THAILAND
Early voting draws crowds
Hundreds of thousands of voters yesterday crowded into schools, parking lots and temples nationwide, eager to cast an early ballot a week before the country’s first election in eight years. “It feels good to use our democratic right,” said 29-year-old Adulwit Sinthusiri, one of the 2.6 million Thais who registered for the one-day-only early voting. People who registered to vote yesterday, but fail to do so forfeit the chance to participate in the elections for the 500-seat House of Representatives, held under a new military-scripted constitution. In Bangkok’s Dusit District, home to military and government buildings , voters crowded a schoolyard before a polling station there opened. People dressed in their work clothes waited patiently to cast their ballot, aided by student helpers.
Photo: Reuters
CHINA
NEA head sacked, expelled
The Uighur head of the National Energy Administration (NEA) has been expelled from the Chinese Communist Party and dismissed from his post. Nur Bekri used his authority to aid others in job placement, business operations and mineral resource development in exchange for huge amounts of money and property, the party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection announced on Saturday evening. Bekri was one of the most senior Uighur officials in the nation, also serving as deputy chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission. His case will now be investigated by criminal prosecutors, the disciplinary commission said.
CHINA
Hunt for landslide victims
Hundreds of police, firefighters and medical personnel on Saturday joined rescue efforts after a landslide in Shanxi Province’s Xiangning County knocked down several buildings, killing seven people and leaving 13 others missing. The landslide hit early Friday evening, provincial authorities said. Two residential buildings, home to a total of 14 households, and a public bathhouse collapsed under the weight of the falling earth. China Central Television said 20 people had been rescued from the debris. It showed massive piles of crumpled walls and roofs on the side of a slope. Some buildings remained intact, while others were reduced to rubble.
IRAQ
Massacre remembered
Hundreds of Kurds on Saturday gathered in Halabja in a ceremony commemorating former president Saddam Hussein’s poison gas attack on the town on March 16, 1988, that killed about 5,000 people, mostly women and children. Tearful relatives carried portraits of the victims, while Halabja Governor Azad Tawfiq called for compensation and care for survivors still suffering from respiratory problems. “The Kurdish government, the Iraqi central authorities and the international community owe a debt to Halabja,” he said.
SYRIA
More displaced flood camp
The International Rescue Committee said nearly 3,000 people had arrived at a tent settlement in the northeast on Friday and Saturday after leaving the last area held by the Islamic State group. The committee said in a group said the new arrivals consisted of almost all women and children, bringing al-Hol camp’s population in Hassakeh Province to more than 69,000 people.
‘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