BELARUS
Loyalists sweep elections
Candidates loyal to President Alexander Lukashenko have swept to victory in parliamentary elections, results showed yesterday, with the opposition failing to take a single seat. Critics had already denounced Sunday’s vote as a fraud and said it was rife with violations. Official results showed parties loyal to Lukashenko taking all 110 seats in the House of Representatives. The opposition had previously held two seats in the lower chamber. Lukashenko said he understood that Western countries would be watching the parliamentary vote, but that it was Belarusians who would have the last word. “We hold this vote in our country for our people, to make things better, and we hold it in the way we understand,” he said.
LEBANON
Nation like ‘Titanic’: speaker
The country is like a sinking ship that will go under unless action is taken, Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri was quoted as saying yesterday, referring to its deep economic and political crisis. “The country is like a ship that is sinking little by little,” al-Joumhuria newspaper cited him as telling visitors. “If we don’t take the necessary steps, it will sink entirely.” An-Nahar newspaper quoted him as likening the situation of the Lebanese to that of passengers on the Titanic that sank in 1912 after hitting an iceberg.
BOLIVIA
UN urges talks on crisis
UN special envoy Jean Arnault is urging the government of interim president Jeanine Anez and supporters of former president Evo Morales to begin talks on peacefully resolving a crisis that has already claimed 23 lives, an official said on Sunday. The negotiations proposed by Arnault would involve lawmakers from Morales’ political party, mobilized groups and representatives of Anez, and be mediated by the UN and the Roman Catholic Church, Minister of the Presidency Jerjes Justiniano said. No date had been set for talks. Pro-Morales lawmakers have called a session today to demand the withdrawal of the military, Chamber of Deputies President Sergio Choque said. Members of the interim government fear pro-Morales legislators will reject Morales’ resignation as president, paving the way for him home.
UNITED STATES
Four killed at Fresno party
Four people were shot dead and six wounded while watching a football game in the backyard of a Fresno, California, home on Sunday, police said. Police were called to the scene after at least one person opened fire into a crowd of about 35 people gathered outside the house. “Three people died on scene,” Fresno Deputy Police Chief Michael Reed told reporters, adding that a fourth was rushed to hospital in critical condition and succumbed to his injuries there. The four dead and the six treated for “non life-threatening” gunshot wounds were men aged 25 to 35, Reed said.
ARGENTINA
Fernandez pushes abortion
President-elect Alberto Fernandez has promised he will move to legalize abortion after taking office on Dec. 10. He is to send a bill to Congress which, if passed, would make the country the first the first major Latin American nation with legalized abortion. “I am an activist for putting an end to the criminalization of abortion,” he said in an interview with the daily Pagina. “There’s going to be a bill of law sent by the president.” A bill presented by women’s rights activists was rejected by the Senate by 38 votes to 31 last year, after then-president Mauricio Macri refused to endorse it.
JAPAN
Abe sinks in monthly poll
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s approval rating has taken a hit in the past month, amid opposition accusations that his office may have violated political spending laws, a monthly Yomiuri Shimbun found. The poll conducted late last week showed an approval rating of 49 percent for Abe’s Cabinet, down 6 percentage points from last month’s poll, and falling below 50 percent for the first time since February. The disapproval rating rose to 36 percent from 34 percent last month, with 45 percent of respondents citing “lack of trust in the prime minister” over the party-funding allegations. Abe yesterday confirmed that 800 guests attended the dinner reception at the Hotel New Otani in Tokyo in April, which he and his wife attended, adding that attendees each paid a ¥5,000 (US$45.86) admission fee. “Neither my office nor the party’s supporters organization contributed funding towards admission for guests or myself at the dinner event,” Abe said. Opposition parties say the admission price was much lower than that of other receptions at the hotel.
CAMBODIA
Dance-loving princess dies
Princess Norodom Bopha Devi, a former minister of culture who helped revive traditional Apsara dance after the 1970s Khmer Rouge regime nearly wiped it out, has died at age 76, the royal palace said yesterday. The princess died of natural causes in a hospital in Thailand, the palace wrote on Facebook. She studied Cambodian ballet as a child and rebuilt the royal troupe when she returned home in early 1990s.
AFGHANISTAN
Four hurt in grenade attack
Attackers yesterday threw a pair of grenades at the gate of the Military Training Center in Kabul, wounding at least four soldiers and a civilian, Ministry of the Interior spokesman Nasrat Rahimi said. The grenades were hurled at about 7:30am as recruits were arriving for classes and training. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
INDIA
New push on citizenship bill
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is set to push ahead with another effort to pass controversial bill to grant citizenship to non-Muslim illegal migrants from neighboring countries, a move that is expected to lead to heated debates in parliament. The legislation seeks to provide citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis or Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Muslims are excluded. Modi’s critics say the move to shelter non-Muslim refugees is a way to keep for his Bharatiya Janata Party to push its Hindu nationalist ideology. This amendment to the Citizenship Bill passed in the lower house of parliament in January, but lapsed as the upper house did not take it up.
INDONESIA
Tiger kills one, mauls one
An endangered Sumatran Tiger mauled to death a farmer and seriously injured a local tourist on Sumatra, a conservation official said yesterday. The 57-year-old coffee grower was attacked on Sunday while he was cutting a tree, said Genman Hasibuan, head of the Aceh branch of the Natural Resources Conservation Agency. The mauling came a day after the same tiger attacked a group of local tourists who were camping at a tea plantation in the Mount Dempo region. The animal, which remains loose in the protected-forest area, is believed to be one of just 15 critically endangered tigers in South Sumatra, Hasibuan said.
‘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