CHINA
Vaccine probe opened
Police in Jiangsu Province have begun an investigation after at least 145 children received expired polio vaccines, the Global Times reported yesterday. Residents, including the children’s parents, blocked traffic and disrupted public order as they gathered outside Jinhu County offices on Friday, the paper said. Three were arrested, police said in a statement. The vaccine was administered on Jan. 7, despite an expiry date of Dec. 11 last year, the paper said, adding that local government authorities have set up a special investigation team to look into the matter.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Egg beats Kylie Jenner
A picture of a plain egg had garnered more than 23 million likes on Instagram as of yesterday, becoming the platform’s most-liked post ever. It was first posted on Jan. 4 by an account called –?wait for it –?@world_record_egg. The previous Instagram record was held by celebrity Kylie Jenner, whose photograph announcing her baby, Stormi, in February last year was liked 18 million times. Jenner did not take the defeat lying down. She responded with her own post, cracking an egg on the street, which quickly got 9 million likes. “Take that little egg,” she wrote.
INDONESIA
Lion Air recorder found
Navy divers have recovered the cockpit voice recorder of a Lion Air jet that crashed into the Java Sea in October last year, officials said yesterday. Deputy Ministry of Maritime Affairs Ridwan Djamaluddin told reporters that the remains of some of the 189 people who died in the crash were also discovered at the seabed location. “We got confirmation this morning from the National Transportation Safety Committee’s chairman,” he said. Lieutenant Colonel Agung Nugroho, a spokesman for the navy’s Western Fleet, said that divers using high-tech “ping locator” equipment had started a new search effort on Friday and found the voice recorder beneath 8m of seabed mud.
UNITED STATES
Red wolf genes discovered
Researchers say a pack of wild canines found frolicking near the beaches of the Texas Gulf Coast carries a substantial amount of red wolf genes, an animal that was declared extinct in the wild nearly 40 years ago. The finding has led wildlife biologists and others to develop a new understanding that the red wolf DNA is remarkably resilient after decades of human hunting, loss of habitat and other factors all but wiped them out. “Overall, it’s incredibly rare to rediscover animals in a region where they were thought to be extinct and it’s even more exciting to show that a piece of an endangered genome has been preserved in the wild,” said Elizabeth Heppenheimer, a Princeton University biologist involved in the research.
UNITED KINGDOM
Misogyny laws mooted
Police forces should treat harassment and abuse of women that is motivated by misogyny as a hate crime, lawmakers and rights groups said in an open letter yesterday. The government last year said it would review hate crime legislation and look at whether it should encompass new categories such as misogyny. Lawmakers Stella Creasy and Peter Bottomley, and campaigner Helen Pankhurst were among those who signed the open letter. “Because misogyny — acts targeted at women, because they are women — is not included within the law, women are left unprotected. Women have the right to live free from intimidation, abuse and violence,” the letter read.
‘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
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