INDIA
Satya Paul dies aged 78
Indian fashion designer Satya Paul, whose eponymous brand breathed life into the traditional sari, modernizing the garment with funky prints, has died at 78, his family said. Born on Feb. 2, 1942, he first made his mark in the world of fashion retail with the 1980 launch of L’Affaire, India’s first sari boutique, before establishing his own label five years later. His pioneering designs blended Indian handloom techniques with a modern palette, producing saris adorned with polka dots, zebra prints and abstract motifs. Paul passed away at an ashram in the southern city of Coimbatore on Wednesday after suffering a stroke last month, his son Puneet Nanda said. “Those who have been with him at any point in life would recall him as one who showered his love without hesitation or any barriers,” Nanda wrote on Facebook. “It is the greatest testament to him as he went joyously, without fear.”
NEW ZEALAND
Woman dies at beach
A woman has died in what appears to be New Zealand’s first fatal shark attack in eight years, police said yesterday. Emergency services responded late on Thursday afternoon to reports of a woman “injured in the water,” at Waihi Beach, a popular tourist spot 153km drive southeast of Auckland, a police statement said. “Indications are that she had been injured by a shark,” Police Inspector Dean Anderson said. She was dragged from the water with leg wounds and attempts to resuscitate her on the beach failed, media reported. The woman, whose identify has not been made public, was scheduled to undergo an autopsy yesterday, Anderson said. The last fatal shark attack in New Zealand was in February 2013 when a 46-year-old swimmer was mauled at Muriwai Beach.
INDONESIA
Gay officer loses lawsuit
A gay police officer dismissed from the force because of his sexual orientation has lost his legal fight to be reinstated, after a Central Java court rejected his lawsuit, his lawyers said on Thursday. Tri Teguh Pujianto, a 31-year-old former police brigadier, was fired in 2018 after 10 years in the job, after police from a different town apprehended him and his partner on Valentine’s Day. Teguh’s lawyers from the non-governmental organization Community Legal Aid Institute in a statement said the local administrative court had rejected his suit. The court’s Web site confirmed that a decision had been made, but did not state the outcome. Aisya Humaida, one of Teguh’s lawyers, said they were still considering their options, including an appeal. Deemed a landmark case by rights groups, it was initially thrown out in 2019 because a judge told Teguh that an internal police appeals process had yet to be completed. He resubmitted his lawsuit last August.
FRANCE
Duck cull urged
Producers of foie gras on Thursday called for a mass preventive cull of ducks to try to halt the spread of a severe strain of bird flu that is ripping through poultry farms in the southwest of the country. The highly pathogenic H5N8 virus was first detected in a bird in a pet shop on the Mediterranean island of Corsica in November last year before spreading to duck farms on the mainland last month. Several European countries have reported cases of infection, five years after a major outbreak prompted the slaughter of millions of ducks in France. “The virus is stronger than us. New clusters are constantly emerging,” said Marie-Pierre Pe, the head of France’s CIFOQ federation of foie gras producers.
CANADA
Compensation talks sought
Iran cannot unilaterally decide compensation for the families of victims killed in a Ukrainian passenger plane mistakenly shot down by Tehran a year ago, Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois-Philippe Champagne said on Thursday. In an e-mail on the eve of the first anniversary of the downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, Champagne told reporters that “substantive discussions with Iran” were yet to take place over the issue. The crash killed 176 people, including 85 Canadian citizens and permanent residents. “The issue of compensation will not be set through unilateral statements by Iran, but rather be subject to state-to-state negotiations,” Champagne said. Amid heightened US-Iran tensions in January last year, the Islamic republic said that its forces had accidentally shot down the Kiev-bound Boeing 737-800. Last month Iran said that it would pay US$150,000 in compensation to each victim’s family.
UNITED STATES
Bomber Tsarnaev sues
Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has sued the federal government for US$250,000 over his treatment at the Colorado prison where he is serving a life sentence. Tsarnaev, 26, calls his treatment in the handwritten suit filed on Monday “unlawful, unreasonable and discriminatory.” He cites the confiscation of a white baseball cap and bandana that he bought at the prison commissary, and a limit of three showers per week, the Boston Herald reported. His treatment at the supermax Federal Correctional Complex Florence is contributing to his “mental and physical decline,” he says in the lawsuit. Tsarnaev alleges that his cap and bandana were confiscated by prison guards “because, by wearing it, I was ‘disrespecting’ the FBI and the victims” of the April 15, 2013, bombing. During the investigation, Tsarnaev was referred to by law enforcement as “White Hat” when he was seen on surveillance video leaving the scene of the bombings.
UNITED STATES
Neil Sheehan dies
Neil Sheehan, a reporter and Pulitzer Prize-winning author who broke the story of the Pentagon Papers for the New York Times and who chronicled the deception at the heart of the Vietnam War in his book about the conflict, died on Thursday. He was 84. Sheehan died of complications from Parkinson’s disease, said his daughter, Catherine Sheehan Bruno. His account of the Vietnam War, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam, won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction in 1988. Sheehan served as a war correspondent for United Press International and then the Times in the early days of US involvement in the Vietnam War in the 1960s.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the