CHINA
China media blast ‘hijack’
The state-run Global Times said six suspects arrested in an attempted plane hijacking in Xinjiang on Friday are all Uighur men. State media say the men tried to hijack a plane that took off from Hotan for Urumqi, but their efforts were foiled by passengers and flight crew. The German-based World Uyghur Congress says it was not a hijacking attempt, but an in-flight brawl over a seat dispute. Spokesman Dilxat Raxit says Beijing should not use the incident to launch another crackdown on minority Uighurs.
CHINA
Mudslides claim 50 lives
The Civil Affairs Ministry says mudslides caused by heavy rains have killed 50 and left another 42 missing. The agency said in an online statement on Friday that storms have ravaged 11 provinces and regions — mainly in the south — since June 20 and triggered the deadly mudslides. The ministry says about 440,000 people have been relocated and that tens of thousands of homes are severely damaged. The death toll continues to rise. The state-run China News Service reported yesterday that four people were killed and another 37 missing from a severe mudslide in Sichuan Province.
CHINA
Earthquake rocks Xinjiang
A strong earthquake jolted Xinjiang early yesterday, shaking buildings and cutting off electricity and injuring at least 17 people. The US Geological Survey measured the quake at magnitude 6.3, while China’s Earthquake Networks Center put it at 6.6. Xinhua news agency said most of the victims were tourists. The quake toppled several buildings in Urumqi, Xinhua said, adding that rescuers had been dispatched to the area to search for casualties. An official from the Xinjiang Earthquake Bureau said the quake was “strongly felt” in Urumqi. The man, who gave only his surname, Jian, said Urumqi residents rushed into the streets when the quake hit but returned home after 6am.
UNITED STATES
Vietnamese in ‘terror case’
Authorities on Friday announced terrorism-related charges against a Vietnamese man suspected of helping militants in Yemen affiliated with al-Qaeda. Minh Quang Pham, 29, was charged with traveling from Britain to Yemen in December 2010, where federal prosecutors said he pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. He spent a year in Yemen, where he is accused of receiving “military-type” training and of helping with the group’s online propaganda before returning to Britain. Pham, who is in custody in Britain, is charged with five criminal counts, including conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist group. He faces a mandatory minimum of 40 years in prison if convicted on all counts.
UNITED STATES
Envoy to Myanmar confirmed
The US Senate on Friday confirmed President Barack Obama’s nominee to be the first US ambassador to Myanmar in more than 20 years. Derek Mitchell, a veteran US policymaker on Asia, was confirmed by unanimous consent in one of the final acts by the Senate before it went on a one-week recess. In congratulating Mitchell, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the diplomat “has done an excellent job in his current role as special representative and policy coordinator for Burma … His experience will serve us well in the region as he builds on the strong foundation established by [Charge d’Affaires] Michael Thurston and our embassy team in Rangoon.”
MEXICO
Drug leader extradited to US
The government has extradited a drug gang leader to face charges that he played a key part in the daylight execution of a US consulate employee two years ago, officials said on Friday. Arturo Gallegos is suspected of ordering the killing of a US consulate worker on the streets of Ciudad Juarez in an ongoing effort by the Barrio Azteca drug gang to control a smuggling route, officials said. Local authorities have said the gang ordered the killing because the consular officer was thought to have given visas to members of a rival gang, although this might have been a case of mistaken identity.
COLOMBIA
Court relaxes laws on drugs
The Constitutional Court has ruled that people cannot be jailed for possessing cocaine and marijuana for personal use. The decision ratifies a previous Supreme Court ruling that said people cannot be jailed for possession of a so-called personal dose. A 2009 law placed the dose at up to 20g of marijuana and 1g of cocaine. Thursday’s ruling came in a challenge to a citizen’s security law that specified persons found with up to 1kg of marijuana or 100g of cocaine should be punished with at least 64 months in prison. Chief prosecutor Eduardo Montealegre said on Friday that the decision does not amount to drug legalization.
MEXICO
Explosion injures seven
Authorities say an explosion in a pickup truck has wounded seven people outside city hall in the border city of Nuevo Laredo. Officials said that a grenade went off around 11:15am on Friday in the truck parked outside the main municipal building. The seven victims were hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries, a statement from local officials said. The facade of the city building was damaged, along with nearby cars. Nuevo Laredo has been the scene of brutal battles between the Zetas cartel and its former ally, the Gulf cartel.
PANAMA
Canal plan behind schedule
A massive project aiming to widen the Panama Canal has fallen six months behind schedule, meaning the new locks may not be operational until 2015, the waterway’s chief administrator said on Friday. “The company is trying to catch up with lost time,” Panama Canal Authority chief executive officer Alberto Aleman Zubieta said in an interview aired on television station Telemetro. The project was originally scheduled for completion in 2014. Roughly 5 percent of international commerce passes through the waterway, an 80km stretch connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The new locks will accommodate larger ships with a capacity of 12,000 containers — instead of those with 5,000 containers currently able to navigate the canal.
UNITED STATES
Stolen Dali recovered
The Postal Inspection Service says a stolen Salvador Dali painting has been mailed back to New York from Europe and was intercepted at Kennedy International Airport. The US$150,000 work of art was swiped from a Madison Avenue art gallery last week by a man who walked out with the watercolor and ink painting in a shopping bag. Inspection service spokeswoman Donna Harris told the New York Times the gallery received an e-mail this week that said the painting had been sent back. A tracking number was included. The gallery contacted police and the painting was intercepted on Friday. No arrests have been made.
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
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