CHINA
CCP boss wants to see love
The different ethnic groups who live in Xinjiang should make friends with each other to improve trust between them, Beijing’s top official there was quoted as saying yesterday. Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Secretary Zhang Chunxian (張春賢) said during a meeting in Urumqi that more effort was needed to boost ethnic harmony. “We must, starting from officials in leadership positions, broadly develop different ethnicities making friends with each other,” he said in comments carried by the Xinjiang Daily. Xinjiang needs a society in which “all ethnicities respect, trust, love and help one another,” he said.
DUBAI
Saudis regret Yemen deaths
A Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen regrets civilian deaths, which it says are unintentional, and is improving its targeting mechanisms with Western help, the alliance said on Sunday. A UN report seen by reporters on Wednesday last week said the Saudi-led coalition has targeted civilians in Yemen, documenting 119 sorties it said related to violations of international humanitarian law. In a news conference in Riyadh on Sunday, Saudi coalition spokesman Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri acknowledged mistakes in air operations, but mostly defended the alliance’s record.
CHINA
Rinpoche’s killers sentenced
Two men have been sentenced to death for stabbing to death a British monk who founded Europe’s first Tibetan monastery over a financial dispute, the state-run China News Service said late on Sunday. Akong Tulku Rinpoche, cofounder of Scotland’s Samye Ling monastery, was found dead with multiple stab wounds at his home in Chengdu in 2013. Tudeng Gusang and Tsering Banjue were convicted of killing Akong and two other men, while an accomplice was sentenced to three years in jail. The killings were linked to a dispute over a 2.7 million yuan (US$410,000) payment.
NIGERIA
Scores killed in raids
More than 50 people were killed in a series of raids on northeastern villages that officials say was the work of Boko Haram. The exact death toll of Saturday’s night attack was uncertain, after the militants stormed several settlements on the outskirts of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno Province. Residents said the gunmen arrived in two cars and a motorbike and set upon the villages. Musa Bawa, a resident of a village that was attacked, said more than 100 people had been killed.
CHINA
an acquitted after decades
A man jailed more than two decades ago for murder was acquitted yesterday. Chen Man was handed a suspended death sentence for killing a man on Hainan Island in November 1994, but the high court of Zhejiang Province, where he was originally convicted, pronounced Chen not guilty due to “lack of evidence,” it said. Chen’s case was re-opened in April last year after he appealed. Chen — who is in his early 50s — was convicted solely on the basis of confessions which were “inconsistent” during two trials which convicted him, the judge said.
MEXICO
Birthday party turns deadly
A teenager’s 15th birthday party became the scene of a ghastly massacre in Guerrero state, where 11 people were fatally shot, officials said on Sunday. The shooting occurred on Friday at a quinceanera coming-of-age celebration.
As the sun sets on another scorching Yangon day, the hot and bothered descend on the Myanmar city’s parks, the coolest place to spend an evening during yet another power blackout. A wave of exceptionally hot weather has blasted Southeast Asia this week, sending the mercury to 45°C and prompting thousands of schools to suspend in-person classes. Even before the chaos and conflict unleashed by the military’s 2021 coup, Myanmar’s creaky and outdated electricity grid struggled to keep fans whirling and air conditioners humming during the hot season. Now, infrastructure attacks and dwindling offshore gas reserves mean those who cannot afford expensive diesel
Does Argentine President Javier Milei communicate with a ghost dog whose death he refuses to accept? Forced to respond to questions about his mental health, the president’s office has lashed out at “disrespectful” speculation. Twice this week, presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni was asked about Milei’s English Mastiff, Conan, said to have died seven years ago. Milei, 53, had Conan cloned, and today is believed to own four copies he refers to as “four-legged children.” Or is it five? In an interview with CNN this month, Milei referred to his five dogs, whose faces and names he had engraved on the presidential baton. Conan,
French singer Kendji Girac, who was seriously injured by a gunshot this week, wanted to “fake” his suicide to scare his partner who was threatening to leave him, prosecutors said on Thursday. The 27-year-old former winner of France’s version of The Voice was found wounded after police were called to a traveler camp in Biscarrosse on France’s southwestern coast. Girac told first responders he had accidentally shot himself while tinkering with a Colt .45 automatic pistol he had bought at a junk shop, a source said. On Thursday, regional prosecutor Olivier Janson said, citing the singer, that he wanted to “fake” his suicide
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”