CHINA
No Xinjiang trip yet: EU
EU ambassadors in Beijing will not visit Xinjiang this week after receiving a government invitation, as such a trip needs “careful preparation,” a spokesperson for the bloc said yesterday. A spokesperson for the EU Delegation to China said it, along with embassies of member states, had on Thursday received a formal invitation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to send ambassadors to Xinjiang from tomorrow through Friday. “While the EU and EU member states in principle welcome the invitation, such a visit requires careful preparation in order to be meaningful,” the spokesperson said. “The EU remains open to a future visit taking into account our expectations.”
SOUTH KOREA
Northerners return to office
Some North Korean officials yesterday returned to an inter-Korean liaison office in the border town of Kaesong, three days after the North abruptly withdrew its entire staff citing unspecified instructions from “higher-level authorities,” the Unification Ministry said in a statement. It was not immediately clear why some workers were sent back or whether Pyongyang would restore a full staff, it said. Those who returned told Seoul officials that they came to work their usual shifts.
AUSTRALIA
Cyclone Veronica weakens
Slow-moving Cyclone Veronica was weakening yesterday from a Category 3 storm, on a scale in which 5 is the strongest, to a Category 2, the Bureau of Meteorology said. The storm was expected to continue to track west away from the coast of the sparsely populated Pilbara region of Western Australia state and weaken to below cyclone strength late yesterday, the bureau said. However, it is still on track to hit the nation’s biggest gas export hub. There have been no reports of injuries or major structural damage from two major cyclones that hit the coast over the weekend, but damage assessment had only just begun yesterday.
NEW ZEALAND
Ardern sets quick China trip
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern yesterday said that she would travel to China on Sunday to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Premier Li Keqiang (李克強). She told a news conference that the trip had been trimmed down to a one-day visit in the wake of the Christchurch mosque attacks that killed 50 people and she would return home on Tuesday next week. “It was intended to be a longer visit, including a business delegation, but under the circumstances that just didn’t seem appropriate and I do want to acknowledge that our hosts, China, have been incredibly accommodating of those needs,” Ardern said. Talks would include discussions around an upgrade to the free-trade agreement as well as other issues, she said.
AUSTRALIA
NSW coalition wins poll
The Liberal-National government has won a third term in New South Wales (NSW), giving heart to their embattled federal colleagues who face their own tough election in May. Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Saturday became the first woman to be elected as premier in the state, after taking the leadership two years ago. While suffering a 2.5 percent swing away from her coalition, she said she expects to form a majority government with between 47 and 49 seats in the 93 seat lower house of parliament. “We will do everything we can to support you and your government’s re-election,” Berejiklian told Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Saturday.
UNITED STATES
Parkland student dies
A student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, has died in “an apparent suicide,” police said on Sunday, less than a week after a 19-year-old survivor of last year’s massacre at the school took her own life. The student’s death occurred on Saturday evening and is under investigation, Coral Springs Police spokesman Tyler Reik said. The student’s name, age and gender were not disclosed, he said. The Miami Herald reported that the suicide victim was a male sophomore at the school when 14 other students and three staff members were killed on Feb. 14 last year. A week ago, former student Sydney Aiello took her own life, according to her family. Aiello was suffering from survivor’s guilt and had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, her mother told CBS Miami.
UNITED KINGDOM
Parties oppose arms sales
Five opposition parties have called on the government to end arms sales to Saudi Arabia on the fourth anniversary of the Yemen civil war, saying it has contributed to a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. The letter to Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Jeremy Hunt, signed by leaders of the Labour, Scottish National, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and Green parties, comes as a fragile truce negotiated in December hangs by a thread. They said it is shameful that the government has not used all means at its disposal to put pressure on Saudi Arabia “to abide by basic human rights laws.”
FRANCE
Injured activist probe opens
Nice prosecutors have opened an inquiry to try to establish what happened on Saturday when 73-year-old veteran activist Genevieve Legay suffered head injuries during a “yellow vest” protest. Her daughter later said that she had suffered several fractures to the skull and subdural haematomas. Arie Alimi, the family’s lawyer, said that they would be filing a formal complaint against the authorities for violence against “a vulnerable person.” Photographs and video footage from the protest showed her carrying a rainbow-colored flag with the word “peace” written on it.
MEXICO
President vows search
Families of missing people on Sunday swarmed President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador after he vowed to ramp up efforts to identify thousands of bodies. They held pictures of their loved ones or pressed large envelopes with details of their cases into his right hand. The remains of at least 26,000 people are in government custody at forensic institutions nationwide, waiting to be identified, while thousands more people are missing, their bodies presumed to be in clandestine graves. Lopez Obrador said that his government would allot all the resources and manpower necessary — “there’s no financial ceiling” — to identify remains and give families some sense of closure.
SWEDEN
Bill backs cash banking
Key lawmakers said that the government is likely to push through a proposal to force banks to keep offering cash to customers who require it as the nation grapples with how to balance the rapid transformation into a cashless society. The proposed legislation would make it mandatory for banks that provide checking accounts and have more than 70 billion kronor (US$7.6 billion) in deposits from the public to offer cash withdrawals and handle daily receipts. It has been roundly criticized by the banking industry and called potentially illegal.
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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