CZECH REPUBLIC
Eight disabled die in blaze
Eight people died and 30 were injured after a fire at a home for people with learning disabilities early yesterday, rescuers said. Emergency services spokesman Prokop Volenik said 30 people were taken to hospital — one in critical condition and three with serious injuries. “The fire broke out in the boys’ section of a home for the mentally handicapped,” Vejprty Mayor Jitka Gavdunova said, adding that it was too early to talk about the cause of the blaze.
IRAN
Satellites pass tests
Minister of Telecommunication Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi yesterday said that two new satellites have passed pre-launch tests and would be transported to the nation’s space center for eventual launch. In a tweet, Jahromi said it was an “important research step.” State-run media say the 90kg Zafar satellites have four high-resolution cameras each and are to monitor natural resources and environmental developments.
SWEDEN
Chinese envoy called in
The government has summoned Chinese Ambassador Gui Congyou (桂從友) to discuss his comments that compared media coverage of China to a lightweight boxer who starts a feud with a heavyweight. “It’s like a 48-kilogram lightweight boxer who provokes a feud with an 86-kilogram heavyweight boxer, who out of kindness and goodwill urges the [smaller] boxer to take care of himself,” Gui said on Saturday to public broadcaster SVT, after saying he believed Swedish journalists have interfered in China’s internal affairs with their reporting. Minister of Foreign Affairs Ann Linde said the envoy’s statement was an “unacceptable threat.”
THE NETHERLANDS
National Tulip Day marked
Tulip growers beat back winter — if only for a day — on Saturday with a riotous explosion of color as they turned an Amsterdam square into a multi-colored feast to mark National Tulip Day. Several thousand people converged on Dam Square in front of the Royal Palace to enjoy and pick the 200,000 free tulips. Each person was limited to 20 free flowers. National Tulip Day marks the opening of the tulip season for the nation’s flower industry.
BRAZIL
Indigenous manifesto issued
Leaders of native tribes issued a rallying call to protect the Amazon rainforest and its indigenous people from what they called the “genocide, ethnocide and ecocide” planned by President Jair Bolsonaro. A manifesto signed on Friday at the end of a four-day meeting in the Xingu reservation said Bolsonaro was threatening the survival of indigenous people with plans to allow commercial mining and ranching on their protected lands. “We do not accept mining, agribusiness and the renting of our lands, nor logging, illegal fishing, hydroelectric dams or other projects that will impact us directly and irreversibly,” it said.
CANADA
Help for Newfoundland
The federal government will help Newfoundland dig out in the wake of a massive winter blizzard that buried cars and left thousands without power, Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan said on Saturday. The storm dumped as much as 76.2cm of snow on St John’s, the capital of Newfoundland. St John’s Mayor Danny Breen said that a state of emergency declared on Friday remained in effect, with businesses and the airport closed.
SRI LANKA
India ties to be improved
Colombo and India vowed to strengthen military ties and widen maritime links with neighboring countries after security talks, the president’s office said yesterday, to counter growing Chinese influence in the region. Indian National Security adviser Ajit Doval on Saturday met with newly elected President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and discussed setting up a maritime coordination center, the office said in a statement. It did not give details of the proposed center, but said other nations in the region should be included as observers. It said the two countries also discussed closer military and coast guard cooperation.
NEPAL
Snow hampers search efforts
Heavy snow and poor visibility yesterday hampered the search for four South Koreans and three Nepalese caught in an avalanche in the Annapurna region of the Himalayas, officials said. Relatives of the missing South Koreans have arrived in Kathmandu alongside several officials sent by Seoul to help with the emergency rescue efforts, Ang Dorjee Sherpa of the Korean Alpine Federation told reporters. The missing group was near the Annapurna base camp at about 3,230m above sea level when the avalanche struck after heavy snowfall on Friday. Sherpa said it had snowed heavily around Annapurna in the past few days, making the trek risky. “The weather and snow got worse and, feeling it was becoming dangerous and difficult, they decided to turn. As they were heading back the avalanche hit,” Sherpa said on Saturday.
SYRIA
FX punishments increased
President Bashar al-Assad on Saturday increased the punishment for transacting in foreign currencies to seven years hard labor, the presidency said, after the Syrian pound plummeted on the black market. A decree “upped the penalty for anybody who deals in anything other than the Syrian pound for payments, or any kind of commercial transaction,” it said. The punishment was increased from up to three years detention to seven years hard labor, as well as a fine, the presidency said in a statement. The punishment would also be applied to transactions paid in precious metals, it said. The Syrian pound has sunk to 1,200 to the US dollar on the black market in the past few weeks, despite an official exchange rate fixed at 434 Syrian pounds to the greenback. Before the nation’s civil war broke out in 2011, the rate stood at 48 Syrian pounds to the US dollar.
SOUTH AFRICA
Man eyes barrel record
Vernon Kruger has been sitting in a barrel suspended 25m above ground for more than two months. Overlooking the town of Dullstroom, the 52-year-old was about to break a Guinness world record set by himself in 1997. “Sleeping in this barrel is not very easy,” Kruger said. “It’s a very small place to curl up in and I have to lie in a fetal position. Somebody said ... why don’t you break the record for sitting in a tree? First it was a joke and then I got it dare from my friends to actually do it.” However, after a bit of research, Kruger discovered that a man from Indonesia had already broken the record by sitting in a tree for 28 days. He scrapped the idea and one of his friends suggested “pole sitting.” “The record was 54 days then,” said Kruger, who decided to take on the challenge and sat “on pole” for 64 days. By today, Kruger would have spent 67 days in his barrel and to his team’s dismay, he planned to stay more.
‘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