JAPAN
Typhoon to hit Tokyo
The nation yesterday braced for heavy rains and high winds as a strong typhoon was forecast to make landfall near Tokyo overnight. Typhoon Shanshan was a category 2 typhoon, but was expected to weaken slightly as it moves closer to the eastern part of the main island of Honshu, drawing near to Tokyo in the early hours of today and possibly snarling the morning rush hour. Tokyo and surrounding areas could get as much as 350mm of rain in the 24 hours to noon today, with winds gusting as high as 180kph, the Meteorological Agency said. Shanshan is expected to move extremely slowly, perhaps as slow as 15kph, meaning intense rain might fall in one area for an extended period. The storm is expected to rake the northeastern part of Honshu before weakening to a tropical storm and heading out into the Pacific. The nation’s west, the site of deadly floods last month, is forecast to be spared.
ROMANIA
Ancient fortress found
Local and German archeologists have discovered a prehistoric fortress dating back as far as 3,400 years in the nation’s west. The find represented “one of the biggest prehistoric fortresses in Europe in the Bronze Age,” archeologist Florin Golgatan told reporters. The team used specialized archeological magnetic equipment to take underground measurements, said Golgatan, a researcher at the Archeology Institute in Cluj. Last week, they completed a dig uncovering 55 hectares of the 80 hectare site, built between 1,400BC and 1,200BC, near the town of Santana, and plan to continue next year. Local archeologists first began to excavate the site in 2009.
UNITED STATES
NASA to launch solar probe
NASA is poised to launch a US$1.5 billion spacecraft on a brutally hot journey toward the Sun, offering scientists the closest-ever view of the star. After the Parker Solar Probe blasts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, tomorrow, it would become the first spacecraft ever to fly through the Sun’s scorching atmosphere, known as the corona. Understanding how the corona works would help scientists anticipate dangerous space weather storms, which can disrupt the power grid on Earth. “It’s of fundamental importance for us to be able to predict space weather much the way we predict weather on Earth,” NASA solar scientist Alex Young said.
CHINA
Airbnb axes Wall sleepover
Home rental Web site Airbnb has scrapped a contest offering a chance to spend the night at a section of the Great Wall after an online backlash from people worried it could damage the site. News of the “Night At The Great Wall” contest lit up Chinese social media, with critics calling it a publicity stunt that lacked respect for the monument. “No matter how they dress it up, this doesn’t hide the fact that this contest is by a private company that will undeniably cause damage to an ancient artifact,” one person wrote on Sina Weibo. Officials from Yanqing District — home to the section that was to host the sleepover — said in a statement that it had not been notified about the event and that no approval was given. Launched last week, the contest invited users to write about breaking down cultural barriers and building new connections. Four winners would get the chance to spent the night in a customized bedroom built in an ancient watchtower of the wall, which Airbnb said was done in consultation with conservation experts so that “not a single nail” would need to be moved.
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