AUSTRIA
Kurz vows to take back job
Ousted leader Sebastian Kurz, 32, on Monday started his campaign to take back the chancellery after his estranged coalition partners in the Freedom Party joined the opposition in a vote to dismiss him. The youngest Austrian head of government also became the shortest-serving and the first to be thrown out of office since the nation was reconstituted after World War II. President Alexander Van der Bellen yesterday appointed Minister of Finance Hartwig Loeger acting chancellor. An interim administration is to be named in the coming week that can govern until snap elections are held in September. “Parliament decided today, but at the end of the day, in September, in a democracy the people decide,” Kurz said. “I’m looking forward to that.”
INDIA
Everest claims 11th fatality
A US climber has died after descending from Everest, officials said yesterday, taking this season’s toll to 11, including several deaths blamed on overcrowding on the world’s highest mountain. Christopher John Kulish, 61, had already climbed the 8,848m peak and was safely back at a camp below the summit on Monday evening. “All of a sudden he had a heart problem and passed away at South Col, according to his expedition organizers,” said Mira Acharya, from the tourism department. The government issued a record 381 Everest permits this season and a short weather window resulted in some teams waiting several hours in the dangerous “dead zone,” running out of oxygen supplies and risking exhaustion.
MYANMAR
Soldiers in massacre freed
Seven soldiers jailed for killing a group of Rohingya Muslims have been released from jail, despite serving less time than two reporters imprisoned for exposing the massacre. Prisons Department Director-General Myint Soe told reporters the soldiers were “no longer in detention,” declining to give any further information. Four officers and three soldiers were sentenced last year to 10 years with hard labor for killing 10 Rohingya villagers. Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who helped expose the killing, were jailed in September last year for seven years on charges linked to their reporting. They were granted a presidential pardon this month after spending more than 500 days in jail.
AUSTRALIA
Sydney restricts water
Sydney yesterday announced its first major water restrictions in a decade, putting limits on homes and businesses amid a record-breaking drought. The New South Wales government said the greater Sydney region water catchments were experiencing some of the lowest flows since the 1940s and that the restrictions would be enforced from next week. People in Sydney can be fined up to A$220 (US$150) or businesses up to A$550 for leaving a hose running or using a sprinkler system to water their gardens.
INDIA
Tainted liquor kills five
Five people died and 19 were being treated in hospital after drinking spurious liquor in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, a district official said yesterday. The victims fell ill after consuming the liquor on Monday night and were taken to a hospital, where three of them died, district magistrate Udai Bhanu Tripathi said. Two more died en route and 19 were being treated. State officials would make every effort to hunt down the culprit and assist the bereaved families, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said on Twitter.
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
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was