TURKEY
Girl killed in rebel attack
Police said that a rocket fired by Kurdish rebels missed its target and hit a home in a town in the southeast, killing a nine-year-old girl. Five other people were injured in the incident. A police statement said rebels of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) aimed their attack late on Friday at a police vehicle in the town of Bismil, but hit the house instead. Yesterday, suspected PKK rebels detonated a bomb on a road in the mainly Kurdish Bitlis Province, injuring about 20 soldiers riding in a military vehicle, the private Dogan news agency reported. None of them was in serious condition. Violence between the PKK and the Turkish security forces reignited this summer, shattering a fragile peace process with the Kurds.
UNITED STATES
Super blood moon treat
Stargazers were in for a rare treat when a total lunar eclipse combined with a so-called supermoon. Those in the US, Europe, Africa and western Asia were able to view the coupling, weather permitting, on Sunday night or early yesterday. It was the first time the events have made a twin appearance since 1982, and they would not again until 2033. When a full moon makes its closest approach to Earth, it appears slightly bigger and brighter than usual and has a reddish hue. That coincides with a full lunar eclipse where the moon, Earth and sun will be lined up, with Earth’s shadow totally obscuring the moon. The so-called “super blood moon” occurred on the US east coast at 10:11pm and lasted about an hour. In Europe, the action unfolded before dawn yesterday. In Los Angeles, a large crowd filled the lawn of Griffith Observatory to watch the celestial show while listening to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata played by 14-year-old pianist Ray Ushikubo. “You always want to see the eclipse because they’re always very different,” observatory director Edwin Krupp said. The additional component of the Earth’s atmosphere adds “all kinds of twists and turns to the experience,” he said. “What we see tonight will be different from the last event: how dark it is, how red it is. It’s always interesting to see.”
PAKISTAN
Hundreds of pilgrims found
Minister for Religious Affairs Sardar Muhammad Yousaf said that authorities have tracked down 217 Pakistanis who went missing following last week’s stampede, which killed more than 700 pilgrims during the hajj in Saudi Arabia. Yousaf told state-run Pakistan Television on Sunday night from Saudi Arabia that 85 Pakistanis were still missing and efforts were under way to locate them. He said that 36 Pakistanis were killed and 35 injured in the stampede. Saudi authorities said that at least 769 people died when two large waves of pilgrims converged on a narrow road during the final days of the annual hajj, near the holy city of Mecca.
AUSTRALIA
Kiwi faces terror charges
Prosecutors yesterday said that a New Zealand man accused of trying to enter Syria to fight alongside extremists used four different phones to have coded conversations about “a big job” days before attempting to fly to Turkey. The allegations in Victoria state Supreme Court come two years after Amin Mohamed was stopped in Brisbane when trying to board a flight to Turkey. Mohamed was later charged with three counts of preparing to enter a foreign state to engage in hostile activities. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison on each count. He has pleaded not guilty.
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