HUNGARY
Teachers, students protest
Thousands of teachers, students and parents protested in the capital on Saturday in solidarity with teachers fired from top Budapest secondary schools for taking strike action that the government deemed unlawful. Teachers have called for civil disobedience to demand higher wages, a solution to a deepening shortage of teachers and the right to strike. After a nationwide teachers’ strike in January, Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s administration restricted strike action. Several teachers from three leading Budapest secondary schools were dismissed by an order from the Ministry of the Interior on Wednesday for joining demonstrations and not holding classes. Students held up banners “Hands off our teachers,” and “Shame on Orban” at the rally in Budapest.
HONDURAS
Rights to be suspended
The government on Saturday announced that it would suspend some constitutional rights in areas of two main cities controlled by criminal groups. The rights would be suspended under a national security emergency that would last for 30 days and be implemented from tomorrow in some of the poorest areas of the capital, Tegucigalpa, and the northern city of San Pedro Sula. “The partial state of exception will enter into force on Tuesday, December 6 at 6pm for 30 days, to promote the gradual activity of economic development, investment, commerce and in public spaces,” the country’s security secretariat said in a statement. The cities have been struggling with a so-called “war tax,” in which gangs offer protection or say that those who pay up would not be killed. The gangs have torched buses and killed drivers who did not pay the fee, prompting businesses and people to pay out of fear.
UNITED STATES
Movie home to be preserved
The listing agent for the Victorian home featured in the The Goonies film in Astoria, Oregon, last week said that the likely new owner is a fan of the classic coming-of-age movie about friendships and treasure hunting, and he promises to preserve and protect the landmark. The 1896 home with sweeping views of the Columbia River flowing into the Pacific Ocean was listed last month with an asking price of nearly US$1.7 million. Jordan Miller of John L. Scott Real Estate said the sale is expected to close in the middle of next month, the Oregonian/OregonLive reported.
UNITED STATES
Vaccine mandate to stay
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said he wants to keep the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate in place to protect the health of the troops, as Republican governors and lawmakers press to rescind it. This past week more than 20 Republican governors sent a letter to President Joe Biden asking that the administration remove the mandate, saying it has hurt the National Guard’s ability to recruit troops. Those troops are activated by governors to respond to natural disasters or unrest. Congress might consider legislation this coming week to end the mandate as a requirement to gather enough support to pass this years’ defense budget, which is already two months late. Austin said he would not comment on pressure from Capitol Hill. “We lost a million people to this virus,” Austin told reporters traveling with him Saturday. “A million people died in the United States of America. We lost hundreds in DOD [the Department of Defense]. So this mandate has kept people healthy,” Austin added.
IRAN
Tehran executes four people
The government yesterday put to death four people accused of working with Israel’s intelligence service, the judiciary said. “This morning, the sentences of four main members of the gang of mobsters related to the Zionist intelligence service were executed,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online Web site reported. The government carried out the sentences four days after the Islamic republic’s supreme court upheld the penalty of capital punishment for “their intelligence cooperation with the Zionist regime and kidnapping,” the Mizan Online said. There was no recourse to appeal after Wednesday’s decision, it added. Mizan identified the men as Hossein Ordoukhanzadeh, Shahin Imani Mahmoudabad, Milad Ashrafi Atbatan and Manouchehr Shahbandi Bojandi, without elaborating on their backgrounds.
IRAN
New nuclear plant to be built
The government on Saturday began construction on a new nuclear power plant in the country’s southwest, state TV announced, amid tensions with the US over sweeping sanctions imposed after Washington pulled out of the Islamic republic’s nuclear deal with world powers. The new 300-megawatt plant, known as Karoon, is to take eight years to build and cost about US$2 billion, the country’s state television and radio agency reported. The plant is to be located in Khuzestan Province, near its western border with Iraq, it said.
ISRAEL
Thief sets off airport security
A Palestinian car thief yesterday rammed through a checkpoint on the way to Ben Gurion Airport, authorities said, setting off a security alert in what they described as the result of poor navigation on his part rather than an attempted attack. Video circulated on social media showed passengers in the departure terminal crouching alongside their luggage as instructions sounded over loudspeakers. Police said the suspect arrived at the airport checkpoint in a stolen vehicles and raced through toward the main terminal. During a brief pursuit, he was shot and arrested. It was at least the fifth such incident in recent months, an Israel Airports Authority spokesperson said. “It happens almost every week,” a police spokesperson said.
TURKEY
Court jails PKK member
A court on Saturday jailed a convicted member of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) a day after Sweden extradited him, state media reported. Mahmut Tat was sentenced to more than six years in jail for being a member of the PKK. He fled to Sweden in 2015, but Stockholm rejected his asylum request. Tat arrived in Istanbul on Friday night after Sweden detained and extradited him, the Anadolu news agency reported. Turkish police arrested him soon after arriving at Istanbul airport and referred him to a court on Saturday, which sent him to jail, the news agency said. After Russia invaded Ukraine, Finland and Sweden in May dropped decades of military nonalignment and sought to join NATO. That requires a consensus within the US-led defense alliance, but Turkey and Hungary have so far not ratified their membership. Turkey has demanded the Nordic countries take a tougher stance on Kurdish groups it deems “terrorists” in exchange for its backing. Tat’s former lawyer in Sweden criticized the decision to extradite him. “It’s awful. It isn’t a matter just for him, it’s a question primarily for Swedish democracy and human rights,” Abdullah Deveci told Swedish news agency TT.
‘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