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.
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
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
‘DISAPPEARED COMPLETELY’: The melting of thousands of glaciers is a major threat to people in the landlocked region that already suffers from a water shortage Near a wooden hut high up in the Kyrgyz mountains, scientist Gulbara Omorova walked to a pile of gray rocks, reminiscing how the same spot was a glacier just a few years ago. At an altitude of 4,000m, the 35-year-old researcher is surrounded by the giant peaks of the towering Tian Shan range that also stretches into China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The area is home to thousands of glaciers that are melting at an alarming rate in Central Asia, already hard-hit by climate change. A glaciologist, Omarova is recording that process — worried about the future. She hiked six hours to get to
The number of people in Japan aged 100 or older has hit a record high of more than 95,000, almost 90 percent of whom are women, government data showed yesterday. The figures further highlight the slow-burning demographic crisis gripping the world’s fourth-biggest economy as its population ages and shrinks. As of Sept. 1, Japan had 95,119 centenarians, up 2,980 year-on-year, with 83,958 of them women and 11,161 men, the Japanese Ministry of Health said in a statement. On Sunday, separate government data showed that the number of over-65s has hit a record high of 36.25 million, accounting for 29.3 percent of