CHINA
Internet governance urged
Facebook founder and chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg held a rare meeting on Saturday with China’s propaganda chief, at a time when Chinese authorities are tightening control over their cyberspace. Politburo Standing Committee member Liu Yunshan (劉雲山) told Zuckerberg that he hopes Facebook can share its experience with Chinese companies to help “Internet development better benefit the people of all countries,” the official Xinhua news agency reported. Zuckerberg was in Beijing to attend an economic forum. China has called for the creation of a global Internet “governance system” and cooperation between countries to regulate Internet use, stepping up efforts to promote controls that activists complain stifle free expression. Facebook and other Western social media Web sites including Twitter are banned in China. Zuckerberg has long been courting China’s leaders in a so far futile attempt to access the country with the world’s largest number of Internet users — 668 million as of last year.
GREECE
Two refugees found dead
Two refugees were yesterday found dead on a boat that arrived on the island of Lesbos on the first day of the implementation of an agreement between the EU and Turkey on handling new refugee arrivals. Medical personnel performed CPR on the two men, but failed to revive them. The overcrowded boat was carrying dozens of refugees from nearby Turkey yesterday, the first day for the implementation of a refugee agreement between the EU and Turkey. It stipulates how the new arrivals from Turkey are to be processed and returned. About 2,500 refugees currently on Lesbos and other islands are being taken to mainland Greece where they are placed in shelters before EU-wide relocation.
SPAIN
Bus crash claims 14 lives
Fourteen people were killed and 43 injured yesterday when a bus carrying foreign students crashed, regional authorities in Catalonia said. The students were enrolled at Barcelona University as part of the European Erasmus exchange program, said Jordi Jane, who heads interior matters for the Catalonia region, adding the nationalities had not yet been established. The accident occurred just before 6am near the small town of Freginals, about 150km south of Barcelona, as the bus was returning from a traditional festival in Valencia. The driver “hit the railing on the right and swerved to the left so violently that the bus veered onto the other side of the highway,” Jane said. The bus then hit a car coming in the opposite direction, injuring two people inside, he added.
ISRAEL
Arson attack suspected
Police yesterday said that a Palestinian home had been set on fire near the site of an arson attack that killed three Palestinians last year. Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said the suspected arson attack took place earlier yesterday in the West Bank village of Duma. Palestinian officials said attackers broke Ibrahim Dawabsheh’s bedroom window and set his house on fire. Dawabsheh is a relative of last year’s victims and a key witness to the attack. He is testifying before an Israeli court in the suspected perpetrators’ trial. He was unharmed, but his wife suffered from smoke inhalation. In July last year, suspected Jewish settlers hurled firebombs into a home, killing 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh. His mother, Riham, and father, Saad, later died of their wounds. Ali’s four-year-old brother Ahmad survived.
A colossal explosion in the sky, unleashing energy hundreds of times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. A blinding flash nearly as bright as the sun. Shockwaves powerful enough to flatten everything for miles. It might sound apocalyptic, but a newly detected asteroid nearly the size of a football field now has a greater than 1 percent chance of colliding with Earth in about eight years. Such an impact has the potential for city-level devastation, depending on where it strikes. Scientists are not panicking yet, but they are watching closely. “At this point, it’s: ‘Let’s pay a lot of attention, let’s
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
The administration of US President Donald Trump has appointed to serve as the top public diplomacy official a former speech writer for Trump with a history of doubts over US foreign policy toward Taiwan and inflammatory comments on women and minorities, at one point saying that "competent white men must be in charge." Darren Beattie has been named the acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a senior US Department of State official said, a role that determines the tone of the US' public messaging in the world. Beattie requires US Senate confirmation to serve on a permanent basis. "Thanks to