CHINA
Pilots master maneuver
Fighter pilots have carried out night landings on the nation’s first aircraft carrier, the state-run China Daily reported yesterday — the latest demonstration of Beijing’s push to modernize its military forces. Pilots flying J-15 jets landed at night on the Liaoning, it said, citing a video posted by the navy. It said this was a complex maneuver that marked a “huge leap towards gaining full combat capability.” Beijing has ambitious plans to overhaul its armed forces as it ramps up its presence in the disputed South China Sea and around Taiwan.
PANAMA
China ready for trade talks
Negotiations over a free trade agreement between Taiwan’s former diplomatic ally and China are to begin in July, Minister of Commerce and Industry Augusto Arosemena said on Friday, just a year after the two countries established diplomatic relations. The first round of talks would take place in Panama City, and negotiators are expected to name technical teams that would be charged with discussing details on market access, rules of origin and customs procedures, among other topics. “I think this is very important because of the message it sends to Panama’s private sector,” Arosemena said. Panama in June last year switched recognition from Taipei to Beijing.
COLOMBIA
NATO to announce alliance
The nation would next week formally become NATO’s first Latin American “global partner,” President Juan Manuel Santos said on Friday, adding that the move would improve its image on the world stage. “We will formalize in Brussels next week — and this is very important — Colombia’s entry into NATO in the category of global partner. We will be the only country in Latin America with this privilege,” the president said in a televised address. NATO also lists Afghanistan, Australia, Iraq, Japan, South Korea, Mongolia, New Zealand and Pakistan as “partners across the globe” or simply “global partners.”
UNITED KINGDOM
Coat of arms for Meghan
Kensington Palace has given details of the newly created coat of arms for the former Meghan Markle — an honor which is accorded by tradition to the nobility. The coat of arms for the Duchess of Sussex, as she is now known, includes symbols that invoke the former actress’ background and look to her future. It features a blue background that represents the Pacific Ocean and golden rays of sunshine reminiscent of California, her home state in the US. The shield includes three quills, representing the power of words. A collection of golden poppies, California’s state flower, sit on the grass beneath the shield together with wintersweet, which grows at Kensington Palace.
UNITED STATES
Teacher stops shooting
An Indiana middle school student armed with two handguns opened fire inside his science classroom, authorities said, wounding a classmate and a teacher whose swift intervention was credited with saving lives. The shooter, who had asked to be dismissed from the class before returning with the guns, was arrested “extremely quickly” after the incident at about 9am on Friday at Noblesville West Middle School, police chief Kevin Jowitt said. Authorities did not release his name. Seventh-grader Ethan Stonebraker said the student was acting suspiciously when he walked into the room and science teacher Jason Seaman likely averted a catastrophe.
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number
Australian police yesterday said a 40-year-old itinerant with mental illness was behind a Sydney shopping center stabbing rampage that killed six people, including a new mum whose nine-month-old baby is still in hospital with serious wounds. New South Wales Police Assistant Commissioner Anthony Cooke said the assailant — who was shot and killed by a senior police officer at the scene on Saturday — was Queensland man Joel Cauchi. Five women and one male security guard were killed in the attack as Cauchi roved through a packed shopping center in the city’s Bondi Junction neighborhood with a large knife. Twelve more people