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.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
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