INDIA
China sparks war of words
Minister of Defence A.K. Antony said yesterday that China’s comments on his visit to a territory disputed by the neighbors were “highly objectionable,” sparking a new war of words over the contested border. Beijing on Saturday reportedly called for India “to work with China to maintain peace and stability in border areas” and called for restraint to prevent complications in the dispute over Arunachal Pradesh, a northeastern Indian state that China claims in full. Antony visited the far-flung and highly militarized territory earlier this month to mark its 25th year as an Indian state. He promised better infrastructure and improved accessibility. “I was surprised to read the Chinese reaction. It is very sad and highly objectionable. Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India,” he told reporters on Monday, according to the CNN-IBN television channel.
SOUTH KOREA
Conductor to visit North
A prominent South Korean conductor will visit Pyongyang this week to prepare for a planned joint concert in Paris by orchestras from North Korea and France, an official said yesterday. Chung Myung-whun will visit from today to Thursday to make arrangements for the concert between the North’s Unhasu Orchestra and the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra, Seoul’s unification ministry spokesman said. The ministry must authorize all inter-Korean exchanges. Chung, who conducts the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra and also serves as the music director for the French orchestra, is set to lead the joint performance in Paris on March 14 as part of a cultural exchange program. The 59-year-old conductor and UNICEF “goodwill ambassador” has for years been seeking cross-border cultural projects.
NEW ZEALAND
Xena arrested over protest
Police have arrested actress Lucy Lawless and five Greenpeace environmental activists after the group spent four days protesting aboard a docked oil-drilling ship. Police yesterday removed the group from their perch atop a 53m drilling tower on the Noble Discoverer in Port Taranaki. Lawless and six activists climbed the tower early on Friday in an attempt to raise awareness about oil drilling in the Arctic. Chartered by oil company Shell, the ship had been scheduled to leave over the weekend for the Arctic to drill five exploratory wells. Lawless, 43, a native New Zealander, is best known for her title role in the TV series Xena: Warrior Princess.
THAILAND
Three Iranians questioned
Police yesterday said they were questioning three more Iranians in connection with an alleged plot to kill Israeli diplomats in Bangkok. “We have information that they may have links to the blasts,” police major general Piya Utayo said, referring to a series of botched explosions that shook a residential district of the Thai capital on Feb. 14. He said no charges had been laid against the trio. One was detained under immigration law for overstaying his visa. According to Thai media, mobile telephone call logs showed that one of the suspects had been in regular contact with two Iranians now in custody.
PAKISTAN
Bin Laden house demolished
Bulldozers yesterday finished demolishing the house where Osama bin Laden lived for at least five years until he was killed by US special forces in May last year. Only the wall of the compound remained intact, surrounding the debris of the three-floor building where the al-Qaeda leader lived in the garrison town of Abbottabad and a security official confirmed the demolition had been completed.
NIGERIA
Sect claims church bomb
Islamist sect Boko Haram said it was behind Sunday’s suicide bomb attack outside a church in the central city of Jos, and warned of more such assaults. “We carried out the attack on COCIN church in Jos today and we did what we did as part of our resolve to avenge the killings and dehumanization of Muslims in Jos in the last 10 years,” spokesman Abul Qaqa told reporters in a conference call. Three people including a toddler were killed in the attack, igniting brief riots by Christian youths that claimed another three lives on the streets of the capital of Plateau State. Qaqa said that that particular church had not been targeted for any reason. “We attacked simply because it is a church and we can decide to attack any other church. We have just started,” he said.
SUDAN
Rebels capture border area
Rebels said they captured a border district from the government in the oil-rich border state of Southern Kordofan. Fighters from the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), attacked members of the Sudanese Armed Forces, took control of Jaw District and liberated the region of Lake Alubaid, the group said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. Fighting in the border states of Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan has intensified since South Sudan seceded on July 9 last year, assuming control of three-quarters of the former state’s oil production of 490,000 barrels a day.
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