SINGAPORE
Banker falls to death
A British banker died after plunging nearly 30m from a hotel in the new waterfront Marina Bay business district, police and local media said yesterday. A police statement identified the deceased as a British national and said an investigation into the “unnatural death” on Thursday evening was ongoing. The Sunday Times said the deceased was William Hart, a 37-year-old working in the city-state as head of sales for the Bank of China International. It said Hart was at the hotel’s bar located on the seventh floor when he was believed to have breached a metal railing and glass barrier before falling into the waters. An employee with the Fullerton Bay Hotel confirmed Thursday’s incident but declined to give further details.
IRAN
Tehran praises Iraqi raid
Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi on Saturday praised Iraqi authorities for launching a deadly raid on a camp of Iranian exiles considered terrorists by Tehran. The government’s lone voice of support against a chorus of international criticism of the crackdown was another sign of the closer ties between the two countries since the ouster of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, who started the 1980 to 1988 war between the two nations. Salehi said the Iraqi army was right to storm Camp Ashraf, located about 95km northeast of Baghdad. The sprawling desert settlement is home to about 3,400 members of the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, which seeks to overthrow Tehran’s leaders. The death toll in the assault rose Saturday to 12, according to two hospital officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information. They said 39 people were treated for wounds.
IRAN
Three diplomats expelled
Tehran has expelled three Kuwaiti diplomats in a tit-for-tat move after the Gulf emirate said it would throw out three Iranian diplomats in a row over spy allegations, the Web site of state Press TV said yesterday. The Kuwaiti foreign minister said on March 31 that three Iranian diplomats should be expelled in retaliation for what Kuwait says was an Iranian spy ring in the emirate. Press TV said the expulsions took place on April 2. Last month, a Kuwaiti court sentenced three men, two Iranians and a Kuwaiti, to death for being part of an alleged Iranian spy ring in a case that has strained relations between Kuwait and Tehran. Kuwaiti media said in May last year that authorities had detained a number of people, Kuwaitis and foreigners, suspected of spying for Iran. Media reports said they were accused of gathering information on Kuwaiti and US military sites for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
POLAND
Nation marks plane crash
Citizens filled churches and cemeteries yesterday to mark the one-year anniversary of the plane crash that killed former president Lech Kaczynski and 95 others. The loved ones of many victims gathered for a Mass at Warsaw’s airport, where 96 flag-draped coffins were returned last year after the disaster near Smolensk, Russia. At the time, the country united in mourning their president, first lady and many ranking military and civilian leaders. The disaster, however, quickly deepened political and social divisions in the country. As a sign of that, rival commemoration events were scheduled for yesterday. Late on Saturday, hundreds marched past the presidential palace in central Warsaw carrying flags and chanting Kaczynski’s name.
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