UNITED KINGDOM
Suspicious van pulled over
A man was yesterday arrested and cordons put in place around London’s Buckingham Palace after a suspicious vehicle was stopped by police nearby, the London Metropolitan Police said. The man, aged in his 30s, was arrested on suspicion of a public order offense, after a white van that was deemed suspicious was stopped by officers on a road opposite the palace, a police spokesman said. “Road closures and cordons are in place, and officers are assessing the vehicle as we speak,” the spokesman said.
GERMANY
Six held in terrorism probe
Six people were detained in connection with what police and prosecutors said was a plan to carry out an attack on Berlin’s half-marathon on Sunday, authorities said. “There were isolated indications that those arrested, aged between 18 and 21, were participating in the preparation of a crime in connection with this event,” prosecutors and police wrote in a joint statement. The daily Die Welt first reported that police foiled a plot to attack race spectators and participants with knives. The Tagesspiegel newspaper reported that the primary suspect had been under observation for two weeks around the clock.
DENMARK
Explosive demolition fails
A cultural center has been damaged after a 53m silo fell the wrong way while being demolished. In a video of the explosion in Vordingborg, onlookers cheer the detonation, but then watch in astonishment as the tower crushes the town’s waterfront library and music school. No one was injured in the accident. An investigation is under way into what caused the operation to go wrong. The Vordingborg local government said that firefighters worked through the night to help secure the center.
UNITED STATES
DOJ steps up Clinton probe
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has tapped Chicago Federal Prosecutor John Lausch to help speed its response to Republican document demands related to the FBI’s handling of the investigation into former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton’s e-mails, after President Donald Trump accused officials of “slow-walking” their release. The department is facing mounting pressure from Republicans to fulfill a subpoena by the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary for more than 1 million documents as it examines the agency’s 2016 investigation into Clinton’s private email server. Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte, a Republican, is also seeking documents related to the firing of former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe.
ITALY
Rightist parties negotiate
The nation’s three main rightist parties on Sunday vowed to present a united front in fresh talks on forming a new government, defying attempts by the anti-establishment Five Star Movement to divide them in coalition negotiations. The March 4 general election saw Five Star emerge as the largest party, while a rightist alliance, including the League, Brothers of Italy and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia won the biggest bloc of seats. League leader Matteo Salvini, Berlusconi and Brothers of Italy leader Giorgia Meloni on Sunday met at Berlusconi’s house near Milan to agree on a common message to Present Sergio Mattarella. They said they would insist on naming the prime minister and that an election program agreed before the ballot be respected, including proposed tax cuts, job incentives and a stop to illegal immigration.
PHILIPPINES
Duterte wants Sereno out
President Rodrigo Duterte yesterday lawmakers must “fast-track” the impeachment of Supreme Court Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, one of his toughest critics. “I’m putting you [Sereno] on notice that I am now your enemy and you have to be out of the Supreme Court,” Duterte told reporters before flying to China for the Boao Forum. “I held my temper before because she’s a woman. This time I’m asking the congressmen and the speaker: ‘Do it now. Cut out the drama, or else I will do it for you.’” A House of Representatives committee last month found “probable cause” to impeach Sereno. If the full House supports the finding, Sereno would face an impeachment in the Senate. Until yesterday Duterte had repeatedly denied having anything to do with the moves to sack Sereno.
PHILIPPINES
Exploration pact soon
Ambassador to China Jose Santiago Santa Romana yesterday said Manila is looking to seal a pact with China within a few months to jointly explore for oil and gas in a part of the South China Sea claimed by both countries. They agreed in February to set up a special panel to work out how to jointly explore for offshore oil and gas in areas both sides claim. “We’re trying to see if we can achieve an agreement, hopefully within the next couple of months,” Santa Romana told a news conference in Hainan, China, on the sidelines of the Boao Forum.
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Refugee stabbed in mugging
An Afghan refugee on Manus Island has been stabbed repeatedly with a screwdriver in a robbery in the island’s main town, Lorengau. The Afghan man — held by Australia in its offshore processing regime on Manus — was assaulted at about 6pm on Sunday, when he was confronted by three men who wanted his cellphone. When he refused, they stabbed him in the shoulders, back and neck with a screwdriver. He was taken by other refugees to a local hospital before returning to the refugee center. The attack was reported to police, but no arrests have been made.
AUSTRALIA
Actor Rush ‘housebound’
Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush is “virtually housebound” and “barely eats” after a Sydney newspaper claimed he engaged in inappropriate behavior at a theater, his lawyer said yesterday during a hearing in Rush’s defamation case against the Daily Telegraph. A front-page story in the paper in November last year reported that the Sydney Theatre Company received a complaint about Rush when he was working there. The actor has denied any wrongdoing and his lawyer Nicholas Pullen said in an affidavit yesterday that Rush has “continued to suffer tremendous emotional and social hardship.” The document said he was “virtually housebound” and in the first three months after the publication “rarely left his home.” He “feels uncomfortable when in public and will rarely attend public events,” “barely eats” and “wakes up every morning with a terrible sense of dread about his future career,” it added.
JAPAN
Quake shakes Ohda
A strong earthquake hit near the western city of Ohda, cracking streets, cutting water and power to a more than 1,000 homes and injuring five people. The Meteorological Agency said the magnitude 6.1 quake struck 12km underground. Most of the injuries were minor, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said. Local officials said dozens of trains in the region were delayed or suspended.
‘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