RUSSIA
Kim a ‘competent’ leader
President Vladimir Putin said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has shown himself to be a mature leader who is interested in calming the tensions over its nuclear and long-range missile programs. Meeting with top Russian media figures on Thursday, Putin said Kim “is an absolutely competent and already mature politician,” who has “solved his strategic task — he has a nuclear warhead and a global-range missile.” Now, Kim is “cleaning up the situation, smoothing it, calming it,” Putin said.
UNITED STATES
Trump cancels UK visit
President Donald Trump canceled a visit to London scheduled for early this year, saying he was disappointed with former president Barack “Obama[’s] administration having sold” the US embassy in London. “[The] reason I canceled my trip to London is that I am not a big fan of the Obama Administration having sold perhaps the best located and finest embassy in London for ‘peanuts,’ only to build a new one in an off location for 1.2 billion dollars,” Trump said in a tweet late on Thursday. However, the embassy Web site showed that the decision to move the location was taken months before Obama took office in January 2009. The US Embassy and Consulates in the UK said in October 2008 the embassy would be relocated for security reasons.
SOUTH KOREA
Negligence ‘killed four babies’
Bad hygiene at the intensive care unit of Ewha Women’s University Hospital in Seoul killed four newborn babies within two hours last month, police said yesterday. Five medical staff — two doctors and three nurses — are to be charged with involuntary manslaughter due to negligence over the deaths, officials said. Blood tests on the four premature babies showed that they were all infected with the same drug-resistant bacteria, which resulted in septic shock, police said. All the infants showed drastic changes in their heartbeats and had bloated bellies, said the National Forensic Service, which carried out the postmortem examinations.
JAPAN
Stricken oil tanker drifts
A stricken Iranian oil tanker on Wednesday afternoon drifted into Japan’s exclusive economic zone, a coast guard spokesman said yesterday, as strong winds pushed the burning ship away from the China coast. The Sanchi has been burning for almost a week since it collided with another vessel on Saturday night, and on Thursday afternoon was about 300km northwest of Amami Oshima, a spokesman said. The tanker was carrying about 1 million barrels of condensate, an ultra-light, highly flammable crude oil, to South Korea. Chinese authorities turned down an offer of help from the coast guard, he 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