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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
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