CHINA
Mudslide cuts off village
Rescue workers are searching for more than 100 people trapped by a mudslide in Yunnan Province. Xinhua news agency said the mudslide engulfed a village in Yunnan yesterday morning, trapping at least 200 people. The slide was triggered by days of storms. It says local firefighters have so far rescued more than 80 people. Xinhua says the village has a population of about 940.
THAILAND
Aussie’s alleged killers tried
The trial of two men charged with killing an Australian travel agent has opened on Phuket. Michelle Elizabeth Smith was walking near her hotel on June 20 when two men on a motorcycle tried to grab her bag and then stabbed her when she resisted. The 60-year-old walked away from the attack, but collapsed and died shortly afterward. Surasak Suwannachote and Surin Tabthong were arrested within days after a huge manhunt. On their way to court yesterday, the 26-yeard-old Surasak told reporters: “I confess” to the crime. He is accused of stabbing Smith. The 37-year-old Surin is accused of driving the motorcycle. He denied the charges yesterday despite having confessed to the killing earlier. Both men could face the death penalty if convicted.
AFGHANISTAN
Parliament causes shake-up
The country faces a period of damaging uncertainty after President Hamid Karzai bowed to parliament’s surprise decision to unseat his two top security officials, but said they would stay in their jobs indefinitely, while he looked for replacements. The coming shakeup at the defense and interior ministries has the potential to complicate the ongoing handover of security from NATO, unbalance a Cabinet stacked with powerful rivals, and stir up Western fears about loss of influence.
AUSTRALIA
Ferry hits humpback whale
A humpback whale and its calf were injured yesterday after apparently being hit by a ferry in Sydney Harbour, with witnesses saying the animals had ugly gashes and cuts. The ferry Collaroy was sailing from Circular Quay to the beachside suburb of Manly when the whales “just popped up.” “There was nothing the ferry could do,” said Richard Ford from Sydney Whale Watching, whose boats were on the water monitoring the whales at the time. “Obviously if you get hit by a Manly ferry you are going to be in distress, but we watched afterwards and they seemed to be swimming in a normal pattern,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald. Aerial photos showed a female humpback with a gaping wound near its dorsal fin and its calf with a long gash.
MACAU
Police crack down on gangs
Police said yesterday they had arrested 150 people during raids on casinos and hotels after a spate of murders raised fears of a return to the gaming hub’s violent past. Police questioned nearly 1,300 people and detained 150 in an operation codenamed “Thunderbolt 2012” conducted across the territory late on Friday, police spokesman Chong Su-pong said. The operation came after three unsolved murders and an attack on a casino hotel boss, which revived memories of the former Portuguese colony’s past troubles with gang--related crime. “The operation was a joint operation among the Macau, Hong Kong and Chinese police,” Chong said, adding that a suspect in a Hong Kong murder case was among those in custody.
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
UNDER INVESTIGATION: Members of the local Muslim community had raised concerns with the police about the boy, who officials said might have been radicalized online A 16-year-old boy armed with a knife was shot dead by police after he stabbed a man in the Australian west coast city of Perth, officials said yesterday. The incident occurred in the parking lot of a hardware store in suburban Willetton on Saturday night. The teen attacked the man and then rushed at police officers before he was shot, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook told reporters. “There are indications he had been radicalized online,” Cook told a news conference, adding that it appeared he acted alone. A man in his 30s was found at the scene with a stab wound to his back.