PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Police seek arrest of ex-PM
Police have issued an arrest warrant for former prime minister Peter O’Neill on suspicion of “official corruption,” but he was declining to cooperate with police handling the case, Acting Commissioner of the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary David Manning said in a statement yesterday. The warrant, issued on Friday, stemmed from an investigation, but police gave no details of what O’Neill was wanted for, citing the sensitivity of investigations. A senior police official yesterday morning asked O’Neill, who was at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Port Moresby, to go with him to a police station to be processed. “As we speak, he has refused to cooperate with police thus far,” Manning said in the statement, urging O’Neill to make himself available to investigators.
JAPAN
Shelter rejects homeless
An evacuation center at a school in Tokyo’s Taito ward on Saturday turned away two homeless people as Typhoon Hagibis approached, prompting widespread criticism and a promise yesterday from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that it would not happen again. Staff at the center refused to let the two in because they did not have addresses in the area, a ward official said, adding that staff told them the shelter was only for ward residents. “The wind was strong and it was raining, and I wanted them to let me in,” a 64-year-old homeless man told the Asahi Shimbun. The man, from Hokkaido, spent the night under a plastic umbrella, partially shielded beneath the eaves of a building, the newspaper said. Asked by an opposition lawmaker about the incident, Abe said evacuation centers should welcome everyone. “We will look into the facts and take appropriate measures,” he said. Taito ward said it would review its procedures to help people without addresses in the ward.
GREECE
Asylum seekers clash, hurt
At least three people were hurt in a clash between asylum seekers in a town on the island of Samos, police sources said yesterday. The violence, apparently between groups of Syrians and Afghans, erupted in the town of Vathy late on Monday. A fire later broke out outside the camp that authorities managed to place under control early yesterday morning. “Half of the 6,000 people who are stuck in Vathy camp on Samos are women and children,” medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said in a tweet. “This nightmare must end! Children and other vulnerable people must be evacuated from the Greek islands to safe accommodation.” Despite efforts to relocate people to the mainland, there are more than 32,000 migrants and refugees in camps on Aegean islands near Turkey, most of them vastly overcrowded, unhygienic and violence-prone.
THAILAND
4m king cobra caught
A feisty 4m king cobra was pulled from a sewer in an hour-long operation in the south, a rescue foundation said yesterday. Footage of the daring capture showed a man chasing the cobra into a dark and cramped drainage pipe. The cobra splashed around in water and tried to slither back into the pipe, but was pulled out by the tail after multiple attempts. A security guard on the housing estate where it was found first alerted the rescue group on Sunday. “Seven rescue workers, including me, went there,” Kritkamon Kanghae, 26, said, adding that the estate was built on a plot that was once jungle. Kritkamon said the snake weighed 15kg and was the third-largest they had found. The cobra was later released into the wild.
UNITED KINGDOM
Climate protests banned
Extinction Rebellion campaigners in London have been ordered by police to halt their protests, after authorities arrested more than 1,400 people for civil disobedience-linked offenses this month in the capital. “Protesters have been notified and given an opportunity to leave” the group’s base camp in Trafalgar Square, Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor said in a statement after the ban was put it place at 9pm on Monday. “Anyone who fails to comply with the condition is liable for arrest and prosecution.” In response, Extinction Rebellion issued a statement saying it “will let the Trafalgar Square site go tonight,” but “the international rebellion continues.”
BRAZIL
State declares emergency
The northeastern state of Bahia on Monday declared a state of emergency after several of its beaches were contaminated by oil sludge. About 20 beaches in the state popular with tourists had been polluted, the Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources said on Sunday. Authorities started finding small oil stains on the northeastern coast at the beginning of last month. The sludge has now polluted at least 150 beaches in nine different states. Minister of the Envrionment Ricardo Salles has said the oil is very likely of Venezuelan origin — a claim denied by the neighboring nation. Brazilian authorities are still trying to determine the source of the leak.
UNITED STATES
Teen sentenced to 23 years
A South Carolina teen who was 13 years old when he stabbed his mother to death has been sentenced to 23 years in an adult prison for the crime. Miguel Cano on Monday apologized at the Greenville County Courthouse for the “horrible, evil thing” he did to his mother in their Simpsonville home in September 2015. Isabel Zuluaga, 44, was stabbed in the chest, face and neck. One stab wound went all the way through her chest and into the mattress she was lying on in her son’s room, solicitor Walt Wilkins said. Wilkins asked for a significant sentence, because Cano, now 17, told investigators he planned the brutal attack and thought about killing other people, too.
UNITED STATES
Captive polar bear dies
A polar bear at the Alaska Zoo has died. Nineteen-year-old Lyutyik died on Sunday, officials announced on the zoo Web site on Monday. The beloved animal was generally referred to as Lyu or Louie. He was part of the zoo since 2006. Zoo officials last week said the bear two months ago had become lethargic and was refusing to eat. Caretakers removed him from his usual habitat for monitoring. After the bear died, an evaluation found a mass around and in one of his kidneys.
MEXICO
Embassy offers protection
The country’s embassy in Quito has offered protection and shelter to six people, including lawmakers and their spouses, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Monday. The embassy on Saturday offered protection and shelter to Ecuadoran opposition lawmaker Gabriela Rivadeneira, a member of the party of former Ecuadoran president Rafael Correa, whose allies have been accused of stirring up unrest by Ecuadoran President Lenin Moreno. Moreno on Monday scrapped a law to cut expensive fuel subsidies after days of violent protests against the IMF-backed measure.
‘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