JAPAN
Disputes keep jets busy
Japan scrambled fighter jets a record number of times between April and last month amid increased activity of Russian and Chinese aircraft, the defense ministry said yesterday. Tokyo has been locked in a bitter territorial dispute with China over a group of tiny East China Sea islets, while North Korea has conducted missile tests and threatened a fourth nuclear test. Scrambles against Russian planes jumped more than sevenfold from a year earlier to 235 in the three months, boosting the total number of scrambles to a record 340. Scrambles against Chinese planes came to 104, up 51 percent on the year, but down from 128 in January-March. A ministry spokesman declined to speculate on reasons behind the busier Russian activity, but analysts said it was only natural that countries step up surveillance in “unstable” regions.
NORTH KOREA
Kim limps at televised event
As the nation begins a 10-day period of mourning to mark the 20th anniversary of the death of its first leader, Kim Il-sung, Pyongyang watchers are paying closer attention to his grandson — who was shown on state media walking to his seat for a memorial event with a noticeable limp. Kim Jong-un seemed to have somehow hurt his leg enough to require a slight, but visible, limp as he marched across the stage on Tuesday to assume his position of honor. He limped again as he left the room when the event was over. Although the limp appeared relatively minor, it is unusual for the state-run media to display images of the leaders that do not depict them as in peak form.
TONGA
Officers jailed in cop’s death
Two police officers were jailed yesterday over the death of a New Zealand policeman who was fatally beaten after being taken into custody. The officers, Kelepi Hala’ufia and Salesi Maile, were found guilty of manslaughter last month after attacking Kali Fungavaka in a police lock-up in Nuku’alofa in August 2012 after he was arrested for “minor drunkenness.” Hala’ufia was sentenced to 10 years jail and Maile to eight for the attack on the 38-year-old father of five, who was in Tonga for a relative’s funeral. Judge Charles Cato said there was evidence Fungavaka, who won a police bravery award in New Zealand in 2006, had been “difficult” after his arrest, verbally abusing the officers. However, he said police were trained to deal with such circumstances and it did not mitigate their behavior, which was reflected in their sentences.
IRAN
Reporter gets jail, lashes
A journalist has been sentenced to 50 lashes and two years in prison over charges of spreading anti-government propaganda. Marzieh Rasouli reported to Evin prison in Tehran on Tuesday, where she became the latest journalist imprisoned by the Islamic republic, branded as one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists by the New York Committee to Protect Journalists. Her arrest followed the detention in recent months of a number of other Iranian journalists, including Saba Azarpeik, who was being held incommunicado, and Reyhaneh Tabatabaei. According to the Reporters Without Borders, Rasouli and at least two other journalists, Parastoo Dokouhaki and Sahamoldin Borghani, were accused by hardliners of collaborating with the BBC, which conservatives see as a tool of British espionage. Rasouli has previously edited the music pages of Shargh Daily, a leading reformist newspaper which has been closed down repeatedly in recent years.
UNITED KINGDOM
Repatriation may be allowed
European Commission presidential nominee Jean-Claude Juncker does not want an EU without the UK and will not fight attempts to repatriate powers to Westminster from Brussels, according to the Daily Telegraph. “I’ve never opposed the idea of a well-structured, well-organized, profoundly negotiated repatriation of competences from Brussels to national parliaments,” the newspaper quoted the designated head of the European Commission as saying. “I don’t want the EU without Britain. Britain is an essential element of policymaking in Europe because the British are a common sense and down to earth people. If Westminster wants to recover competences, OK. If the others agree, it shall be done,” he said in a meeting with members of European parliament, according to the daily, which said it had a leaked recording.
SPAIN
Two men gored in bull run
Two men, one of them an American, were gored by bulls yesterday as they took part in Pamplona’s bull run, a festival where red-scarved participants race through the town’s cobbled streets pursued by the animals. The 32-year-old American was gored in the thigh, a doctor told Spanish state television. Chicago resident Bill Hillmann had cowritten a book called How to Survive the Running of the Bulls. The second man, whose nationality was not immediately known, was aged above 25, the doctor said. He had been gored in the chest and was taken to hospital in a semi-conscious state. A further three men were taken to hospital with lesser injuries from the chaotic stampede down narrow streets. All the injured were men. Few women take part in the run. A 27-year-old man from Madrid was the last person to be killed during a Pamplona bull run, in 2009.
UNITED STATES
Pilot buys pizza for plane
Domino’s pizza manager Andy Ritchie has taken a lot of orders, but never one quite like this: to feed an entire plane full of hungry, delayed passengers, stuck on the tarmac. It was about 10:30pm on Monday when the pilot of the Frontier Airlines flight called in, said Ritchie, manager at the pizza chain in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The pilot wanted to feed all 160 passengers and crew to make up for the delay, so Ritchie and his two employees whipped up about 35 pizzas and sent them to the plane. The plane was en route from Washington when it was diverted to Cheyenne while it waited for bad weather to clear in Denver, US media said. The plane, which was already hours behind schedule, sat on the ground at the small airport for about two hours, and there was no food on board. Eventually, one passenger told a Denver affiliate of Fox, the pilot made an announcement. “He said: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Frontier Airlines is known for being one of the cheapest airlines in the US, but your captain is not cheap,’” Logan Marie Torres recounted to the news station. “‘I just ordered pizza for the entire plane.’”
UNITED STATES
Lake Mead drying up
Drought in the southwest will deplete the vast Lake Mead this week to levels not seen since the Hoover Dam was completed and the reservoir on the Colorado River was filled in the 1930s, federal water managers said. However, Bureau of Reclamation regional chief Terry Fulp on Tuesday said that water obligations will be met at least through next year without a key shortage declaration. The result will be full deliveries to cities, states, farms and reservations in an area that is home to about 40 million people and the cities of Las Vegas, Phoenix and Los Angeles.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing