THE NETHERLANDS
One killed in ship blaze
A fire on a freight ship carrying nearly 3,000 vehicles was burning out of control yesterday in the North Sea, and the coast guard said that one crew member had died, others were hurt and it was working to save the vessel from sinking. Boats and helicopters were used to get the 23 crew members off the ship after they tried unsuccessfully to put out the blaze, the coast guard said in a statement. Coast guard spokeswoman Lea Versteeg said in a telephone interview that “we’re currently working out to see how we can make sure that ... the least bad situation is going to happen.”
CHINA
Ex-party boss sentenced
The government has jailed the former Chinese Communist Party secretary of Hangzhou, home to Ant Group and Alibaba, for life after finding that he took about US$25 million in bribes over his career. Zhou Jiangyong(周江勇), 55, was given a suspended death sentence on Tuesday on corruption charges, state broadcaster China Central Television reported. A court in Chuzhou said that Zhou helped people and firms secure rights to use land and contracts for projects. He was earlier linked to Ant, although prosecutors did not name the fintech company or Alibaba. Last year, he became the first cadre to be ousted from the party over corruption charges relating to the “disorderly expansion of capital.”
UKRAINE
Ex-US marine injured in war
A former US marine who spent more than two years in a Russian prison for assault on law enforcement in 2019 was injured fighting for Ukraine, the US Department of State confirmed on Tuesday. Trevor Reed, who was released by Moscow in a prisoner swap in April last year, has been sent to Germany for the treatment of unspecified injuries, state department spokesman Vedant Patel said. He added that Reed “was not engaged in any activities on behalf of the US government,” but had traveled to Ukraine to join the fight on his own.
ECUADOR
Death toll from riots rises
The attorney general on Tuesday raised the death toll from a wave of violence over the weekend in one of the country’s most dangerous jails to 31, after the government earlier declared a 60-day state of emergency for the country’s prisons. The emergency declaration seemed to set off violence in the city of Esmeraldas, where 15 prison guards and two other staffers were being held hostage at a local jail, the government said in a statement. In Esmeraldas itself, a police unit was attacked, explosives were placed at gas stations and several vehicles were burned.
UNITED STATES
Florida water hits 37.8°C
The water temperature on the tip of Florida hit hot tub levels, exceeding 37.8°C two days in a row, and meteorologists say that could potentially be the hottest seawater ever measured. Although weather records for seawater temperature are unofficial, the initial reading on a buoy at Manatee Bay was 38.4°C on Monday evening, National Weather Service meteorologist George Rizzuto said. On Sunday night the buoy showed a reading of 37.9°C. “This is a hot tub. I like my hot tub around 100[°F], 101[°F; 37.8°C, 38.3°C]. That’s what was recorded yesterday,” Yale Climate Connections meteorologist Jeff Masters said. Hot tub maker Jacuzzi recommends water between 37.8°C and 38.9°C.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS