FRANCE
Protests likely to continue
Protesters angry over high fuel prices were yesterday expected to block access to fuel depots and stop traffic on major roads for a fourth day, incensed by Paris’ refusal to scrap anti-pollution taxes. The “yellow vest” protests have galvanized resistance to President Emmanuel Macron’s economic policies. On Monday, tens of thousands of demonstrators were still manning hundreds of barricades on motorways and gas stations. Oil giant Total said that some of its trucks had been prevented from reaching depots in the south and east of the nation.
UNITED STATES
Elevator drops 84 floors
People rescued from a trapped elevator in one of Chicago’s tallest skyscrapers later learned they had dropped 84 floors. The Chicago Tribune on Monday reported that six people, including a pregnant woman, got into the elevator early on Friday after leaving a restaurant on the 95th floor of 875 North Michigan Avenue, formerly the John Hancock Center. They heard noises and experienced a faster and bumpier than expected ride. One of several cables holding the elevator broke and the car fell rapidly, stopping somewhere near the 11th floor. Firefighters broke through a wall more than 10 stories above ground from a parking garage to reach the people inside.
UNITED KINGDOM
London sells water cannons
Three unusable water cannons bought by former London mayor Boris Johnson have been sold for scrap at a net loss of more than £300,000 (US$385,973). In one of Johnson’s most humiliating episodes as mayor, then-home secretary Theresa May banned them from use in England and Wales. London Mayor Sadiq Khan had pledged to claw back as much money as possible by selling the vehicles, but after almost two years, his office admitted defeat. The money recouped does not even cover the estimated £12,000 bill to insure the vehicles since Khan was elected in May 2016. “This has been another waste of taxpayers’ money by Boris Johnson. Londoners continue to live with his vanity,” Khan said.
UNITED STATES
ISS deliveries set record
The International Space Station (ISS) has received two cargo deliveries in a record 15 hours. A US commercial shipment arrived on Monday, two days after blasting off from Virginia. NASA astronaut Serena Aunon-Chancellor used the space station’s robot arm to grab Northrop Grumman’s capsule. Ice cream and other fresh food were the first things coming out. On Sunday, a Russian supply ship also delivered a full load. NASA said they were the quickest back-to-back shipments for the space station, which yesterday marked its 20th anniversary.
UNITED STATES
Ivanka used private e-mail
Ivanka Trump, President Donald Trump’s daughter and senior adviser, used a personal e-mail account for government business in breach of federal records rules, the Washington Post reported on Monday. The newspaper, citing anonymous sources, said that the discovery was made by White House officials reviewing e-mails in response to a public records lawsuit. The newspaper quoted Ivanka Trump as saying that she was unfamiliar with the details of the rules. Her father has repeatedly pilloried former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton, his rival in the 2016 presidential election, for her use of a private e-mail server for government business while in office.
FIJI
New term for PM
Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama was sworn in for another four years after winning last week’s election with a reduced majority, after earlier lashing out at his opponents. He was affirmed prime minister in a ceremony after his Fiji First Party won just more than one-half of the votes in the election, giving them 27 seats in the 51-seat parliament. Bainimarama first seized power in a military coup in 2006 and refashioned himself as a legitimate leader after winning an election in 2014. The people who “ganged up” against him were the same dishonest politicians from the past whose “lies and deception knew no boundaries,” Bainimarama said in a statement.
CHINA
Wang says US soured APEC
Failure of the APEC representatives gathered in Port Moresby over the weekend to agree on a communique resulted from certain nations “excusing” protectionism, Chinese State Councilor Wang Yi (王毅) said, in a veiled criticism of Washington that further sours the tone of bilateral ties. The inability of the summit to agree to a joint communique was “by no means accidental,” Wang said in comments on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Web site late on Monday. “It is mainly that individual economies insisted on imposing their own texts on other parties, excusing protectionism and unilateralism, and not accepting reasonable revisions from the Chinese and other parties,” the ministry cited Wang as saying.
INDIA
Study shows air top killer
Air pollution, caused largely by burning fossil fuels, is cutting global life expectancy by an average of 1.8 years per person, making it the world’s top killer, researchers said on Monday. The University of Chicago’s Air Quality Life Index (AQLI) shows that people in parts of the world’s second-largest nation by population, could live 11 years less due to high levels of air pollution. “The fact that this AQLI tool quantifies the number of years I and you have lost to air pollution makes me worried,” lawmaker Kalikesh Singh Deo said in a statement.
EGYPT
Holiday sweets go plastic
The Mawlid al-Nabi holiday, which celebrates the Prophet Mohammad’s birthday, started yesterday and is marked by making traditional sweets that are sold in shops and street markets. However, the traditional practices are slowly dying out. Generations of children anticipated the annual arrival of the wedding dolls at marketplaces, breaking them into pieces to indulge in the sweet taste, but in many shops, the edible sugar doll has been replaced with a plastic version. For Mohamed Sayed Farag, who makes the traditional dolls, the two are not the same. “Mawlid without sweets? That can’t be,” he said, adding that he makes a sugar doll with a four-layer dress.
RUSSIA
Firm wins Indian arms deal
The state-owned arms exporter, Rosoboronexport, has emerged as the lowest bidder for India’s US$3 billion tender to source short-range air defense missile systems, the Indian army said on Monday. “The Russian firm has been identified as the L1 bidder,” army spokesman Colonel Aman Anand told reporters. India last month agreed to buy S-400 surface-to-air missile systems, as New Delhi disregarded US warnings that such a purchase could trigger sanctions under US law.
‘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