UNITED KINGDOM
BBC appeals to UN over Iran
The BBC said it is appealing to the UN in Geneva, Switzerland, to protect the human rights of its journalists and their families as Iranian authorities escalate “years of persecution and harassment.” The unprecedented move follows the BBC’s unheeded calls to Tehran to end the harassment of staff working for its Persian Service, BBC director general Tony Hall said. “The BBC is taking the unprecedented step of appealing to the United Nations because our own attempts to persuade the Iranian authorities to end their harassment have been completely ignored,” Hall said in a statement. “In fact, during the past nine years, the collective punishment of BBC Persian Service journalists and their families has worsened.”
IRAN
Iranian-Briton imprisoned
The government on Sunday revealed that it had sentenced an unidentified Iranian-British dual citizen to six years in jail for spying for Britain, in a case that appears not to have previously been disclosed. No details of the case were given, including when the person was arrested or where. The judiciary’s Mizan news agency said prosecutor Abbas Jafari-Dolatabadi had “referred to a six-year prison sentence for an agent of England’s intelligence service.” It quoted him as saying the same person was also under investigation in a separate case related to a private bank, giving no further details.
UNITED STATES
Chopper crash kills five
A helicopter on Sunday night crashed into New York City’s East River and flipped upside down in the water, killing all five passengers aboard, officials said. A spokesman for the New York Police Department confirmed the deaths early yesterday morning. Video taken by a bystander and posted on Twitter shows the red helicopter landing hard in the water and then capsizing, its rotors slapping at the water. The helicopter, a private charter hired for a photo shoot, went down near Gracie Mansion, the mayoral residence. The pilot freed himself and was rescued by a tugboat, officials said.
UNITED STATES
Musk pitches moon base
Bases on the moon and Mars could help preserve human civilization and hasten its regeneration on Earth in the event of a third world war, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk said on Sunday. Musk, the founder of rocket and spacecraft company SpaceX, said the company’s interplanetary ship could begin test flights as soon as next year. There is “some probability” that there will be another Dark Ages, “particularly if there is a third world war,” Musk said at the SXSW conference. “We want to make sure that there’s enough of a seed of human civilization somewhere else to bring civilization back, and perhaps shorten the length of the Dark Ages,” he said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Ken Dodd dies aged 90
Comedian Ken Dodd, well-known to the country’s television audiences for his spiky hair, buck teeth and “tickling stick,” has died aged 90, his publicist said yesterday. Dodd achieved fame in theaters in the 1950s with a madcap humor and a relentless barrage of off-the-cuff ripostes. His style, which later brought him television and radio fame, owed much to music hall tradition. Dodd was also holder of a Guinness World Record for telling 1,500 jokes in three-and-a-half hours.
SOUTH KOREA
Lawmaker resigns
Three-term Democractic Party lawmaker Min Byung-doo resigned yesterday after being accused of sex abuse, the latest target of a spreading #MeToo campaign in the country. Min submitted his resignation despite requests by the party to reconsider as his exit whittled away its position as largest party in the National Assembly. A woman who declined to be named claimed in an interview with the news Web site Newstapa that Min had forcibly kissed her and unzipped her trousers in a karaoke room in 2008. Min, 59, denied the accusation in a statement last week, but said he was “ready to resign if I committed any wrongdoings that I was not aware of.” His resignation has to be approved by the assembly to take effect.
PAKISTAN
New senators sworn in
Fifty-one newly elected senators were sworn in yesterday, including the first Hindu minority woman, as allegations swirled that some had bribed their way to become lawmakers. A smiling Krishna Kumari, who hails from the so-called untouchables caste, was warmly welcomed by the chamber’s predominantly Muslims lawmakers as she entered the Senate for the first time. Kumari, from a remote village in Sindh Province, defeated a Taliban-linked cleric in the March 3 elections. One of the new senators, Ishaq Dar, did not take his seat as he was out of the country.
AFGHANISTAN
Taliban take district center
Taliban fighters have seized a district center in Farah Province bordering Iran, where they have battled government security forces fiercely in recent months, officials said yesterday. Naser Mehri, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said a large group of fighters had captured the center of Anar Dara district on Sunday night after hours of fighting, though police and intelligence service forces were still holding out in their headquarters. The Taliban released pictures that appeared to show fighters in the town, where skirmishes were taking place yesterday. Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said 15 policemen had been killed and several military vehicles seized, along with a large quantity of ammunition.
INDIA
Nine trekkers die in fire
Nine trekkers died and 18 were left with serious burns as wildfires swept through a popular hiking spot in Tamil Nadu state, officials said yesterday. The group were hiking through Theni district, a thickly forested hilly region dotted with tea plantations, when they were forced to flee a fast-approaching fire. They apparently became separated while trying to find a safe way to escape the blaze. Some of the victims were taken to hospital with serious burns over most of their bodies, the Press Trust of India reported. The fire is still burning and its cause is under investigation, officials said.
CHINA
Delegates at Vatican forum
Attendance at this year’s Vatican conference on combating organ trafficking underlines improving ties between Beijing and the church and will build momentum for better relations in other areas, said National Human Organ Donation and Transplant Committee head Huang Jiefu (黃潔夫), a former vice minister of health. “The exchanges are beneficial to world peace and are also beneficial to people from the two sides,” the Global Times quoted Huang as saying. “It also creates good momentum to expand contact beyond the health sector to cultural and other areas.” The two-day conference opened yesterday.
‘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