GERMANY
Scholz issues pledge
Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday pledged not to ignore “controversies” during a high-stakes trip to China this week, which has sparked a storm of criticism. “We seek cooperation, when it is in the interest of both sides. We will not ignore controversies,” he wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper, ahead of his visit today together with a business delegation. Scholz listed “difficult topics” that he would raise, including respect for civil liberties, the rights of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang and free and fair world trade. He would be the first EU leader to visit China since late 2019.
BRAZIL
Bolsonaro urges calm
Outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday asked his supporters to “unblock the roads” and demonstrate elsewhere as they push for military intervention to keep him in power. The far-right leaders’ supporters are rallying in front of military installations in major cities and have blocked highways in more than half the country’s states. The demonstrators, unwilling to accept the results of Bolsonaro’s Sunday election defeat to leftist ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, have clogged roads and caused nationwide disruptions for three straight days.
BELGIUM
Meloni to meet EU leaders
Italy’s new far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was to meet EU chiefs in Brussels yesterday for the first time since her election, with the energy crisis expected to dominate the agenda. Meloni has vowed to put Italy’s interests first and the trip would be closely watched amid fears of turbulent relations ahead between the populist government in Rome and the bloc’s powerhouses. “Brussels should not do what Rome can do best,” Meloni was quoted as saying in a book to be published today, slamming “a Europe that is invasive in small things and absent in big matters.”
BAHRAIN
Francis aims to foster ties
Pope Francis, leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics, was yesterday to travel to the Persian Gulf state to foster ties with Islam in a voyage overshadowed by criticism of human rights abuses. The second voyage by a pope to the Arabian Peninsula after Francis’ 2019 trip to the United Arab Emirates is similarly aimed at encouraging interfaith dialogue between Muslims and Christians, and would include the pontiff leading a prayer for peace at a vast cathedral opened last year. Francis, 85, who would likely use a wheelchair due to recurring knee pain was to conduct a “courtesy visit” to King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa following a welcoming ceremony.
BELIZE
Storm causes flooding
Tropical Storm Lisa yesterday slowed after making landfall in the country, causing flooding and plunging parts of the nation into darkness as it churned westward. The US National Hurricane Center has downgraded Lisa from a hurricane to a tropical storm, saying that as of midnight the eye hovered about 135km outside of Belize City and was moving toward Guatemala and southeastern Mexico at 19kph. For the next day or so, the storm system is expected to pack a gusty punch and deliver heavy rain, swells and flash flooding to Central America’s northern coast and the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula, further weakening as it moves inland.
‘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
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in