MALDIVES
Police summon ex-president
Police have summoned former president Abdulla Yameen for questioning as part of investigations into deals he made during his tenure, many of them involving Chinese infrastructure projects, his party said. Yameen lost a presidential election in September and the new government of his successor, Mohamed Ibrahim Solih, has been trying to determine the extent of Chinese loans to finance a construction boom in the Indian Ocean island nation. Yameen has denied any wrongdoing and said that he took on loans to accelerate economic development. The Maldives have become the latest battleground for influence between old rivals India and China. Yameen steered the country of just over 400,000 people closer to China, away from traditional partner India, but since his surprise election defeat, India has been re-exerting its influence. On Monday, new president Solih is to travel to India on his first overseas visit since taking over as president last month.
AUSTRALIA
Cyclone to make landfall
The northeast of the country is bracing for a severe tropical cyclone, with authorities warning of flash flooding and destructive winds. Cyclone Owen has been strengthening off the north coast of Queensland State, in warm waters in the Gulf of Carpentaria, and was expected to reach category four — defined as a severe tropical cyclone with very destructive winds — when it makes landfall in the morning. “With landfall there will be significant storm tide for locations along the coast,” Queensland Bureau of Meteorology weather services manager Richard Wardle said yesterday. Winds of up to 200kph are expected as the cyclone reaches land near the border of the Northern Territory and Queensland, before making its way down the east coast.
CHINA
Ex-auto leader ‘surrenders’
Former Association of Automobile Manufacturers deputy president Jiang Lei (蔣雷) has returned from New Zealand to “surrender” to the authorities for graft, Xinhua said yesterday. The return was arranged by the international arm of the nation’s anti-graft agencies, along with New Zealand law enforcement, Xinhua said. New Zealand Minister of Justice Andrew Little in an e-mailed statement said that Jiang had not been extradited, but declined further comment.
CHINA
‘Totoro’ hits theaters
My Neighbor Totoro finally hit Chinese cinemas yesterday — 30 years after its original release. The Studio Ghibli film has never been screened in China, despite its global popularity. It is unclear why the movie has never been released in China. “In order to get rid of bogus copies [of the movie], I thought we should show a Ghibli movie in the Chinese market,” Studio Ghibli chairman Koji Hoshino said on Monday.
DR CONGO
Days-old baby beats Ebola
They call her the “young miracle.” A baby who was admitted to an Ebola treatment center just six days after birth has now recovered from the virus. The Ministry of Public Health called the baby the youngest survivor in what is now the world’s second-deadliest Ebola outbreak. The baby’s mother, who had Ebola, died in childbirth, the ministry said. The infant was discharged from the treatment center in Beni on Wednesday.
JAPAN
Report shows exclusions
At least nine medical schools manipulated their admissions systems to exclude women and older candidates, a Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology investigation of the nation’s 81 medical colleges said yesterday. Nine schools were found to have inappropriate admissions procedures and a 10th school is suspected of it, Kyodo News reported. Juntendo University this week was the latest to hold a news conference admitting discrimination and said on its Web site that it had manipulated results to make up for the fact that women tend to be more mature and better communicators than men at university-entrance age.
UNITED STATES
Dice roll decides race
An Arkansas city council candidate who twice showed up too late to vote for himself in a contest that ended in a tie wound up losing the race on Thursday in a dice roll to decide the winner. Becky Linebaugh, an incumbent alderman in the small town of Hoxie, rolled a “six” to hold on to her seat for a third term, defeating challenger Cliff Farmer, who rolled a “four.”
‘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