BRAZIL
Vaccination drive to expand
Minister of Health Ricardo Barros on Tuesday said the campaign to vaccinate people against yellow fever would be expanded to cover the entire country. Barros said that by including the final four of the country’s 27 states, nearly 78 million people would be vaccinated by next year. He told a news conference that 920 cases of yellow fever have been reported nationwide since July last year, and 300 people have died from the disease. During the same period a year earlier, 610 cases and 196 deaths were reported. US health officials last week warned travelers to stay away from certain areas of Brazil if they have not been vaccinated against yellow fever. The virus can be spread by the same mosquito that transmits other tropical diseases, including the Zika virus and dengue fever.
BRAZIL
Rio museum to sell Pollock
The Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro is selling one of its most prized works, a Jackson Pollock painting, to help stay afloat. The private, not-for-profit museum said a sale of this type has never been done before in the country, although it is common in Europe and the US. The Pollock painting in question is titled No. 16 and was completed in 1950. Proceeds from the sale are to be used to create a fund to keep the museum going for another 30 years, it said. The painting was donated by former US vice president Nelson Rockefeller in 1954 and is estimated to be worth about US$25 million. The Brazilian Museum Institute called on the museum to reverse course and try to come up with another way to raise money at a time of financial struggle for many of the country’s museums.
UNITED STATES
Officer arrested for shooting
A Minneapolis, Minnesota, police officer who fatally shot an unarmed Australian woman in July last year was arrested on Tuesday on charges of second-degree murder and third-degree manslaughter, county records showed. Mohamed Noor was arrested by the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office and his bail was set at US$500,000, county jail records showed. Minneapolis’ top prosecutor, Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman is expected to announce the charges at a news conference about the death in July last year of 40-year-old Justine Damond, who was shot by Noor from his patrol car. Damond, who was living in Minneapolis and engaged to be married, had called police about a possible sexual assault near her house and approached the police after their arrival, authorities have said.
UNITED STATES
Comics to aid Puerto Rico
Comic book superheroes are coming to the rescue of Puerto Rico. There is Batman and Wonder Woman, of course, and also a Puerto Rican-inspired female hero named La Borinquena. Their mission is to help reconstruct the territory wrecked by Hurricane Maria six months ago. The 200-page Ricanstruction: Reminiscing & Rebuilding Puerto Rico is to be launched in May at Puerto Rico Comic Con, said Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez, creator of La Borinquena and coordinator of the comic book. All proceeds from sales are to go toward buying supplies for people on the island. “These are all traditional superhero stories, but they are not fighting villains in any of them. They are helping people on the island, bringing food and water and rescuing animals,” Miranda-Rodriguez said. He got permission from DC Comics to use its characters for free. The cover features La Borinquena and Wonder Woman holding the Puerto Rican flag.
AUSTRALIA
Prince declines invitation
Prince Charles has declined a cheeky invitation to explain why he, and not an Australian, should become the nation’s next head of state, an advocate for constitutional change said yesterday. “It appears the prince is unable to answer this question,” the Australian Republic Movement said in a statement. Australians have long been divided on whether the British monarch should continue to also be Australia’s head of state. The Australian Republic Movement said it wrote to Queen Elizabeth II’s eldest son in December last year inviting him to give a speech during his five-day visit next month.
ENGLAND
Hawking to rest near Newton
Stephen Hawking’s ashes are to be buried near the graves of fellow British scientists Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin at Westminster Abbey, it was announced on Tuesday. The remains of the legendary physicist and icon, who died last week, are to be laid in the church during a thanksgiving service later this year, the abbey said. His family earlier confirmed the funeral would take place on March 31 at Great St Mary’s church in Cambridge University, a short distance from Gonville and Caius College, where Hawking worked at unlocking the secrets of the universe for more than 52 years. Hawking, 76, died on Wednesday last week.
TURKEY
Strike ‘neutralizes’ militants
An airstrike by warplanes “neutralized” at least 12 militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, the military said on Twitter yesterday. The airstrike carried out on Tuesday targeted the Hakurk region of northern Iraq, the military said, adding that the militants were believed to be in preparations for an attack. “Twelve armed members of the separatist terror organization, who were in preparations for an attack, were neutralized in northern Iraq/Hakurk by an airstrike carried out on March 20,” the military said. The PKK has waged a three-decade insurgency in Turkey’s largely Kurdish southeast that has killed about 40,000 people.
ISRAEL
Nuclear site hit confirmed
The military has confirmed that on Sept. 6, 2007, it carried out an airstrike in Syria that destroyed what was believed to be a nuclear reactor, lifting the veil of secrecy over one of its most daring and mysterious operations in recent memory. Although Israel was widely believed to have been behind the airstrike, it has never before commented publicly on it. In a lengthy release, the military revealed that eight F-15 jets carried out the top-secret airstrikes against the facility in the Deir el-Zour region, destroying a site that had been in development for years and was scheduled to go into operation at the end of that year.
AFGHANISTAN
Suicide bomber kills 26
An official said a suicide bomber yesterday struck on the road to a Shiite shrine in the capital, killing at least 26 people as people celebrated the Persian new year. Ministry of the Interior deputy spokesman Nasrat Rahimi said another 18 people were wounded in the attack. He said the attacker was on foot. The Persian new year, known in Afghanistan as Newroz Day, is a national holiday. The country’s minority Shiites typically celebrate by visiting shrines. No one immediately claimed the attack. The country is home to a powerful Islamic State affiliate that has repeatedly targeted Shiites, who Sunni militants view as apostates deserving of death.
‘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