CHINA
Protests halt incinerator
For the second time in a week, a city has announced it would halt plans for a garbage incinerator project following angry protests by residents that underscore growing concern over threats to public health. The government of Nanxian in Hunan Province yesterday said that it would cease all work related to the project and would not start up again without public support. Hundreds of Nanxian residents took to the street on Monday and Tuesday to protest the project, citing pollution concerns, overseas Chinese-language news sites reported. A notice from the local government also urged residents not to take extreme measures or spread rumors.
INDIA
Hindus halt church wedding
A group of hardline Hindu activists and police stormed a church in Madhya Pradesh state and stopped a wedding midway after accusing the pastor of forcefully converting the bride to Christianity, a church official said yesterday. Men belonging to the fringe Bajrang Dal group barged in accompanied by police, who arrested 10 people, church spokesman Mariyosh Josep said. “They said it is a matter of forceful conversion and arrested the bride, the groom, their parents as well pastors of two churches,” he said. “How can you storm into a religious place and stop a ceremony like this? You will never see such a thing happening at a temple or a mosque.” The area police superintendent said the wedding was stopped because the girl was a Hindu and not yet 18, the legal age for women to marry.
IRAQ
Al-Jazeera license revoked
Authorities have revoked the operating license of the pan-Arab satellite network al-Jazeera and closed its offices in Baghdad, accusing it of violating government guidelines issued in 2014 to regulate media “during the war on terror.” Qatar-based al-Jazeera said it was dismayed by the action. “We remain committed to broadcasting news on Iraq to Iraqi people, our viewers in the Arab world and across the world,” the channel said.
SWITZERLAND
Tohti shortlisted for prize
Uighur academic Ilham Tohti, who is serving a life sentence for separatism in a Chinese prison, on Wednesday was named as a finalist for a human rights award for trying to promote dialogue in Xinjiang. He was chosen by the Martin Ennals Foundation, named after the founder of Amnesty International, as one of three candidates for its annual prize recognizing the work of human rights defenders. The other two are Razan Zaitouneh, a Syrian lawyer, and a group of rights advocates in Ethiopia.
RUSSIA
Rocket finally launched
The Roscosmos space agency yesterday successfully launched the first rocket from its new space facility after a last-minute delay the day before. The Soyuz 2.1a booster blasted off from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the early hours yesterday. The agency said in a statement that the three satellites the rocket was carrying orbited several hours later. The launch was originally scheduled for Wednesday, but was called off one-and-a-half minutes before the planned liftoff.
ITALY
Refugees to be fingerprinted
The government is to introduce the fingerprinting of refugees crossing the Mediterranean as soon as they are picked up by rescue boats, officials said. The move follows talks on Wednesday between Minister of the Interior Angelo Alfano and EU Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos in Sicily, where most migrants arrive and are processed at “hotspot” reception centers. The move could help to reduce mounting tensions between Italy and its EU partners over the large numbers of refugees who arrive in Italy, but are not registered there and then travel on to northern Europe.
UNITED STATES
Toddler shoots mother dead
A Wisconsin toddler riding in the back of a car accidentally shot dead his mother with a gun that slid out from under the driver’s seat, US police said on Wednesday. The 26-year-old victim, Patrice Price, was pronounced dead at the scene following Tuesday’s incident in Milwaukee, the local sheriff’s office said. The child, aged two and a half and identified by local media as a boy, fired the 40-caliber gun through the driver’s seat where his mother was at the wheel. The weapon apparently belonged to the victim’s security guard boyfriend, with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper reporting that she was driving his car because hers had been stolen days earlier.
UNITED STATES
Three friars to stand trial
Three Franciscan friars must stand trial on charges linked to their role in supervising a religious brother accused of molesting more than 100 children, nearly all of them at one Pennsylvania high school, a judge ruled on Wednesday. The Reverends Giles Schinelli, Robert D’Aversa and Anthony Criscitelli are charged with child endangerment and conspiracy. Their preliminary hearing concluded on Wednesday with testimony from two FBI agents who organized a chart of Brother Stephen Baker’s alleged victims. More than 90 former Bishop McCort Catholic High School students in Johnstown have settled lawsuits for more than US$8 million claiming Baker molested them. Baker fatally stabbed himself in the heart at the Franciscan’s St Bernardine monastery near Hollidaysburg in early 2013.
MEXICO
Police face torture charges
Three federal police officers and two soldiers are to face trial on torture charges after a video surfaced showing a woman being nearly suffocated with a bag, authorities said on Wednesday. The video, which circulated on social media, shows a policewoman placing a bag over the woman’s head while she is being interrogated. A female soldier also points the muzzle of her assault rifle at the head of the woman, who sobs as she sits barefoot on a dirt floor. Officials said the video captures an incident that took place in February last year in the town of Ajuchitlan del Progreso, Guerrero.
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
A US federal judge on Tuesday ordered US President Donald Trump’s administration to halt efforts to shut down Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks, the news broadcasts of which are funded by the government to export US values to the world. US District Judge Royce Lamberth, who is overseeing six lawsuits from employees and contractors affected by the shutdown of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), ordered the administration to “take all necessary steps” to restore employees and contractors to their positions and resume radio, television and online news broadcasts. USAGM placed more than 1,000
RSS