MEXICO
Police scuffle with migrants
Police briefly scuffled with some of the 1,600 Central American migrants who are confined to an improvised shelter in the border town of Piedras Negras. Video of Wednesday’s incident shows some migrants apparently tearing down a temporary awning and trying to wrestle metal barricades away from police. The government of the border state of Coahuila said that the migrants were angry about not being allowed out to go to a local store. About 30 were later permitted to go, it said. Some of the migrants have asked to be taken to other cities in northern Mexico, presumably thinking that they would have more freedom of movement, the state government added. There is a heavy police and military guard around the improvised shelter at an old factory complex.
PANAMA
Migrant shelter to be built
The government is to build a migrant shelter on the southern border with Colombia, after another wave of migrants crossed into the country, it said. About 716 migrants, mostly Cubans, entered Panama over the weekend through the jungle province of Darien. The latest group also included migrants from Haiti and Africa, National Migration Service Director-General Javier Carrillo said, adding that the migrants wanted to travel to the US. Authorities on Thursday said that the new US$9 million shelter would be able to handle about 400 migrants. The government previously planned to build a shelter, but the idea was put on hold. In 2016, thousands of Cubans were stranded in Panama and Costa Rica after Nicaragua refused to let them through.
UNITED STATES
Butterfly center loses suit
A judge on Thursday ruled against a butterfly sanctuary that had sued to keep President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall from cutting the refuge in two. For months, the National Butterfly Center has been arguing that the wall would be devastating for those insects and other creatures living in this habitat in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. As many as 200 species of butterfly live in the sanctuary, as do bobcats, coyotes, skunk pigs, armadillos and Texas turtles. Financing for a wall going through the sanctuary was approved last year and is separate from the border appropriation fight that is roiling Washington. Construction could begin in a matter of weeks, local residents said. The North American Butterfly Association, which runs the refuge, sued the government on grounds that the sanctuary is private property. However, Senior US District Judge Richard Leon ruled that the project can proceed. “On the same day the president announces he will declare a state of emergency, the federal judge throws out our case. We are not going away that easily,” the butterfly center said in a tweet.
UNITED STATES
Runner details cougar fight
A Colorado runner who survived a mountain lion attack said that he wrestled the young animal to the ground and jammed his foot onto its neck to suffocate it to death. The cougar locked its jaws on his wrist and was clawing his face and arms during the Feb. 4 attack in the mountains west of Fort Collins, Travis Kauffman said. His remarks came in a video interview with state wildlife officials released on Thursday. He said that he heard a rustling noise behind him, turned and saw the cat 3m away. The cat lunged and began biting and clawing him. He said they fell to the ground, and he tried to hit the cat with a rock and stab it with twigs before getting his foot onto its neck.
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
‘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