NEW ZEALAND
Rescuers seek British hiker
Search operations were yesterday underway for a British backpacker who went missing on South Island after an intense flood. Stephanie Simpson, 32, has not been seen since she went for a hike last weekend at Mount Aspiring National Park. “Search teams remained out in the area overnight,” police said in a statement. Last week, flash floods and incessant torrential rains hit the area, leaving several hundred tourists stranded and forcing many residents to evacuate their homes.
INDONESIA
Officials pan US virus study
The government has criticised a US study questioning why the world’s fourth most-populous nation has not yet recorded a case of the new coronavirus, COVID-19, calling the findings an insult and insisting that it is on high alert. A study by Harvard University public health researchers this week found that Indonesia should have reported a coronavirus outbreak and could have undetected cases given its extensive air links to China. “They can be baffled, but it’s a fact” that there are no cases, Minister of Health Terawan Agus Putranto told reporters on Tuesday. “I am just telling you like it is. We’re not hiding anything.”
AFGHANISTAN
US-Taliban talks ‘progress’
President Ashraf Ghani on Tuesday said he was told by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that “notable progress” has been made in talks between the US and the Taliban on an agreement for a US troop withdrawal from the country. Ghani wrote on Twitter that Pompeo had informed him by telephone that the Taliban had made a proposal “with regards to bringing a significant and enduring reduction in violence.”
SOUTH AFRICA
Mandela release celebrated
President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday marked the 30th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s release from jail with an address from the spot where the anti-apartheid icon made his first speech as an awestruck Ramaphosa held the microphone for him. “The day Mandela was released was a day we all knew that apartheid was dead and finished. It was a moment where the world literally stood still,” Ramaphosa told a thousand people gathered in front of Cape Town city hall. “He stood here to speak and I held the microphone,” said Ramaphosa, speaking in front of a giant statue of Mandela. “Nothing could describe that brief second when that microphone crackled,” he said. “That was the moment everyone was waiting for — Nelson Mandela’s first words.”
UNITED KINGDOM
‘The Splash’ sells for £23m
Seminal pop art painting The Splash by David Hockey sold for £23.1 million (US$30 million) at a London auction on Tuesday, the third-highest price paid for a work by the British artist. The Splash, which was painted in 1966, depicts the moment just after a diver has broken the surface of a swimming pool, capturing the fantasy Californian lifestyle. The price, bid by an unknown buyer, is nearly eight times that achieved when the work last sold at auction for £2.9 million in 2006.
UNITED STATES
Virus evacuees released
Nearly 200 people evacuated from Wuhan, China, over the COVID-19 outbreak were on Tuesday released from quarantine in California with officials urging people not to shun them, or workers who helped them, after both groups faced discrimination. The 195 evacuees, mostly Department of State employees, were flown to March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, where they were quarantined for 14 days — the outer limit of the virus’ possible incubation period. None tested positive for the virus, but their arrival stoked unfounded fears in the local community that they or base personnel would spread the disease, Riverside County public health officer Cameron Kaiser told a news conference. “They don’t need additional tests, they don’t need to be shunned, they don’t have novel coronavirus,” Kaiser told reporters after his department published a photograph of the former patients throwing away their masks in a quarantine graduation ceremony.
UNITED STATES
Weinstein defence rests
The defense on Tuesday rested its case in Harvey Weinstein’s rape trial without the disgraced Hollywood mogul taking the witness stand, setting the stage for closing arguments in a landmark #MeToo trial punctuated by graphic testimony from six accusers. As expected, Weinstein chose not to testify, avoiding the risk of having prosecutors grill him on cross-examination about the allegations. He confirmed the decision after returning to the courtroom from meeting with his lawyers behind closed doors for about a half-hour as speculation swirled that he was pushing to testify. Asked as he left court if he was thinking of testifying, Weinstein said: “I wanted to.” Defense lawyer Arthur Aidala said that Weinstein “was ready, willing, able and actually quite anxious to testify and clear his name,” but did not do so because his lawyers felt prosecutors “failed miserably” to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. Jurors are expected to hear the defense’s closing argument today, followed by the prosecution’s closing tomorrow.
‘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