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.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS