GERMANY
Anti-nuclear protests held
An estimated 200,000 people took to the streets nationwide on Saturday to protest against nuclear power, upping the pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel on the eve of a critical state election. One of the organizers, Ausgestrahlt, said 250,000 people took part in demonstrations in four major cities marching under the banner “Fukushima Means: No More Nuclear Power Stations.” Marches took place in Hamburg, Cologne, Munich and Berlin. Police said more than 100,000 took part in Berlin alone. Organizers claimed 20,000 more. In a rainy Munich, police spoke of 30,000 participants, while organizers said there were 40,000. The marches in Hamburg and Cologne attracted 50,000 and 40,000 respectively, organizers said. Hailing the protests as “Germany’s biggest ever demonstration against nuclear power,” Ausgestrahlt said: “The government’s answer must be to turn the reactors off.”
MYANMAR
At least 150 dead: Red Cross
An unnamed Red Cross worker in Tachileik yesterday told exile newsmagazine the Irrawaddy that at least 150 people had been killed by the magnitude 6.8 quake late on Thursday, but the official said there was no confirmed increase from Friday’s toll of 74. One woman was also killed in Thailand. The charity World Vision believes about 15,000 people may have been affected in the worst hit areas. “One of the things that’s really emerging is water as a critical need. That’s the immediate challenge in addition to temporary shelter,” said Chris Herink, the charity’s Myanmar country director in Yangon. The ruling junta was widely criticized for refusing foreign assistance for weeks after Cyclone Nargis wrought devastation across the Irrawaddy Delta in May 2008, leaving more than 138,000 people either killed or missing. However, Herink has said his organization, which is working in the affected areas with the Myanmar Red Cross and UNICEF, had found the government had been proactively cooperating.
LEBANON
Bomb explodes at church
A bomb exploded overnight at the entrance of a church in the eastern city of Zahle, causing no injuries, a church official said yesterday. The bomb, which consisted of about 2kg of TNT, was placed at the side entrance of St Mary’s Church, a Syriac Orthodox church, Monsignor Youstinios Boulos Safar said. The device went off at 4:15am, blowing out a side door of the church and damaging benches inside as well as the altar, Safar said. Seven cars parked nearby were also damaged. No one claimed responsibility. “I denounce this type of attack and urge people to remain calm,” said Safar, who hails from neighboring Syria and is bishop of Zahle, a mainly Christian town about 50km from Beirut. He said he planned to hold Sunday mass at the church despite the attack. The church is located in the industrial part of Zahle, where seven Estonians were kidnapped last week by armed men. Officials have launched a large manhunt, but have so far been unable to locate the missing men.
ISRAEL
Anti-rocket system starts up
The military said a new defense system against rockets fired from the Gaza Strip will now become operational in the south of the country. The Iron Dome anti-rocket system was to go online in the area of Beersheba yesterday, the military said, adding that a second missile battery would be deployed soon in another large southern city, Ashdod, without specifying an exact date.
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