NORTH KOREA
Kim Jong-un oversees drills
New leader Kim Jong-un commanded live-fire drills involving all three branches of the military, state media reported yesterday, as he bolsters his credentials as commander in chief. It’s a high-profile military appearance for Kim, who has taken over a slew of prominent titles including supreme commander of the country’s 1.2 million-member military following the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, in December. Kim Jong-un has made a series of visits to military bases in recent weeks. He oversaw the combined drills in the presence of top military and political advisers and ordered troops to “mercilessly” retaliate against any enemy provocation, the official Korean Central News Agency said in its report.
JAPAN
Chinese captain indicted
A Chinese trawlerman whose ramming of two Japanese coast guard vessels sparked a diplomatic showdown, was indicted yesterday in a symbolic move that was likely to fizzle out. The formal indictment came after an independent review panel overturned a decision by prosecutors to drop charges against captain Zhan Qixiong (詹啟雄) over the incident near disputed islands in the East China Sea. The move angered some, who felt Tokyo climbed down in the face of Chinese sabre-rattling in a long-rumbling territorial dispute over the islands, which are known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyutai (釣魚台) in China and Taiwan, which also claims sovereignty over them.
SRI LANKA
Tamils press for probe
Ethnic Tamil lawmakers urged the UN Human Rights Council yesterday to press the government to investigate alleged wartime abuses and share power with the ethnic minority to prevent the country from sliding back into violence. The civil war ended in 2009 when government troops crushed separatist Tamil Tiger rebels. Both sides have been accused of committing war crimes during the final stages of the conflict. The US is planning to bring a resolution before the UN rights council, currently meeting in Geneva, urging the government to investigate those allegations and seek reconciliation. The ethnic Sinhalese-dominated government has arranged protests across the country against the resolution, which it calls interference in the country’s affairs. More than 10,000 people marched in the capital yesterday to denounce the proposed resolution. Smaller groups met with UN, British, Norwegian and German officials at embassies to urge them not to support it. However, a group of ethnic Tamil lawmakers said they support the resolution.
PAKISTAN
Swiss escape kidnappers
A Swiss couple kidnapped by the Pakistani Taliban in July last year say they escaped, a Pakistani army spokesman said, after the two showed up yesterday at a military checkpoint on a main road in the northwest of the country. Pakistani media identified the pair as Olivier David Och, 31, and Daniela Widmer, 29. They were kidnapped in the southwestern province of Baluchistan and had been held by the Taliban in the North Waziristan region on the Afghan border. “They escaped, this is what they have told us,” army spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas said. “They reported to our checkpost then. They are being questioned at the moment in Peshawar.” According to intelligence sources in North Waziristan, the two were found at a military checkpoint on a main road in Miranshah, the region’s main town, at about 5:30am and were then sent to the city of Peshawar by helicopter.
MEXICO
Probe disappearances: UN
The Mexican government has failed to properly investigate the cases of thousands of people who have disappeared in areas beset by conflict between drug gangs and security forces, the UN said in a report published on Wednesday. Mexico has no protocol to register the disappearances, has poor procedures to identify corpses and the justice system is wracked by chronic impunity, the report by the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance said. Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission has reported 5,400 cases of disappeared people across large swathes of the country since 2006. Drug cartel operatives often burn bodies in acid or bury victims in mass graves, such as one series of pits found with more than 300 corpses in Durango State. However, human rights activists have also accused soldiers sent to fight these gangs of being behind disappearances.
VATICAN
Pope has cologne made
He is picky about his robes and his red shoes are tailor-made, but Pope Benedict XVI has now taken the meaning of bespoke to a whole new level by ordering a custom-blended eau de cologne just for him. The fragrance, which mixes hints of lime tree, verbena and grass, was concocted by the Italian boutique perfume maker Silvana Casoli, who has previously created scents for customers including Madonna, Sting and King Juan Carlos of Spain. Casoli refused to release the full list of ingredients, but she said she had created a delicate smelling eau de cologne “based on his love of nature.”
UNITED STATES
Toddler shoots himself
A three-year-old boy fatally shot himself with a gun he found in a car while his family stopped for gas early on Wednesday at a gas station in Washington State, police said. It was the third recent shooting by a child in western Washington. The family had stopped for gas at about 12:30am. The father put his pistol under the seat and got out to pump gas while the mother went inside the convenience store, Benjamin said. They left their son and their infant daughter in the car. The boy climbed out of his child seat, found the gun and shot himself in the head, police said. He was declared dead at a hospital. No charges are anticipated.
UNITED STATES
Man stabs five people
A man armed with three knives went on a stabbing spree in an Ohio office building on Wednesday, injuring five people, including an employee of the state attorney general, authorities said. The rampage stopped when he was shot by a police officer on the street. The man stabbed one victim in the admissions office of Miami-Jacobs Career College in downtown Columbus, the state capital, city police spokesman Sergeant Rich Weiner said. Other people intervened and took away a knife the man was using, but did not realize he had others, Weiner said. Four men, including the attacker, were in critical condition after the stabbing spree, authorities said, and a fifth man has minor injuries.
ARGENTINA
Senate claims Falklands
The Senate on Wednesday unanimously passed a measure known as the “Ushuaia declaration” that asserts sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, disputed with Britain. The draft document written on Feb. 25 in the southern city of Ushuaia reaffirms “the legitimate” sovereignty of Argentina “over the Malvinas,” as they are known in the country, “South Georgia, South Sandwich and the surrounding maritime areas.”
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