INDONESIA
Aftershock levels buildings
A magnitude 6.2 earthquake rocked the island of Lombok yesterday, with witnesses reporting collapsed buildings. “Evacuees and people ran out of houses when they felt the strong shake of the 6.2 magnitude quake... People are still traumatized. Some buildings were damaged further because of this quake,” National Board for Disaster Management spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said on Twitter. Officials said the epicenter was on land, so there was no risk of a tsunami. The board’s official death toll from Sunday’s quake stood at 131 on Wednesday, although some officials put the number at 347. Sutopo did not give an updated toll, saying only that there was “a big increase.”
CHINA
Li meets UN’s Espinosa
State media on Wednesday offered further evidence that a secretive annual conclave of senior leaders is being held at the seaside resort of Beidaihe, saying that Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) had met a UN official there. Li and President Xi Jinping (習近平) have not appeared on the main evening news since the start of the month, as opposed to almost daily appearances normally, suggesting that they might have been in Beidaihe. In a brief dispatch, state radio said that Li had met UN General Assembly President Maria Fernanda Espinosa in Beidaihe, where they discussed the need to promote free trade.
GAZA STRIP
Rocket fire exchanged
Israel carried out a major wave of strikes overnight in response to about 150 rockets fired at its territory, leaving three Palestinians, including a toddler, dead, officials said yesterday. Most of the rockets fired by Palestinian militants landed in open areas, but at least two hit the Israeli town of Sderot. Sirens sounded throughout the night, sending residents to bomb shelters. Medics reported at least four wounded taken to Israeli hospitals, including a 30-year-old Thai woman in moderate to severe condition. A Hamas militant was also killed in the strikes and at least 12 others injured, the Israeli Ministry of Health said.
THAILAND
Ex-monk handed 114 years
A former Buddhist monk who provoked outrage with his lavish lifestyle was yesterday sentenced to 114 years in prison after a court found him guilty of fraud, money laundering and computer crimes. Wirapol Sukphol, who was seen in a 2013 YouTube video holding wads of cash on a private jet, returned to Thailand in July last year after being extradited from the US. Wirapol was expelled from the monkhood after the video surfaced. He was accused of having sexual intercourse with an underage girl, among other charges. Wirapol is only to serve 20 years of his sentence, because the law stipulates that is the maximum for someone found guilty of multiple counts of the same offense. Wirapol faces separate charges of child molestation and child abduction. A verdict in that case is expected in October.
UNITED STATES
Oscars add new category
The Oscars are adding a new category to honor popular films and promising a brisk three-hour ceremony and an earlier air date in 2020. The new “outstanding achievement in popular film” award is a response to accusations that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has honored art-house fare only seen by limited audiences. The academy did not offer specifics about how the category would be defined. The ceremony is also to be held earlier — in 2020, it is to shift to Feb. 9, compared with Feb. 24 next year.
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
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
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