CHINA
Sichuan floods kill at least 8
Floods triggered on Saturday by heavy rain in Ya’an city the southwest have killed at least eight people, with about 30 others still missing, China Central Television (CCTV) reported. Rescue operations in the city in Sichuan Province are continuing, CCTV said, citing a news conference given by local authorities. Extreme weather is affecting large parts of the country, with 12 provinces issuing heat wave alerts, including Xinjiang, Shanxi, Hebei, Zhejiang and Guangxi, CCTV reported separately. Temperatures were expected to top 40°C in some areas yesterday, it added.
SOUTH KOREA
First lady questioned
First lady Kim Keon-hee has been questioned over allegations of stock manipulation and graft involving a US$2,200 luxury handbag, the prosecution said yesterday. The questioning comes as the opposition calls for a special probe into Kim, who has been under scrutiny for accepting a Dior bag in contravention of government ethics rules, and for her alleged role in a stock manipulation scheme. Prosecutors conducted “face-to-face questioning” of Kim on Saturday, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement. Kim’s aide told investigators earlier this month that the first lady told her to return the bag on the same day she had received it, but she had forgotten to, Yonhap news agency reported.
VIETNAM
Leader’s funeral this week
A state funeral is to be held for former Communist Party general secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, who died on Friday, the government said on Saturday. There would be two days of national mourning on Thursday and Friday, a government statement said, with the state funeral on the second day. During the mourning period there would be no public entertainment, it said. Trong’s duties have been temporarily assigned to President To Lam.
AUSTRALIA
Stroller rolls in front of train
A stroller carrying twin two-year-old girls yesterday rolled into the path of an oncoming train in Sydney, police said, in an accident that killed one of the children and the “heroic” father who dashed to their rescue. One of the girls survived only “through good luck” after she landed between the rails when the stroller fell off a platform at southern Sydney’s Carlton Railway Station, police said. She was “largely untouched” by the train, police said. As they exited the station platform the parents took “their hands off the pram for a very, very short period of time,” New South Wales police superintendent Paul Dunstan said. “Whether it’s a gust of wind or — we’re not quite sure — but it appears that the pram has instantly started to roll in the direction of the train lines,” he said. The father had “just gone into parent mode,” Dunstan said. “In doing so it’s cost him his life, but it’s an incredibly brave and heroic act.”
BANGLADESH
Court scraps job quotas
The Supreme Court yesterday scrapped most of the quotas on government jobs that have sparked student-led protests in which at least 114 people have been killed, local media reported. The court’s Appellate Division dismissed a lower court order that had reinstated the quotas, directing that 93 percent of government jobs would be open to candidates on merit, without quotas, the reports said. The government extended a curfew to 3pm, and it was to continue for an “uncertain time” following a two-hour break for people to gather supplies, local media reported.
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
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
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
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