■ Japan
Raptors arrive on Okinawa
Two US F-22 stealth fighter planes arrived yesterday on Okinawa in their first deployment overseas. Two Raptors, the US Air Force's most advanced fighters and said to be the most expensive fighter planes ever built, arrived at US Kadena Air Base, wire agency photographers said. The US Air Force said 10 other F22 Raptors were expected to land today, a week later than originally scheduled. The Air Force first cited "operational reasons" as the cause of the delay of the three-month deployment, then said it was because of software problems. The planes will be on Okinawa for a three to four month deployment.
■ China
Nuclear controls boosted
Beijing said it would strengthen controls on the export of nuclear equipment, state press reported yesterday. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) signed a decree banning the use of Chinese nuclear goods and technology to carry out atomic explosions without prior agreement, the reports said. Importers of Chinese goods will also be barred from using them for nuclear proliferation, except under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The Xinhua news agency said existing Chinese regulations on the control of exports had not been tough enough to prevent proliferation.
■ Japan
Missing crewman found
A crew member who has been missing since a whaling ship caught fire off Antarctica has been found dead on Wednesday, Kyodo News agency reported yesterday. Kazutaka Makita went missing after fire broke out below deck on the Nisshin Maru. Fisheries officials have said they may have to cut short the season's whale hunt due to the ship's damage. Kyodo said Makita was found dead inside a whale processing plant on board, where the fire is believed to have started. The Nisshin Maru is the mother ship for five other Japanese vessels that hunt whales in annual hunts that Japan says are for research. The fleet planned to hunt up to 945 whales from mid-December to next month.
■ Singapore
Motorist busts wardens
Two traffic wardens got a taste of their own medicine when they were captured having breakfast -- with their motorbikes parked illegally nearby -- after "busting" a rush hour motorist. The unidentified motorist used his camera phone to film the pair after being annoyed when he spotted them taking pictures of his car in a bus lane, the Straits Times reported yesterday. He posted the video clip on YouTube (www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v96fSeGWdE), the paper said. In the two-minute video, the man is heard asking the wardens why their own vehicles were illegally parked -- to which one of the wardens replies they were just "doing our job" before brushing him off. Wardens cannot issue fines, but they can submit photographs of errant motorists to police for further action.
■ Russia
H5N1 kills poultry
The H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed poultry in the Moscow region for the first time, the chief sanitary expert and head of a consumer watchdog was quoted by RIA news agency as saying on Friday. "The pathogenicity of this virus for people has not been confirmed. Vets have detected it, they confirm it is the H5N1 strain," Gennady Onishchenko said.
■ United States
Remote inventor dies
Hit the mute button for a moment of silence: The co-inventor of the TV remote, Robert Adler, has died. Adler, who won an Emmy Award along with fellow engineer Eugene Polley for the device, died on Thursday of heart failure at a Boise nursing home at 93, Zenith Electronics Corp said on Friday. In his six-decade career with Zenith, Adler was a prolific inventor, earning more than 180 US patents. He was best known for his 1956 Zenith Space Command remote control, which helped make TV a truly sedentary pastime.
■ United Kingdom
Postcard 92 years late
A postcard sent from the trenches during World War I by a private to his wartime sweetheart finally arrived -- 92 years after he had sent it. Private Walter Butler wrote to Amy Hicks in 1915, telling her he was alive and well -- but the army issue postcard never made it to her home in Wiltshire, 100km west of London. Butler survived the war and the couple went on to marry. The postcard turned up in a postal sorting office, which sent it along last week to the post office near Hicks' address. A local postman called the home of the couple's daughter, Joyce Hulbert, to announce the discovery.
■ United States
Urinals warn drinkers
Urinals in New Mexico have a few words to say to drinking men before they zip their pants, leave bar restrooms and head for their cars: Only drive if you're sober. Electronic urinal inserts bought for a pilot program launched this week by the state department of transportation sense when someone is in position and then a female voice delivers a sultry warning not to drive drunk. The message warns about the dangers of crashing or being caught by police and then playfully concludes with "Your future is in your hand." "The woman's voice is flirtatious yet stern," said Tom Trowbridge of the New Mexico Department of Transportation.
■ United Kingdom
Prince Harry off to Iraq?
Prince Harry will be serving in southern Iraq by the end of the month with his army regiment, probably taking part in reconnaissance missions near the Iran border, a newspaper reported on Saturday. A Ministry of Defense spokeswoman said the Daily Mirror report was "entirely speculative" because no final decisions have been made on which units will relieve the 19th Light Brigade currently in Iraq. She added that the next handover is not even due until around May. But a senior military source told the Mirror that the decision has been made to send Harry, a second lieutenant in the Blues and Royals Regiment.
■ United States
Teen can't stop hiccuping
For more than three weeks, despite medical tests and home remedies, a St Petersburg, Florida, teenager has been hiccuping. A lot. In fact, Jennifer Mee is hiccuping close to 50 times a minute, stopping only when she sleeps. The 15-year-old has had blood tests, a CT scan and an MRI. Drugs have not worked. Neither has holding her breath, putting sugar under her tongue, sipping pickle juice, breathing into a paper bag and drinking from the wrong side of a glass. And, yes, people have tried to scare them out of her. The hiccups started on Jan. 23 at school, but it is not clear why.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion