CHINA
Tibetan self-immolates
A Tibetan man earlier this week set himself on fire and died in a protest calling for the return of the region’s exiled leader the Dalai Lama, a rights monitoring group reported. The Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet said 23-year-old Dorbe self-immolated on Sunday last week in Ngaba County, a traditionally Tibetan region of Sichuan Province. The group reported that Dorbe wished long life to the Dalai Lama before setting himself on fire, becoming the 154th Tibetan to self-immolate since the protests began in 2009. Such acts have grown increasingly rare in the past few years amid a smothering security crackdown by the authorities. Many Tibetans use just one name.
THAILAND
MPs propose medical pot
The legislature has officially proposed allowing the licensed medical use of marijuana, making the country a potential trailblazer in Asia in legalizing what used to be regarded strictly as a dangerous drug. The legislature on Friday submitted proposed amendments to the Ministry of Health that would put marijuana and the plant kratom, popular locally as a stimulant and painkiller, into a legal category that would allow their licensed possession and distribution under regulated conditions. Public hearings showed overwhelming support for the measures.
SPAIN
Nicaragua sanctions urged
Minister of Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell has called for international sanctions on the Nicaraguan government. Borrell told an Iberian-Latin American forum in Madrid on Friday that diplomatic pressure must be exerted on Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s Sandinista government amid a deadly political crisis. More than 300 people have been killed in Nicaragua since protests erupted in April calling for Ortega’s resignation. Spanish private news agency Europa Press quoted Borrell as saying that “regrettably,” international sanctions are “not currently on the radar screen” because Nicaragua’s problems are overshadowed by those of Venezuela.
UNITED STATES
Driver jailed for 55 years
A driver was sentenced to 55 years in prison on Friday for causing a church bus crash in South Texas that killed 13 people. Jack Dillon Young, 21, of Leakey, Texas, was sentenced after a three-day hearing. He had faced up to 270 years in prison for the collision in March last year. Young was driving his pickup after smoking marijuana and taking the prescription drug clonazepam, a sedative used to treat panic disorders and seizures, when he collided with the church bus near Uvalde, about 120km west of San Antonio, according to testimony. He pleaded no contest in May to 13 counts of intoxication manslaughter.
GERMANY
Merkel ally proposes ban
A close ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel has proposed a lifelong entry ban to Europe for asylum seekers convicted of serious crimes. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer told daily FrankfurterAllgemeine in an interview on Friday that such a sanction should be considered for migrants who are deported after serving their sentences. Kramp-Karrenbauer, the general secretary of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, is one of three high-profile candidates vying to succeed her as party leader next month. A former state governor, Kramp-Karrenbauer suggested the entry ban should cover Europe’s 26-nation Schengen zone, where passport-free travel is possible.
‘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