill wins philosophy prize
British philosopher Onora O’Neill has won the US$1 million Berggruen Prize for philosophy and culture. The prize was announced on Tuesday by the Los Angeles-based Berggruen Institute, which called O’Neill “one of the world’s most eminent moral philosophers.” It cited her work on issues such as trust in institutions, bioethics, human rights and international justice. In a video, the 76-year-old Cambridge professor said she is “pleased, astonished and delighted” by the prize.
MEXICO
Workers die in silver mine
Four workers died from poisonous air in a Canadian-owned silver mine in the northern state of Coahuila near the border with Texas, officials said on Tuesday. First Majestic Silver Corp of Vancouver, British Columbia, which owns La Encantada mine about 700km northeast of Torreon in the Muzquiz municipality, said one miner was clearing an area in the mine when he lost consciousness due to “gas intoxication.” The three other miners who died had gone to his aid and were carrying safety belt breathing apparatuses, but did not use them, the statement said.
‘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