CHINA
Woman inks up Xi poster
A woman who live-streamed herself throwing ink onto a picture of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has been detained, according to activists. The US-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders activist network said authorities have also taken the woman’s father and a Chinese artist into custody after they sought to publicize her plight on social media. The woman, who has been identified by activists as 28-year-old Dong Yaoqiong (董瑤瓊), went live on Twitter on July 4 in a video in which she accused the Chinese Communist Party of employing “oppressive brain control.”
BANGLADESH
Drug war death toll hits 200
The death toll from a contentious Philippines-style war on drugs since May has hit 200, a local rights group said yesterday. The crackdown was launched to smash the surging trade in yaba, a cheap methamphetamine and caffeine pill, which authorities say has spread to almost every village and town. “So many people have been killed in such a short period of time,” said Sheepa Hafiza, executive director of the Ain o Salish Kendra rights group. “We condemn these extrajudicial killings and want fair investigations into each of these killings,” she added. About 25,000 alleged drug dealers have been arrested, home ministry spokesman Sharif Mahmud Apu told reporters.
JORDAN
Prehistoric bread uncovered
Charred remains of a flatbread baked about 14,500 years ago in a stone fireplace at a site in northeastern Jordan have shown researchers of a discovery detailed on Monday that hunter-gatherers in the Eastern Mediterranean achieved the cultural milestone of bread-making far earlier than previously known, more than 4,000 years before plant cultivation took root. “We now have to assess whether there was a relationship between bread production and the origins of agriculture,” said Amaia Arranz-Otaegui, a University of Copenhagen postdoctoral researcher in archeobotany and lead author of the research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
UNITED KINGDOM
Modifying baby genes backed
The creation of babies whose DNA has been altered to give them what parents perceive to be the best chances in life has received a cautious green light in a landmark report from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. “It is our view that genome editing is not morally unacceptable in itself,” said Karen Yeung, chair of the Nuffield working group and professor of law, ethics and informatics at the University of Birmingham. “They acknowledge that this may worsen inequality and social division, but don’t believe that should stand in the way,” said Marcy Darnovsky of the Center for Genetics and Society in California.
UNITED STATES
Volcano boat tours continue
Hawaiian tour boat operators plan to continue taking visitors to see lava, but will follow the US Coast Guard’s revised policy and stay farther away after an explosion caused molten rock to barrel through the roof of a vessel, injuring 23 people. The coast guard had allowed boat operators to apply for a special license to get within 50m from where the Kilauea volcano’s lava oozes into the sea, but on Monday changed the distance to 300m. “As we were exiting the zone, all of a sudden everything around us exploded,” said Shane Turpin, the owner and captain of the vessel that was hit by lava. “It was everywhere.”
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
Three sisters from Ohio who inherited a dime kept in a bank vault for more than 40 years knew it had some value, but they had no idea just how much until just a few years ago. The extraordinarily rare coin, struck by the US Mint in San Francisco in 1975, could bring more than US$500,000, said Ian Russell, president of GreatCollections, which specializes in currency and is handling an online auction that ends next month. What makes the dime depicting former US president Franklin D. Roosevelt so valuable is a missing “S” mint mark for San Francisco, one of just two
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