RUSSIA
Activist to remain in custody
A court in Chechnya has ruled to keep a human rights activist in custody, despite strong international criticism of his arrest. The court in Grozny on Thursday rejected Oyub Titiyev’s appeal and ordered him to remain in custody. Titiyev, the head of Chechnya’s branch of human rights group Memorial, was earlier this month arrested on drug possession charges that Memorial said were trumped up. The US and the EU have condemned his arrest as the latest in a string of moves to muzzle critical voices in the region. Amnesty International called for Titiyev’s release. “The Russian authorities must put an end to the coordinated assault they have carried out against Memorial and other human rights organizations across the country,” group senior research director Anna Neistat said in a statement. Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov rejected the criticism in an interview with online newspaper Daily Storm, arguing that Titiyev was arrested in line with the law.
UNITED STATES
Disguised scammer indicted
A Louisiana man charged with scamming investors and banks out of more than US$96 million is accused of disguising himself as an Orthodox Jewish businessman to raise money from a New York-based private equity group. A federal indictment issued on Thursday says 56-year-old David deBerardinis of Shreveport represented himself as a businessman in the petroleum industry and used false identities, phony bank statements and bogus news articles to perpetuate a fraud scheme that began in 2008 and lasted until at least 2016. The indictment says deBerardinis hired a professional makeup artist for the disguise he used in 2013 to get more investor funds from an unidentified private equity group based in New York. He has been charged with wire fraud and attempted bank fraud. It was not immediately clear if he has an attorney.
UNITED STATES
Trumps offered gold toilet
President Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, wanted to borrow a Van Gogh painting from a New York museum for their White House private quarters. Instead, the Guggenheim Museum’s curator came up with a pointedly satirical counteroffer: a working solid gold toilet made by an Italian artist, the Washington Post reported. The first couple asked for Van Gogh’s Landscape With Snow, featuring a man and his dog. Museum curator Nancy Spector, who has on social media been openly critical of Trump, e-mailed the White House in September last year to say that the Trumps could borrow the toilet installation used until August by visitors in a museum restroom. The toilet, titled America, is Maurizio Cattelan’s jab at the nation’s greedier instincts. It has an estimated value topping US$1 million. The Washington Post said the White House has remained silent on the offer.
‘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