NEW ZEALAND
Police probe child deaths
Three children who had just moved from South Africa have died in what police yesterday said they are investigating as homicide. Police said they were not looking for any possible suspects beyond those involved in the incident late on Thursday at a home in the South Island town of Timaru. They said emergency services had found a woman at the address who had been hospitalized in stable condition. Police said the children were three-year-old twins and a seven-year-old who were all siblings. They had moved out of a mandatory COVID-19 quarantine facility within the past week, police said. Inspector Dave Gaskin, the Aoraki area commander, said the deaths would be “incredibly distressing” for residents of Timaru, particularly after five teenagers from the town were killed in a car crash last month.
HONG KONG
Group ordered to delete sites
Police ordered organizers of the annual Tiananmen Square Massacre vigil to delete their online presence, advocates said on Thursday. The Hong Kong Alliance is the latest opposition group to be targeted by the National Security Law that Beijing imposed to wipe out dissent. The alliance said officers invoked the law to order the removal of its Web site and social media platforms, including its Facebook account. The group said it would comply.
THE NETHERLANDS
Van Gogh drawing identified
A pencil drawing of a broken old man, head in hands looking utterly exhausted, has been identified as a work by Vincent van Gogh, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam said on Thursday. Teio Meedendorp, a senior researcher at the museum, said it was a “spectacular” discovery shining light on Van Gogh’s early career as an artist living in The Hague, a time less well known than his years in Paris or the south of France. The drawing is similar to a highly regarded one in the museum’s collection called Worn Out. This is an earlier take on the same subject, and has been titled Study for Worn Out.
MEXICO
Police kill 9 in shoot-out
Soldiers and police on Thursday killed nine suspected gunmen in shoot-outs near the US border. The government of the northern border state of Coahuila said that state police officers came under fire while patrolling a dirt road southwest of the border city of Nuevo Laredo. The state said that soldiers were called in for reinforcement and that they pursued and killed the attackers following a confrontation. Of the two vehicles found at the scene, one was a truck fitted with homemade steel-plate armor. Such trucks, known as “monsters,” are often used by drug gangs in the region. The state said 10 weapons were found at the scene, including a .50 caliber sniper rifle.
BRAZIL
Bolsonaro to flaunt NY rules
President Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday said he would attend next week’s UN conclave in New York even though he is not vaccinated, effectively defying city authorities who announced proof-of-vaccination requirements for all attending leaders and diplomats. “Next week I will be at the UN General Assembly, where I will give an opening speech” on Tuesday next week, he said during a social media broadcast. On Wednesday, the New York mayor’s office wrote to the UN laying out the guidelines, including that delegates must show proof of vaccination to enter the debate hall. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he could not impose the requirement on heads of state.
‘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
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