CHINA
Highway collapse kills 19
A section of a highway collapsed early yesterday in southern China leaving at least 19 people dead, local officials said, after heavy rain in the area in the past few days. Eighteen cars fell down a slope after a 17.9-meter-long section of the highway collapsed, authorities in Meizhou City in Guangdong Province said. The incident occurred at about 2am. Witnesses told local media they heard a loud noise and saw a hole open up several meters wide behind them after driving past the section of the road just before it collapsed. Video and photos in local media showed smoke and fire at the scene, with highway rails slanting downward into the flames. Blackened cars could also be seen on the slope leading down from the highway. Rescue workers have taken 30 people to the hospital, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
VIETNAM
Explosion kills six
Six people were killed and seven injured in an explosion at a timber factory in southern Vietnam yesterday, local reports said. The incident occurred at about 8am at the Binh Minh Wood Production Co in Dong Nai province, with the media reporting it was caused by a malfunctioning boiler. “Arriving the site, I saw a horrifying scene: debris scattered everywhere and several bodies lying in the yard,” a witness quoted by news site VNExpress as saying. State media photos of the site — where about 30 employees were working at the time — showed part of the building had collapsed, with the corrugated iron roofing flung to the ground.
CHINA
Virologist allowed into lab
The first scientist to publish a sequence of the COVID-19 virus in China said he was allowed back into his lab after he spent days locked outside, sitting in protest. Virologist Zhang Yongzhen (張永振) early yesterday wrote in an online post that authorities had “tentatively agreed” to allow him and his team to return to his laboratory and continue their research for the time being. Zhang had been staging a sit-in protest outside his lab since the weekend after he and his team were suddenly notified they had to leave their lab, a sign of Beijing’s continuing pressure on scientists conducting research on COVID-19. The Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center previously said Zhang’s lab was being renovated and was closed for safety reasons. However, Zhang said his team was not offered an alternative until after the eviction and the new lab did not meet safety standards for conducting their research.
UNITED KINGDOM
Migrant sent to Rwanda
Britain has sent a first asylum seeker to Rwanda as part of a controversial but voluntary scheme for irregular migrants whose applications have been rejected, British media reported on Tuesday. The government last week adopted a highly criticized law allowing irregular migrants to be deported to Rwanda. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government plans to begin the expulsions by July. However, the man who left the UK on Monday had agreed to be sent to Kigali following his asylum rejection at the end of last year, several media said. The African national left on a commercial flight, they said. In exchange for his agreement to leave Britain, he is due to receive up to ￡3,000 (US$3,746), according to government sources quoted by the Times. The Home Office did not confirm the reports. “We are now able to send asylum seekers to Rwanda under our migration and economic development partnership,” a government spokesperson said.
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
RELEASE: The move follows Washington’s removal of Havana from its list of terrorism sponsors. Most of the inmates were arrested for taking part in anti-government protests Cuba has freed 127 prisoners, including opposition leader Jose Daniel Ferrer, in a landmark deal with departing US President Joe Biden that has led to emotional reunions across the communist island. Ferrer, 54, is the most high-profile of the prisoners that Cuba began freeing on Wednesday after Biden agreed to remove the country from Washington’s list of terrorism sponsors — part of an eleventh-hour bid to cement his legacy before handing power on Monday to US president-elect Donald Trump. “Thank God we have him home,” Nelva Ortega said of her husband, Ferrer, who has been in and out of prison for the
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