ISRAEL
Palestinian shot dead
Security forces shot dead a suspected Palestinian assailant who tried to stab a man at a busy intersection near a West Bank settlement yesterday, police said, a location that has seen several incidents during two months of violence. A police spokeswoman said the assailant was shot dead as he wielded a knife in the attempted stabbing at Gush Etzion junction and a bystander was lightly hurt from a stray bullet fired by an officer securing the location.
SAUDI ARABIA
Execution plan draws threat
Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen threatened the Saudi government over its plan to carry out a mass execution of prisoners, including al-Qaeda members, the militant group announced in a statement posted on social media. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, one of the deadliest branches of the global militant network, said it was aware of Saudi intentions to execute its members in Saudi prisons and pledged to carry out attacks in response. “We swear to God, our blood will be shed before the blood of our captives, and their pure blood will not dry before we shed the blood of the soldiers of Al Saud,” the group said in a statement which was posted on Twitter and dated yesterday.
TURKEY
Newspaper taxes probed
Newspaper Cumhuriyet, whose top two journalists were arrested last week on charges of espionage and terrorist propaganda, is facing an investigation into its tax accounts, its chief executive said. A court on Thursday last week ordered the arrest of Can Dundar, the paper’s editor-in-chief, and senior editor Erdem Gul over the publication of footage purporting to show the state intelligence agency helping send weapons to Syria. The video footage at the heart of the court case, released in May, purported to show Turkish police opening crates of weapons and ammunition bound for Syria on the back of trucks said to belong to the MIT National Intelligence Organisation. Publication of the story at the time prompted President Tayyip Erdogan to vow revenge, saying those behind it endangered security and would “pay a heavy price.”
UNITED STATES
Coke obesity group disbands
A nonprofit funded by Coca-Cola Co to combat obesity is disbanding following revelations about the beverage maker’s involvement with the group. The Global Energy Balance Network on Monday said on its Web site that it is “discontinuing operations due to resource limitations.” The decision was effective immediately. The group had previously said that it received an “unrestricted gift” from Coke and that the Atlanta-based soft drink giant had “no input” into its activities.
UNITED KINGDOM
‘You’re fat’ card probed
Police stepped in on Monday after a woman on London’s metro system was handed a card calling her a “fat, ugly human.” Health worker Kara Florish said in a tweet the card she was given on the Underground was “hateful” and “cowardly” and “could potentially upset people struggling with confidence.” She tweeted a picture of the card, which on one side said “fat” and on the other read: “Our organisation hates and resents fat people. We object to the enormous amount of food resources you consume while half the world starves. And we do not understand why you fail to grasp that by eating less you will be better off, slimmer, happy and find a partner who is not a perverted chubby-lover, or even find a partner at all,” the message continued.
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