AUSTRALIA
PM dismisses N Korea letter
Prime Minister Malclom Turnbull has dismissed an extraordinary letter from North Korea to the parliament and other countries as a “rant” against US President Donald Trump and a sign that Pyongyang is “starting to feel the squeeze” of escalated sanctions. The letter from the North Korean Foreign Affairs Committee attacks Trump over his speech to the UN General Assembly last month in which Trump threatened to “totally destroy North Korea” if provoked. Turnbull yesterday told Melbourne Radio 3AW that the letter was sent to “a lot of other countries” as well as Australia. The letter says that if Trump thinks that he will bring North Korea “to its knees through nuclear war threat, it will be a big miscalculation and an expression of ignorance.”
COLOMBIA
Court orders treasure return
The Constitutional Court on Thursday ordered the government to recover more than 120 pieces of indigenous treasure given to the Spanish royal family by Colombia’s president in the 19th century. According to the High Court, the gift violated the constitution, which states an item of cultural importance cannot be given away. It ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to undertake all necessary negotiations to bring back the pre-Colombian artifacts from the Quimbaya civilization, known for their gold work. In 1893, then-president Carlos Holguin gifted the pieces — part of a collection of more than 400 pieces including masks and human figures — to Spanish queen regent Maria Cristina de Habsburgo-Lorena. “Holguin gifted the treasure to the queen of Spain, as she had helped him with a boundary dispute we had with Venezuela,” Quindio Academy of History professor Jaime Lopera said. “He should not have given away that treasure, since it was bought with the nation’s money and belonged to the national heritage,” he added.
CHINA
British official summoned
China has summoned a British official in Beijing and lodged “stern representations” about recent comments from London expressing concern about a British rights activist being denied entry to Hong Kong, it said yesterday. Ben Rogers, a cofounder of the UK’s Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, has been a vocal critic of Chinese-ruled Hong Kong’s treatment of human rights activists, including that of jailed student protest leader Joshua Wong (黃之鋒). He was denied entry to Hong Kong on Wednesday last week. Britain on Tuesday said it had summoned the Chinese ambassador to express its concern. Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lu Kang (陸慷) reiterated that Hong Kong is part of China and the central government handles Hong Kong’s foreign affairs and Beijing and Hong Kong decide who to let in or not as a matter of Chinese sovereignty.
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
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