ITALY
Sicily floods kill 10
Ten people, including a family of nine, have died in floods around Palermo on Sicily, rescue services said yesterday as fierce storms continue to exact a deadly toll nationwide. They said the bodies of the family, including children aged one, three and 15, were found in their house in Casteldaccia next to a small river which had burst its banks. Three other members of the family were able to escape, the Agi news agency said. A man was also found dead in his car, while two other people are missing.
POLAND
Runoff elections held
Voters went to the polls yesterday for runoff elections to choose the mayors of several key cities, including Krakow and Gdansk, and more than 640 other towns and smaller localities. The first round on Oct. 21 saw the ruling populist Law and Justice party strengthen its showing in regional assemblies, but lose mayoral races outright in Warsaw, Poznan and Lodz to a centrist pro-European Union coalition led by the Civic Platform party. The centrist opposition is favored to win in Krakow and Gdansk in yesterday’s voting.
IRAN
Council rejects crucial bill
The Guardian Council yesterday rejected a bill on joining the UN convention against terrorist financing seen as crucial to maintaining trade and banking ties with the world. The conservative-dominated council, which oversees legislation passed by the parliament, said aspects of the bill were against Islamic law and the constitution and sent it back to lawmakers for revision. The bill, narrowly passed by parliament last month, is one of four put forward by President Hassan Rouhani’s government to meet demands set by the international Financial Action Task Force, which monitors countries’ efforts to tackle money laundering and terrorist financing.
TURKEY
Orthodox accord signed
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and the Istanbul-based Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I on Saturday signed an accord in Istanbul that paves the way for the recognition of an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church from the Moscow Patriarchate. The agreement setting out the steps needed to formalize the recognition of the independence of the Ukrainian Church, known as Tomos. “On behalf of the Ukrainian people, I am very grateful to his holiness and to all the bishops of the Ecumenical Patriarchy for the extremely important and wise decision to open the road to God for the Ukrainian nation and its church,” Poroshenko said. Poroshenko was also set to hold talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during his trip.
SPAIN
Brazilian guilty in murders
A court on Saturday found a young Brazilian man guilty of the murder of two young cousins aged one and three and their parents whose bodies he dismembered. Patrick Nogueira, 21, fled to Brazil shortly after the killing at the family’s home in the village of Pioz in August 2016. He returned to Spain that October and turned himself in to police after the corpses of the family were found in plastic bags at their home. The defense argued that Nogueira suffered a “mental disorder” and hoped his confession would mitigate the sentence. On the opening day of his trial, Nogueira said he was not able to control his emotions. He is to be sentenced at a later date and is expected to receive a life sentence of at least 25 years.
INDONESIA
Lion Air search extended
Authorities have extended the search for victims of the Lion Air crash and the plane’s cockpit voice recorder. National Search and Rescue Agency chief Muhammad Syaugi yesterday said that the search involving hundreds of personnel and dozens of ships would continue for another three days. The Lion Air jet crashed just minutes after takeoff from Jakarta on Monday last week, killing all 189 people on board. More than 100 body bags of human remains have been recovered. Weak signals, potentially from the cockpit voice recorder, were traced to a location, but an object had not been found yet due to deep seabed mud, Syaugi said.
AUSTRALIA
Nun decries Duterte ‘tyranny’
An elderly nun who lost a long legal battle with Manila to stop her deportation attacked Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s “reign of tyranny” as she returned home yesterday. Sister Patricia Fox, 71, who spent almost three decades working with Philippine laborers, farmers and urban poor, was accused of illegally engaging in political activism as Duterte’s government cracked down on foreign critics on its soil. Welcomed by supporters at Melbourne airport, Fox told reporters she was happy to be home, but had found it hard to leave. “At present, the Philippines, the human rights abuses are just increasing and it is a reign of tyranny at present,” Fox said.
SAUDI ARABIA
Prince freed after 11 months
Authorities have released the brother of billionaire Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal after nearly a year in detention, family members said on Saturday. The release of Prince Khalid bin Talal was confirmed by at least three relatives on Twitter, with photographs shared of him kissing and embracing his son who has been in a coma for years. “Thank god for your safety,” his niece Princess Reem bint Al-Waleed tweeted, posting additional pictures of the released prince with other relatives. The government has not offered any public explanation for his arrest or the conditions of his release. The Wall Street Journal reported that he was detained for 11 months for criticizing the biggest crackdown on the elite in November last year.
BAHRAIN
Opposition head jailed
The appeals court yesterday sentenced the head of the country’s Shiite opposition movement to jail for life over charges of spying for Qatar, a judicial source said. Sheikh Ali Salman, who headed the now-outlawed Al-Wefaq movement, had been acquitted by the high criminal court in June, a verdict the public prosecution appealed. The government, along with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, last year severed all ties with Qatar, banning their citizens from travel to or communication with the emirate over what they say are Doha’s ties to both Iran and radical Muslim groups.
CHINA
Truck crash kills 15 people
An out-of-control truck ploughed into a 31-car lineup in Gansu Province, killing 15 people and injuring 44, authorities in Lanzhou said yesterday. The accident occurred on Saturday night as the driver of the heavy-duty articulated truck lost control on a downhill stretch of expressway and collided with cars lining up at a toll booth, Lanzhou’s propaganda department said. Ten of the 44 hurt sustained serious injuries, authorities said. The big rig driver, Li Feng, was put under investigation and police watch, Xinhua news agency said.
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
‘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