TURKEY
Rescuers seek final two
Emergency teams yesterday drilled through the rubble from a collapsed building in Elazig, searching for the last two missing victims believed trapped since Friday night’s magnitude 6.8 earthquake. They are trying to reach a 75-year-old woman and another person, NTV television reported. The body of a third missing person was pulled out of the structure overnight, raising the death toll from the quake to 39, NTV said. More than 1,600 people were injured in the quake, which destroyed 76 buildings and damaged more than 1,000 others.
Photo: Reuters
FRANCE
Anti-Semitic acts increase
Anti-Semitic acts increased last year by 27 percent, acts against Muslims inched higher while anti-Christian acts remained stable, but highest of all, Minister of the Interior Christophe Castaner said in a statement on Sunday, denouncing the situation as intolerable. Acts described as bearing a racist and xenophobic character, mostly threats, more than doubled between 2018 and last year, increasing from 496 to 1,142, the statement said. A total of 687 anti-Semitic acts were counted last year, compared with 541 the previous year, with 151 listed in most severe category, “actions,” meaning attacks on people or their possessions, theft or physical acts. “Expressions and acts of hate, whether they target origins or religious beliefs, whether they take the form of physical violence or verbal threats, are an intolerable attack on our common project, the foundations of our social ... pact,” the statement said.
GAMBIA
Three die during protest
Three people died on Sunday in Banjul during a demonstration calling for President Adama Barrow to step down, a hospital director said. Police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of protesters who responded by throwing stones, reporters said. Tension has been building over Barrow’s decision to stay in office for five years — reversing a pledge to step down after three. Activists said police had arrested scores of people, including the leader of the Three Year Jotna (is up) Movement.
ISRAEL
Saudi Arabia travel okayed
The government on Sunday said it would allow citizens to travel to Saudi Arabia for Islamic pilgrimages or business. There was no immediate reaction from Saudi Arabia to Minister of the Interior Aryeh Deri’s decree. “It wouldn’t actually be published today unless there is a kind of American eye on that, and a Saudi-Israeli understanding,” said Uzi Rabi, director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African studies at Tel Aviv University. The announcement came ahead of meetings in Washington between the US administration and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu surrounding the roll-out of US President Donald Trump’s regional peace plan.
GERMANY
Seven old bombs defused
Experts defused seven World War II bombs found on the future location of Tesla’s first European factory, just outside Berlin, police said on Sunday. The defusing operation was completed “without any problems,” a police spokesman said. The bombs in question were relatively small and dropped by the US during the war.
‘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