NORTH KOREA
Measures announced
The government is taking emergency measures to prevent the spread of African swine fever, state media said yesterday, weeks after confirming an outbreak in the country. The virus, fatal to wild boar and pigs, but harmless to humans, has cut a swathe through China, Vietnam and Mongolia before reaching the country. Pyongyang last month told the World Organisation for Animal Health that 77 out of 99 pigs had died from the disease at a farm near the Chinese border, the South Korean Ministry of Agriculture has said. Seoul has expressed concern over the possible spread of the disease across the border and repeatedly offered to assist with quarantine efforts, but said that Pyongyang had yet to respond. The official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said that nationwide quarantine efforts were under way, including disinfecting farms and banning the distribution of pork products. “Emergency preventive efforts are actively under way all across the country to block the spread of the African swine fever,” it said.
CHINA
Flooding kills 19 people
Flooding caused by torrential rains has killed at least 19 people in the south, Xinhua news agency said yesterday. In the Guangxi region, which borders Vietnam, week-long downpours triggered floods in six cities, killing 12 and affecting more than 570,000 people, Xinhua said, citing the regional emergency management department. Houses collapsed and crops were damaged, it added. Rainfall was expected to intensify through today, the regional weather bureau said, according to Xinhua. In Guangdong Province, seven people were killed and one was missing as heavy rain destroyed roads and toppled houses, the report added.
UNITED STATES
Troops to head to Poland
The government was yesterday expected to announce that it would send about 1,000 additional troops and a squadron of Reaper drones to Poland to beef up the nation’s ability to defend itself amid worries about Russian military activity, officials said on Tuesday. A preliminary agreement avoids any permanent US base or presence in the country and sticks instead to a rotational force, they said. The Reaper drones would be used to provide greater intelligence to Poland, they added. An announcement was expected yesterday, when President Donald Trump meets with Polish President Andrzej Duda at the White House.
CANADA
Most Internet users fooled
About 86 percent of Internet users have been duped by misinformation, a global survey published on Tuesday showed. Respondents said that they want governments and social media companies to crack down on these activities, which are contributing to a growing distrust of the Internet, as well as negatively affecting economies and political discourse. The US took the lion’s share of the blame for spreading misinformation, followed by Russia and China, the annual Ipsos survey of more than 25,000 Internet users in 25 countries found. The results revealed widespread distrust of social media companies, and growing concerns over online privacy and biases baked into algorithms used by Internet companies.
MEXICO
Top diplomat to visit China
Secretary of Foreign Affairs Marcelo Ebrard on Tuesday said that he plans to visit China after a G20 summit in Japan later this month. “The meeting in China is very important, something that we’ve been planning for months,” Ebrard said at a banking conference, adding that the visit would take place early next month. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador last week said that he does not plan to travel to the G20 meeting in Osaka scheduled for June 28 to 29, adding that Ebrard and Secretary of Finance and Public Credit Carlos Urzua would represent him instead. It is to be the first time a Mexican president skips the summit of the most powerful world leaders.
UNITED STATES
Trump decries CIA sources
Trump on Tuesday took a public stance against the use of CIA informants to spy on North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, possibly taking away a valuable tool of the intelligence community. Trump spoke a day after the Wall Street Journal reported that Kim’s slain half brother, Kim Jong-nam, was a source for the CIA. “I saw the information about the CIA, with respect to his brother, or half brother, and I would tell him [Kim Jong-un] that would not happen under my auspices, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t let that happen under my auspices,” Trump said.
BRAZIL
Official says firing political
The head of the National Indian Foundation on Tuesday said that he was fired due to pressure from the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply, which under President Jair Bolsonaro is seeking to open reservation lands to commercial agriculture and mining. Franklimberg Ribeiro de Freitas was dismissed by the Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights, which oversees the agency, the ministry confirmed. In remarks to agency employees, De Freitas blamed Luiz Antonio Nabhan Garcia, secretary of land affairs in the agriculture ministry, for his dismissal. De Freitas said that Bolsonaro was “very poorly advised.”
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