CHINA
Police investigate ‘rumors’
Police are investigating a woman for allegedly fabricating “rumors” that Beijing would enter a three-day lockdown, officials said yesterday, after the claims on social media prompted panic buying across the capital. Residents rushed to supermarkets on Thursday to stock up on groceries as rumors spread that stay-at-home orders would soon be announced. Instead of a lockdown, officials announced a three-day mass testing drive for most of the city and told residents there was no need to panic-buy food. Beijing police said in a statement on social media that they have launched an investigation into a woman surnamed Yao (姚). The 38-year-old “fabricated and published the relevant rumors,” the statement said, adding that police have taken “criminal compulsory measures” against her — a broad term that can refer to detention, arrest or home surveillance.
CHILE
Journalist dies after protest
A journalist who was shot near May Day protests in the capital, Santiago, died on Thursday, a hospital official said, as the country’s president promised there would be no “impunity” in the case. The death of 30-year-old Francisca Sandoval was also confirmed in a statement by the online community outlet that she wrote for. “Francisca did not leave us. They killed her,” wrote the Senal 3 de La Victoria site, without elaborating on who it blamed for her death. Sandoval was shot in the head during violent clashes on the sidelines of a union demonstration organized to mark International Workers’ Day on May 1. Two other people were also injured by the gunfire. Three alleged perpetrators of the shooting were arrested last week, and the person suspected of shooting Sandoval was placed in pre-trial detention for manslaughter and illegal possession of a firearm.
SLOVENIA
Death toll rises in blast
A worker hurt in an explosion at a chemical factory has died from his injuries, bringing the total number of people killed in the accident to six, local media reported yesterday. The blast occurred on Thursday when a cistern exploded at a resin factory belonging to chemicals company Melamin in the municipality of Kocevje. “Unfortunately our fears have been confirmed,” Melamin general manager Srecko Stefanic told reporters. The strength of the explosion “did not leave them any chance of survival,” he said. Initially, five people were reported to have been killed and six others injured, including two who were hospitalized with serious burns. One of the two has since died in hospital and the other is still in critical condition, public radio reported. The tragedy was “caused by a human error,” Stefanic said, declining to give more information until the investigation has been completed.
COLOMBIA
Court allows assisted suicide
The nation on Thursday became the first Latin American country to authorize assisted medical suicide for patients under a doctor’s supervision, a Supreme Court of Justice ruling said. The country’s highest court ruled that a doctor can help a seriously ill patient take their own life by consuming a lethal drug, without risking going to jail. It already allows euthanasia — where a doctor is the one to administer a life-ending drug to a patient. “The doctor who helps someone with intense suffering or serious illness and who freely decides to dispose of their own life, acts within the constitutional framework,” read the court ruling that passed by six votes to three.
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
The administration of US President Donald Trump has appointed to serve as the top public diplomacy official a former speech writer for Trump with a history of doubts over US foreign policy toward Taiwan and inflammatory comments on women and minorities, at one point saying that "competent white men must be in charge." Darren Beattie has been named the acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a senior US Department of State official said, a role that determines the tone of the US' public messaging in the world. Beattie requires US Senate confirmation to serve on a permanent basis. "Thanks to
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
‘IMPOSSIBLE’: The authors of the study, which was published in an environment journal, said that the findings appeared grim, but that honesty is necessary for change Holding long-term global warming to 2°C — the fallback target of the Paris climate accord — is now “impossible,” according to a new analysis published by leading scientists. Led by renowned climatologist James Hansen, the paper appears in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and concludes that Earth’s climate is more sensitive to rising greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought. Compounding the crisis, Hansen and colleagues argued, is a recent decline in sunlight-blocking aerosol pollution from the shipping industry, which had been mitigating some of the warming. An ambitious climate change scenario outlined by the UN’s climate