INDIA
Floods kill 113 people
Heavy rains have killed at least 113 people in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states over the past three days, officials said yesterday, as flood waters swamped a major city, inundated hospital wards and forced the evacuation of inmates from a jail. An official said that at least 93 people had died in Uttar Pradesh since Friday after its eastern areas were lashed by intense monsoon showers. Rising water levels forced authorities to shift 900 inmates from a prison in eastern Ballia District, police officer Santosh Verma said. In Bihar, the death toll from the latest bout of rain had reached 20 as of yesterday, a state government official said. State capital Patna has been badly hit, with waist-deep flood waters across many streets, and entering homes, shops, and even the wards of a major hospital. The Meteorological Department yesterday said it expected the intensity of rainfall over Bihar to drop and showers over Uttah Pradesh to abate this week.
UNITED KINGDOM
Johnson denies groping
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office has denied allegations he made unwanted sexual advances toward two women 20 years ago. Journalist Charlotte Edwardes wrote in a column for the Sunday Times that Johnson put his hand on her thigh at a dinner party thrown by the magazine he was editing at the time. She said a woman she spoke with after the dinner who was sitting on Johnson’s other side said the same thing happened to her. Johnson’s office issued a brief statement late on Sunday stating: “The allegation is untrue.” Edwardes responded via Twitter: “If the prime minister doesn’t recollect the incident then clearly I have a better memory than he does.”
AUSTRALIA
Car mows down kangaroos
Police are calling for witnesses to come forward after 20 kangaroos were killed by a vehicle in “acts of animal cruelty” in the New South Wales town of Merimbula. Authorities believe one vehicle drove through the suburb of Tura Beach between 10:30pm and 11:30pm on Saturday night, targeting and killing the animals. Twenty kangaroos, including joeys, were killed and three remaining joeys are in veterinary care, said Janine Green, a volunteer with Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service, who discovered the kangaroos. Green alleged the culprit drove a white ute with a spotlight to intentionally run over the animals. “They were driving around and around and had a spotlight. So the kangaroos were just startled and standing there,” she said. “They were driving up on the footpaths… It was football final night so a lot of people would have been drinking. So lucky nobody was walking home. Detectives from the south coast police district are investigating.
NEW ZEALAND
Asics shop broadcasts porn
Pornography played on giant television screens at an Asics sports store in Auckland’s Queen Street for hours over the weekend after hackers took over the shop’s computer systems. It only stopped after employees arrived to open the store on Sunday morning. The Japanese company has apologized to anyone who was inadvertently subjected to the material and said it was working with its software and online security suppliers to make sure it did not happen again. Police and Internet body Netsafe has also been alerted to the hacking, the company said. Witnesses said the pornography played from 1am to 10am on Sunday. The store manager told the New Zealand Herald he was “100 percent sure” that his staff members were not responsible for the incident.
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
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
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