POLAND
Borrowing nukes mulled
A Polish official said that the Ministry of Defense is considering asking for access to nuclear weapons through a NATO program which involves non-nuclear states borrowing them from the US. Deputy Defense Minister Tomasz Szatkowski said that the ministry is discussing whether to ask for access to NATO’s so-called “nuclear sharing” program to improve the nation’s ability to defend itself. Polish media said Szatkowski’s comments on Saturday to the private broadcaster Polsat mark the first time a Polish official has said the nation wants to join the program. The 28-member NATO has three nuclear powers, the US, France and the UK, but only the US has provided weapons to allies for nuclear sharing. Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey have hosted nuclear weapons as part of the program.
UNITED STATES
Album sells for US$790,000
A rare pressing of The Beatles’ White Album from Ringo Starr’s record collection has sold at auction for US$790,000. Julien’s Auctions said an anonymous buyer made the purchase on Saturday at a sale in Beverly Hills, California. The mono pressing was the very first in the UK of the 1968 album. The auction house said the White Album sale smashed a record set earlier this year when Elvis Presley’s first acetate recording sold at auction for US$300,000. It followed a sale on Friday of one of Starr’s early drum kits for US$2.2 million to Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay. The two-day auction included over 800 items owned by Starr and his wife, actress Barbara Bach.
UNITED STATES
Actor Freeman lands safely
Actor Morgan Freeman said he was aboard his plane when it had to make an unexpected landing in Mississippi, but nobody was injured. Clarksdale mayor Bill Luckett, a longtime friend of the actor, said the plane made a controlled forced landing before dark on Saturday. Freeman said in a statement that he was headed to Texas to shoot a segment for the television series The Story of God. He said: “Sometimes things don’t go as planned and a tire blew on takeoff, which caused other problems.” He said they “landed safely without a scratch.”
UNITED STATES
Bud Weisser in brewery bust
Police arrested a teenager named Bud Weisser — for allegedly trespassing at a Budweiser brewery, reports said. The 19-year-old was arrested in St Louis, Missouri, after officers responded to reports of an altercation between the brewery’s security officer and a suspect, NBC News and other US media reported. Weisser had allegedly entered a secure area of the brewery and was asked to leave by security. He was taken into police custody after resisting arrest on Thursday and was issued a summons for doing so and for trespassing, NBC said. KTVI, a Fox television affiliate in St Louis, said Weisser has had various run-ins with the law.
UNITED STATES
Kardashian West baby born
Reality TV star Kim Kardashian West and rapper Kanye West on Saturday announced the birth of their child in Los Angeles. Kardashian tweeted “He’s here” on Twitter and an announcement on her Web site read: “Kanye and I welcome our baby boy.” The Web site said mother and son were doing well. The couple did not provide a name for the boy. The couple has a daughter, North West, who was born in 2013.
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