LITHUANIA
Vaccine comments shut
The nation’s biggest news portals on Wednesday said they were switching off public comments on their articles about COVID-19 vaccines to curb conspiracy theories. About 71 percent of adults in the nation of 2.8 million people are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, but infection rates have surged in recent days. “We are showing solidarity with the state and society with the common effort to disable the unfounded misinformation spread by anti-vaxxers,” Association of Online Media head Arnas Marcinkus said. “The success of the vaccination campaign must be our common cause, without excluding the government or the media. We all need to find solutions to get out of the pandemic,” he said.
POLAND
Canadian wins Chopin prize
Canadian musician Bruce Xiaoyu Liu (劉曉禹) on Thursday won the top prize at the prestigious Chopin international piano competition. The decision came after several hours of deliberations by a 17-person international jury. The winner receives a 40,000 euros (US$46,558) prize and gold medal. The second prize ex aequo went to Alexander Gadjiev and Kyohei Sorita, while Martin Garcia came in third.
UNITED STATES
Hypersonic tech concerns
The White House has raised concerns about Chinese hypersonic missile technology through “diplomatic channels,” press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Wednesday. Asked by reporters as he was boarding Air Force One for a trip to Pennsylvania whether he was concerned about reports that Beijing had tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic weapon, President Joe Biden said: “Yes.” China has denied the reports.
GERMANY
Pandemic novels coming
This week’s Frankfurt book fair, the world’s oldest and largest, brings with it the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic novels. Some of the best-known authors have pandemic tales on the way, with Jodi Picoult finding inspiration in a tourist stranded abroad, while Margaret Atwood is teaming up with the likes of Dave Eggers and John Grisham on a “collaborative novel” about Manhattan residents thrown together by lockdown. “We members of the human race have been through a very difficult time here on planet Earth, and it’s not over yet,” Atwood told the Frankfurt fair via video link on Tuesday. “Already the writers have begun to bear witness,” said the Canadian author, who is editing the novel Fourteen Days: An Unauthorised Gathering, slated for release next year.
UNITED STATES
Trump to launch ‘truth’ app
Former president Donald Trump is to launch his own social media app, TRUTH Social, that he said would “stand up to Big Tech” companies such as Twitter and Facebook that have barred him from their platforms. “We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American President has been silenced. This is unacceptable,” Trump said in a statement included in the release.
BRAZIL
Bolsonaro says not guilty
President Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday rejected accusations by a senate committee report that said his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic constituted crimes against humanity and other offenses. “We know that we are guilty of absolutely nothing. We know that we did the right thing from the first moment,” he said, as the committee recommended that he face at least 10 charges.
NORTH KOREA
US ‘overreacting’ to missile
The government yesterday said that the US was overreacting to its missile test and questioned the sincerity of Washington’s offers of talks. Pyongyang has said that its weapons tests are aimed at boosting its defense capabilities just as other countries do, accusing the US, South Korea and the UN of adopting a hostile policy and “double standards” toward it. This week’s test of a new ballistic missile from a submarine was the country’s normal activity to carry out its mid and long-term defense plan, and was not aimed at the US or any other country, an unnamed spokesperson at Pyongyang’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the Korean Central News Agency reported.
CHINA
Gas explosion kills three
Three people were killed and more than 30 injured when gas exploded yesterday at a BBQ restaurant in northeastern Shenyang, state media and district officials said. The explosion shattered windows of nearby buildings and halted traffic, the reports said. Nothing was left of the restaurant except exposed structural beams, videos circulating on social media showed. More than 100 firefighters were sent to the scene, the reports said, adding that the authorities were investigating the cause of the explosion.
INDIA
Flood deaths surpass 150
More than 150 people have died in flooding across the country and neighboring Nepal, officials said yesterday. The northern state of Uttarakhand was badly hit, with 48 confirmed deaths, said S.A. Murugesan, secretary of the state’s disaster management department. At tourist destination Nainital, the main lake broke its banks, submerging the main thoroughfare and damaging bridges and railway tracks. Rescuers were evacuating residents from communities hit by landslides. About 42 people have died in the past week in the southern state of Kerala, the chief minister’s office said in a statement, while at least 77 people have died in Nepal.
SYRIA
Blast rocks US outpost
A US outpost in the country’s south was on Wednesday attacked, but there were no reports of any US casualties from the blast, US officials said. The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that it was too early to say who was responsible for the attack. One of the officials said that it was believed to have been a drone attack. The garrison, known as Tanf, is located in a strategic area near the country’s Tanf border crossing with Iraq and Jordan. The garrison was first set up when Islamic State fighters controlled the country’s east, which borders Iraq, but since the militants were driven out, it is seen as part of a larger US strategy to contain Iran’s military.
RWANDA
‘Hotel Rwanda’ hero ill-fated
Prosecutors on Wednesday said that they would appeal against a 25-year jail sentence handed to Paul Rusesabagina, a one-time hotel manager portrayed as a hero in a Hollywood film about the 1994 genocide. The prosecutors had sought a life sentence for Rusesabagina, 67, a vocal critic of President Paul Kagame. Rusesabagina’s daughter Carine Kanimba quoted what she said was a statement from Rusesabagina’s legal team, which said: “Twenty-five years is already a life sentence. In appealing and asking for more, the prosecution is just revealing how political this trial is.”
‘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