DENMARK
Minister calls for sanctions
Minister of Foreign Affairs Anders Samuelsen yesterday called for EU-wide sanctions on Russia over a stand-off with Ukraine in the Azov Sea. Samuelsen was to meet Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Pavlo Klimkin yesterday and today, and visit the city of Mariupol by the Azov Sea, the ministry said in a statement. “I believe the EU needs to react to Russia’s aggressive behavior,” Samuelsen said in the statement. The EU would issue a demarche — a formal diplomatic protest note — to Moscow as early as this week over Russia’s continued detention of 24 Ukrainian sailors captured during an incident in November last year, diplomats told reporters last week.
UNITED STATES
Friendly bear saves boy
A three-year-old boy who survived two nights alone in the woods in freezing conditions has told police and family he was helped out by a friendly bear that was with him the whole time. Rescuers responding to reports of a child crying late on Thursday last week found Casey Hathaway tangled up in thorny bushes, cold and soaked, but safe. He had gone missing on Tuesday in conditions so bad the subsequent search had to be called off. Help — perhaps real, perhaps imaginary, but certainly useful — was in those woods in North Carolina, a state that is home to plenty of black bears. Casey “did say that he had a friend in the woods that was a bear that was with him,” Craven County Sheriff Chip Hughes said.
UNITED STATES
Woman trapped in elevator
An employee of a New York billionaire’s family spent the weekend stuck in the elevator of the family’s Manhattan townhouse before she was rescued on Monday, officials said. The homeowners spent the weekend away and discovered that the woman was trapped when they arrived back home, the New York Times reported. Firefighters who rescued the woman stuck between the second and third floors learned from people at the scene that she had been stuck in the elevator since Friday, a New York City Fire Department spokesman said by telephone. The woman was in good condition when paramedics took her to the hospital, he said.
UNITED STATES
Two killed in gunbattle
The Houston police chief said what began as an attempt to serve a search warrant at a suspected drug house turned into a gunbattle that killed two suspects and injured five officers, including four who were shot. The suspects were killed on Monday after firing at officers who were trying to enter a southeast Houston home where authorities suspected black tar heroin was being sold, police chief Art Acevedo said. Four of the officers were shot and a fifth suffered a knee injury. Police did not immediately release additional information about the suspects.
MEXICO
US refugee offer rejected
The country will not accept migrants younger than 18 while they await the resolution of their US asylum claims, National Immigration Institute Commissioner Tonatiuh Guillen said on Monday. Officials had previously said that the US expressed interest in extending the “remain in Mexico” policy to other border crossings. However, the country will accept only asylum seekers aged 18 to 60, Guillen said. US authorities plan to bus asylum seekers back and forth to the border for court hearings in downtown San Diego, including an initial appearance within 45 days.
AUSTRALIA
Shark-proof suit tested
A university is testing new materials designed to lessen the impact of shark bites, researchers said yesterday, in a project aimed at reducing fatalities and easing the nerves of swimmers. Researchers at Flinders University in Adelaide have received government funding to test a new neoprene, a synthetic rubber commonly used in wetsuits, against the force of a bite from several species, including the great white shark. “When a shark bite occurs, it can have severe physical, mental, social and economic consequences. It is therefore important to keep developing new means of reducing shark bite risks and ensure the efficacy of such new products,” professor Charlie Huveneers said.
SYRIA
Suicide bomber hits al-Qaeda
Opposition activists said a woman blew herself up in Idlib yesterday, killing two people, outside an administration office linked to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an al-Qaeda group. The blast wounded others, the Local Coordination Committees said. The attack comes weeks after the al-Qaeda-linked group captured wide parts of northern Syria in battles with Turkey-backed opposition fighters. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, another group monitoring the civil war, said the bomber exchanged fire with guards before blowing herself up.
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CHINA
EU team visits Xinjiang
An EU delegation has visited the western region of Xinjiang, a rare chance to gather evidence on controversial re-education camps that have drawn harsh criticism from rights groups and Western powers, officials said on Monday. The team was supervised by officials this month during the three-day trip, but managed to gather information that the EU said builds on “compelling and mutually consistent” reports of rights abuses in the region. This was the first visit to Xinjiang by a multinational body such as the EU since Beijing acknowledged the existence of the camps.
CHINA
Car-attack killer executed
Authorities yesterday executed a man who killed 15 people after ramming a car into a crowded square in Hunan Province’s Hengdong last year. Yang Zanyun (陽讚雲) in September last year ploughed a Land Rover into pedestrians at a public square before slashing at people with a shovel and dagger. Fifteen people were killed and 43 others were injured. The Hengyang Intermediate People’s Court yesterday said it “carried out the death penalty” on Yang for “endangering public security through dangerous methods.”
IRAN
Missile range not to increase
Iran has no intention to increase the range of its missiles, but will continue working on its satellite technology to improve accuracy, Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Shamkhani said yesterday. “Iran has no scientific or operational restriction for increasing the range of its military missiles, but based on its defensive doctrine, it is continuously working on increasing the precision of the missiles, and has no intention to increase their range,” Shamkhani was quoted as saying by the official Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting. “The enemies say Iran’s missile power should be eliminated, but we have repeatedly said our missile capabilities are not negotiable,” Minister of Defense Amir Hatami was quoted as saying by the Tasnim news agency.
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