NORTH KOREA
Weapon production ordered
Leader Kim Jong-un has supervised the test of a new anti-aircraft weapon system, and ordered its mass production and deployment throughout the country, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported yesterday, after weeks of defiant ballistic missile tests. The agency did not report the exact nature of the weapon or the time of the test, but said it was organized by the Academy of National Defense Science, a blacklisted agency that is believed to be developing missiles and nuclear weapons. “This weapon system, whose operation capability has been thoroughly verified, should be mass-produced to deploy all over the country ... so as to completely spoil the enemy’s wild dream to command the air,” KCNA said.
VENEZUELA
Gas mask imports banned
Courier services have told customers that the customs authority has banned them from importing items such as gas masks, slingshots and bulletproof vests used by some demonstrators in anti-government protests. Other prohibited items include first-aid supplies, such as burn cream and gauze, according to e-mailed messages sent to clients this week by the package delivery companies. These goods have been used to treat injured protestors. Courier services sending the advisories included local service Zoom and the local office of Mail Boxes Etc, known as MBE.
CANADA
Conservatives elect leader
The Conservative Party on Saturday chose a 38-year-old social conservative and opponent of carbon taxes to lead its campaign against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the next election. Ottawa native Andrew Scheer was narrowly elected as the party’s leader at its convention in suburban Toronto, winning 50.95 percent of the available points under the Conservatives’ complex voting system. He defeated Maxime Bernier, a free-market conservative from Quebec, after 13 rounds of ballot counting.
CHINA
‘Red collar’ rule change
Civil servants are to face new restrictions when changing jobs as authorities move to prevent them from using official posts to make personal profit, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday. Those in leadership positions or at the county level and above would not be allowed to work in businesses or for-profit organizations related to their previous administration for three years after resignation. Lower-level civil servants should also follow the rules, but with a limit of two years, according to Xinhua. So-called “red-collar” jobs are considered stable careers with generous benefits, especially those based in major cities and economically developed regions.
UNITED STATES
Gregg Allman dies aged 69
Gregg Allman, a founding member of the Allman Brothers Band, the group that inspired and gave shape to both the Southern rock and jam-band movements, died on Saturday at his home in Savannah, Georgia. He was 69. His death was announced in a statement on his official Web site. His manager, Michael Lehman, said the cause was a reoccurrence of liver cancer. The band’s lead singer and keyboardist, Allman was one of the principal architects of a taut, improvisatory fusion of blues, jazz, country and rock that became the Southern rock of the 1970s. Allman struggled for years with alcohol, heroin and other drugs, and entered treatment for them numerous times, before embarking on a path of recovery in the mid-1990s.
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