IRAN
US-Israel deal riles Tehran
A US$38 billion aid deal between the US and Israel makes Iran more determined to strengthen its military, Iranian Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri said yesterday. In comments broadcast live on Iranian state TV, Bagheri said the deal “will make us more determined in strengthening the defense power of the country.” Last week, the US signed an unprecedented new security agreement with Israel that would give the Israeli military US$38 billion over 10 years. Iran does not recognize Israel and supports anti-Israeli militant groups such as Palestinian Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Bagheri’s remarks were given during an annual military parade marking the anniversary of Iraq-Iran war in 1980.
MEXICO
Illegal sawmills closed
Environmental authorities said they have closed seven sawmills operating illegally in the forest reserve that serves as the wintering ground for monarch butterflies that migrate to the country from the US and Canada. No logging is permitted in the reserve’s core zone, but loggers have tried to cut trees there in the past. A larger buffer zone does permit some strictly regulated logging and farming. Authorities announced the closures on Tuesday as part of a stepped-up enforcement effort in which the federal police’s Gendarme division is participating. Illegal logging in the 13,551-hectare core zone dropped from almost 20 hectares last year to about 12 hectares this year. The butterflies are expected to begin arriving in Mexico late next month or in early November.
UNITED STATES
Saint’s relic on display
The heart of a celebrated Roman Catholic saint is being publicly displayed this week — the first time the religious relic has left Italy. Hundreds of the faithful were expected to line up yesterday at the Immaculate Conception Church in Lowell, Massachusetts, for a glimpse of the heart of St Padre Pio. Honoring the relics of saints is an ancient practice in the Roman Catholic faith. St Padre Pio was a Capuchin friar best known for possessing the stigmata, or wounds of Jesus Christ. He died in Foggia, Italy, in 1968 and was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2002. The heart will also be displayed in Boston later this week as part of the run-up to the saint’s feast day tomorrow.
UNITED STATES
Nutella puncher sentenced
A California man was sentenced on Tuesday to two years in jail for punching an elderly man at a store in a dispute over Nutella samples. Derrick Gharabighi, who had been detained since the altercation in September last year at a Costco warehouse store in Burbank, received the sentence, but was immediately released, having earned credit for time served. The 25-year-old was arrested and charged with elder abuse after punching in the face a 78-year-old man who had challenged him for taking too many samples of the chocolate-hazelnut spread. “He takes two, three of them, left one,” Sahak Sahakian told local media at the time. “I want to take that one, and he catch my hand. I say: ‘What are you doing? Let me eat this one.’” Police said Sahakian suffered “significant laceration above his left eye and swelling around the same area of his face.” Free samples are a huge attraction at Costco stores throughout the country. Hungry shoppers can often be seen crowding around a sample table to grab free food and drinks.
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