PHILIPPINES
Manila hotel fire kills four
A fire yesterday broke out at a hotel in Manila, killing four people and trapping several on the fifth floor, a rescue official said. About 20 people were trapped in the Manila Pavilion Hotel, Manila Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office officer-in-charge Johnny Yu told radio station dZMM. “We have reports coming in from the Bureau of Fire Protection that they saw from the fifth floor 19 to 20 trapped victims, but they are alive,” Yu said. It was not immediately clear how the fire started.
SRI LANKA
State of emergency lifted
President Maithripala Sirisena yesterday announced that he has lifted a nationwide state of emergency imposed 12 days ago to quell anti-Muslim riots in which three people died and hundreds of shops were destroyed. Sirisena said improvements in the security situation prompted him to end the emergency, under which security forces and the police had sweeping powers to detain suspects. “Upon assessing the public safety situation, I instructed to revoke the state of emergency from midnight yesterday,” Sirisena said on Twitter as he returned to the country after a tour of Japan.
CHINA
NPC renews Li’s tenure
The National People’s Congress (NPC) yesterday endorsed Premier Li Keqiang,(李克強) the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) No. 2 leader, for a second five-year term and approved the appointment of a director for a new anti-corruption agency with sweeping powers. Congress delegates voted 2,964 to 2 to approve Li’s appointment. That comes a day after CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping (習近平) was reappointed the country’s president with no limits on how many terms he can serve.
AUSTRALIA
Suu Kyi’s immunity affirmed
Burmese State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi has immunity from prosecution, Australia’s attorney-general said yesterday after a legal bid was launched to hold her responsible for “crimes against humanity.” A group of five Australian lawyers filed a private application at the Melbourne Magistrates Court seeking to prosecute her over the treatment of the Rohingya Muslim minority, coinciding with Aung San Suu Kyi attending the ASEAN summit in Sydney. Australian Attorney-General Christian Porter said that Aung San Suu Kyi cannot be prosecuted in Australia, nor arrested or detained. “Aung San Suu Kyi has complete immunity,” he said in a statement. “This includes from being served with court documents, because under customary international law, heads of state, heads of government and ministers of foreign affairs are immune from foreign criminal proceedings and are inviolable.”
SOUTH AFRICA
Zuma might fight indictment
Former South African president Jacob Zuma might challenge National Director of Public Prosecutions Shaun Abrahams’ decision to reinstate corruption charges over an arms deal, news broadcaster eNCA said on Saturday. Abrahams on Friday told a news conference that Zuma’s attempts to head off the charges hanging over him for more than a decade had failed. He said the 75-year-old Zuma denies all allegations against him. Zuma’s lawyer Michael Hulley said the reason behind Abrahams’ decision was not clear from the “one-page and somewhat terse response” received from him “advising that the representations made on behalf of Zuma were unsuccessful,” eNCA said on its news Web site.
‘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
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
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