PAKISTAN
Woman to appeal execution
A defense lawyer has said the top court would hear the final appeal of a Christian woman who has been on death row since 2010 after being convicted of insulting Islam’s Prophet Mohammed. The Supreme Court is to take up Asia Bibi’s appeal tomorrow, her lawyer, Saiful Malook, said yesterday. Bibi’s first appeal was in 2014 dismissed by the Lahore High Court, but the Supreme Court stayed her execution in 2015.
JAPAN
No flag, no fleet review
The nation on Friday announced that it would not send a warship to an international fleet review hosted by South Korea next week, because it could not accept Seoul’s request that it remove the Japanese navy’s “rising sun” flag. The nation had notified the South Korean government of its decision, Minister of Defense Takeshi Iwaya told reporters. “Unfortunately, we have come to a situation where we have no choice but to pass on our participation in the international fleet review,” Iwaya said. Many South Koreans see the flag as a symbol of Japan’s World War II aggression, and protested its use during the Oct. 10 to 14 event near Jeju Island. South Korea’s navy expressed regret over Japan’s withdrawal, but said it must not affect efforts to improve relations between their naval forces.
UNITED STATES
‘CPR’ saves stunned squirrel
A motionless squirrel apparently stunned by a passing car has been revived by the driver, who performed chest compressions beside a Minnesota road. Police officers on patrol in the suburb of Brooklyn Park thought that the man might be performing CPR. In a police video posted on Facebook, the man tells the officers that he swerved to avoid the animal, adding that he did not believe that he had struck it. In the clip, the man flips the squirrel onto its belly and as he strokes its back, the animal starts to come to, eventually darting away as an officer says: “There he goes! You saved his life, dude!”
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
Angry mob kills Chinese
The government has said that three Chinese have been killed and three others wounded in an attack by community members angry about the disappearance of their youth leader. The act would not go unpunished, government spokesman Ange Maxime Kazagui said on Friday, adding that the Chinese were killed by crowds on Thursday while waiting at the gendarmerie as part of an investigation into the disappearance. The youth leader’s brother, Mathurin Dimbele-Nakoe, described the Chinese as employees of a mining company and said they had asked for accompaniment to a mining site on the river. Their boat tipped and the youth leader has not been found.
UNITED KINGDOM
Banksy shreds auction
Girl With Balloon, a painting by the Banksy, was destroyed on Friday at a Sotheby’s auction in London in an apparent prank by the anonymous and mischievous artist. Immediately after the painting had been sold to a phone bidder for £1.04 million (US$1.2 million), part of it was mysteriously shredded, according to Sotheby’s. “We’ve just been Banksy-ed,” Alex Branczik, Sotheby’s European head of contemporary art, said at a news conference following the auction. The Financial Times reported that the painting was shredded by a contraption that seemed to be hidden in the frame. Banksy, who made his reputation as a street artist known for provocative and sometimes politically charged stencils, protects his identity.
‘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
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in