HAITI
Protest paralyzes capital
Protesters denouncing corruption on Sunday blocked roads and paralyzed much of the capital as they demanded the removal of President Jovenel Moise, while police reported two people have been killed and five injured. Demonstrators burned tires and threw stones during the march in Port-au-Prince, where the scent of burning rubber filled the air. Many stores and gas stations were closed and travel between some cities was impeded as protesters blocked roads with vehicles, stones and other large objects.
SYRIA
IS orphans handed over
The Kurdish administration in the northeast has handed over 12 French orphans born to extremist families to a French government delegation, an official said yesterday. The children, the oldest of whom is 10, had been living in camps where tens of thousands of people who fled fighting against the Islamic State (IS) group are still housed. Kurdish officials handed over “12 orphaned French children from IS families to a delegation from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” foreign affairs official Abdulkarim Omar said in a statement. The transfer took place in the town of Ain Issa on Sunday, he said.
NEW ZEALAND
Troops to return home
The government would begin scaling back its non-combat mission in Iraq next month and bring home the last of its troops by the middle of next year, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said yesterday. Wellington deployed troops on a “behind-the-wire” training mission in 2015 to boost the ability of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) to fight the Islamic State group. The small contingent of troops, currently 95, who have been working alongside the Australian army at the Taji military base north of Baghdad, had completed their mission, Ardern said. “When it comes to Iraq, it’s time to go,” Ardern said, adding that 44,000 ISF personnel had been trained at the base.
UNITED STATES
Crane collapse kills one
A construction crane buffeted by high winds during a storm toppled on a Dallas apartment building on Sunday, killing one woman in the building and injuring five other people, two of them critically, a fire official said. Crews searching the Elan City Lights building found the body of a woman inside after the crane collapsed and ripped a large gash into the side of the five-story structure, Dallas Fire-Rescue spokesman Jason Evans told a media briefing. “The building itself has suffered multiple collapses in different areas of the building to include residential spaces and the parking garage,” Evans said.
UNITED STATES
Horse track to stay open
The Santa Anita Park horse racing track near Los Angeles would not close before the end of the season as requested by regulators, its owners said on Sunday, after media reported that two more horses died at the course, bringing the toll to 29 since Christmas last year. The leading thoroughbred racetrack voluntarily closed for most of March after a spate of racehorse deaths, most of them due to injuries. Following an inquiry by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, the track reopened, pledging to implement safety reforms. However, the Los Angeles Times on Sunday reported that a four-year-old gelding was euthanized after being injured during a mile dirt race on Saturday, and a three-year-old filly died after cantering across the finish line.
‘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