CUBA
Group calls foul on dissident
A leader of one of the nation’s largest dissident groups has been held incommunicado for a week in the eastern part of the country, Amnesty International said on Friday. Amnesty called on the government to allow family members of Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia to visit him at a jail in Santiago de Cuba and let him hire a lawyer of his choice. The leader of opposition group Patriotic Union of Cuba and his colleague Ebert Hidalgo Cruz were arrested on Friday last week following a traffic accident involving a plainclothes security official, the group said, adding that only Hidalgo has been allowed a family visit. Ferrer was among 75 dissidents imprisoned in a March 2003 crackdown. He was released in March 2011. The government made no immediate comment.
FRANCE
Crows to pick up garbage
Six crows specially trained to pick up cigarette butts and garbage are to be put to work next week at a historical theme park, its president said on Friday. “The goal is not just to clear up, because the visitors are generally careful to keep things clean,” but also to show that “nature itself can teach us to take care of the environment,” Puy du Fou president Nicolas de Villiers said. Rooks, a member of the crow family of birds that also includes the carrion crow, jackdaw and raven, are considered to be “particularly intelligent” and, in the right circumstances, “like to communicate with humans and establish a relationship through play,” De Villiers said. The birds would be encouraged to spruce up the park through the use of a small box that delivers a tasty nugget of bird food each time a rook deposits a cigarette butt or small piece of garbage, he added.
GUATEMALA
Morales’ immunity targeted
Attorney General Consuelo Porras and the UN-backed International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala on Friday moved to lift President Jimmy Morales’ immunity so he can be investigated for alleged illicit campaign financing. It is the third time that Porras and the commission, which has taken the lead in pursuing high-level corruption cases in the country, have sought to remove Morales’ immunity. Porras and the commission want to determine the origin of about US$1 million in undeclared campaign financing Morales managed as head of the conservative National Convergence Front party from 2015 to 2016. Morales has denied any wrongdoing. Porras said the request to strip Morales of his immunity came after new evidence had surfaced.
ROMANIA
Hundreds injured in protest
A total of 440 people, including two dozen riot police, have received medical treatment after an anti-government protest turned violent, authorities said yesterday. Of those, 65 people, including nine riot police, were taken to a hospital, the Bucharest-Ilfov Emergency Service said. There were no immediate reports of life-threatening injuries. Some people sustained head and other injuries, while others were overcome by tear gas, the service said. The anti-government protest in Bucharest on Friday drew tens of thousands of people who demanded that the government resign over moves to change laws that critics have said would make it harder to prosecute corruption. The rally turned violent late on Friday after riot police fired tear gas and water cannons to quell protesters. Some individuals lobbed rocks, bottles and smoke bombs at riot police. President Klaus Iohannis condemned “the brutal intervention of riot police.”
‘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