SOUTH KOREA
Drunk sets motel ablaze
Five people were killed and four hospitalized yesterday in an arson attack on a motel in downtown Seoul, police said. A 53-year-old man who said he started the blaze was arrested. Witnesses said a delivery man carried out the attack in a fit of anger after being denied a room at the two-story motel for allegedly being drunk. The man, identified only by his surname, Yu, bought 10 liters of gasoline at a nearby service station, poured it on the ground floor and set it ablaze, they said. Neighbors used fire extinguishers in an attempt to tame the blaze, but were unable to bring it under control.
AUSTRALIA
Bushfire traps tourists
Holidaymakers trapped by a bushfire had to be rescued by boat from a national park south of Sydney as a heatwave struck the eastern seaboard yesterday. Firefighters in the state of New South Wales issued an emergency warning to visitors in the Royal National Park as the blaze threatened the main access road to a popular tourist spot called Wedding Cake Rock, where people posted pictures of the billowing smoke to social media. “Beaches may offer safety,” the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) said in a Facebook post as aircraft water-bombers attempted to slow the fire and emergency warnings were sent to the mobile phones of all people in the area. “Firefighters, police, surf lifesavers and National Parks personnel are working with people at beaches in the Royal National Park to help manage their relocation as it’s safe to do so — including by boat and road escort,” the RFS wrote on Facebook.
PAKISTAN
Radio shut for ‘distorting’
The country on Friday shut down the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Pashto-language station for airing content “against the interest of Pakistan.” The office of RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal in the capital Islamabad was ordered closed by the Ministry of the Interior, which said Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency — the country’s top spy agency — had found its programs to be “in-line with [a] hostile intelligence agency’s agenda.” The notification, posted on the RFE/RL Web site and seen by AFP reporters separately, did not identify the agency. It accused Radio Mashaal of portraying Pakistan as a “failed state” and “a hub of terrorism and safe haven for different militant groups.” The government further alleged that the station was “distorting facts [to] incite the target population against the state and its institutions,” referring to ethnic Pashtuns.
THAILAND
Hundreds protest junta rule
Hundreds of police in Thailand yesterday blocked protesters planning to march from Bangkok to Khon Kaen in the northeast of the country in a rare display of public discontent in the junta-ruled country. Thailand has been ruled by the military since 2014. Demonstrations have since become a rarity, partly because of junta orders banning public assembly. The UN has expressed concern over what it calls a deteriorating rights situation in Thailand, including harsh sentences for those convicted of violating the lese majeste law, known as Article 112, as well as other restrictions placed on freedom of expression. “We want to tell the junta that you have taken Thailand back a long way. The people in the agriculture ministry are all generals. There are just generals!” one protest leader said. “Let’s hold hands! We are friends!” he said, appealing to around 200 protestors gathered at the Thammasat University in Rangsit, north of Bangkok.
‘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