AUSTRALIA
Police search for tourist
Police said yesterday that they had found the body of a woman they believed to be German tourist 73-year-old Gisela Thor, who had gone missing in the remote northern outback. The body of an elderly man, believed to be her husband, 76-year-old Wilfred Thor, was recovered in the same area a day earlier. “The cause of death has yet to be established and a file is being prepared for the coroner,” a Northern Territory Police spokesman said. A ground and air search was launched on Sunday after a ranger found a car thought to belong to a German couple at Trephina Gorge Nature Park, 1,500km from the Northern Territory capital of Darwin, according to media reports. Temperatures at the park over the weekend soared to as high as 40?C.
AUSTRALIA
Cop frying egg goes viral
Video of a police officer frying an egg on the hood of his patrol vehicle during a heatwave has gone viral on social media. The video posted on the Queensland Police Service’s Facebook page shows an officer from the town of Birdsville cooking an egg with a frying pan on the hood of his vehicle. The scene from Big Red, among the famous red sand dunes of the Simpson Desert, has drawn more than 3 million views since it was posted on Friday last week. Temperatures in Birdsville usually reach a high of 38?C, but they soared on Sunday to a record 47.1?C. The extreme heat has fanned bushfires on the east coast, forced the cancelation of major sporting events and put pressure on the electricity grid.
CHINA
Spacecraft launch date set
The nation plans to launch its first cargo spacecraft in April, state media reported yesterday, taking a step toward its goal of establishing a permanently crewed space station by 2022. President Xi Jinping (習近平) has prioritized advancing the nation’s space program, saying it is needed to enhance national security and defense. Plans for the maiden voyage of the cargo spacecraft were reported on the front page of the People’s Daily. The Tianzhou-1 cargo resupply spacecraft is to be carried into space by a Long March-7 Y2 rocket launched from Wenchang Satellite Launch Center in Hainan, the paper reported, citing the China Manned Space Agency. The Tianzhou-1 is designed to dock with the Tiangong 2 space laboratory, which China used to carry out its longest ever manned space mission in October last year, sending two astronauts into space for a month.
UNITED KINGDOM
Bell-ringer survives fall
A bell-ringer was hoisted in the air before crashing to the ground after catching his foot in a bell rope on Saturday. Ian Bowman was visiting Worcester Cathedral accompanied by 20 other campanologists when he suffered the freak accident that left him with a fractured bone in his back. The 51-year-old said the incident took place in a matter of seconds when he was hoisted a couple of meters in the air before hitting the marble floor of the bell tower of the 13th-century place of worship. He was eventually winched down from the bell tower to the church floor on a spinal board by firefighters, who had to open several trapdoors and use a rope system during the cathedral’s Evensong service. He was taken to Worcestershire Royal Hospital where he was treated for a cut to his head and back pain.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not