UNITED KINGDOM
EU too ‘stubborn’ on Brexit
The government yesterday warned the EU that it needed to change its “stubborn” position on Brexit if a no-deal exit was to be avoided. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Dominic Raab said he wanted a deal, but the EU had to change its position. “We want a good deal with our EU partners,” he told the BBC, adding that there had been a “series of fairly stubborn positions staked out by the EU.” If the EU sticks to that line then the nation needs to be prepared for a no-deal Brexit, he said. “We want a good deal with EU partners and friends but that must involve the abolition of the undemocratic backstop. What the prime minister has instructed and the Cabinet has accepted is a turbo-charging of those preparations,” he added.
GERMANY
Man rescued from cave
Rescuers early yesterday freed one man trapped in Falkenstein Cave in the south of the country by rising water and are working to free a second. The two — a mountain guide and a client — were trapped about 650m inside the cave in on Sunday evening as rising water, a result of heavy rain in the region, cut off their path back to the entrance. Rescuers reached the cavity where they were sheltering and supplied them with blankets and food.
FRANCE
Tourist killed in shooting
Police are hunting at least one gunman after a vacationer and two others were killed in a shooting near a service station in the town of Ollioules near the Mediterranean. Ollioules Mayor Robert Beneventi said the traveler and her husband were caught in a settling of scores between local criminals in Sunday night’s shooting. Beneventi told local newspaper Var-Matin that the other victims were local youths known to police who appeared to be the target of the attack. The vacationer’s husband was injured.
ROMANIA
Man says he killed teens
A man has admitted to killing two teenage girls including a 15-year-old whose disappearance last week shook the country and led to the national police chief being fired, the suspect’s lawyer said on Sunday. The suspect, named as Gheorghe Dinca, 65, “has confessed his crimes,” lawyer Alexandru Bogdan was quoted as saying by Agerpres news agency. After refusing to answer any questions, Dinca eventually confessed to the murders of Alexandra, who vanished on Wednesday, and 19-year-old Luiza, who was missing since April. Alexandra was snatched on Wednesday as she tried to hitch-hike home to Dobrosloveni. On Thursday morning, she managed to ring an emergency number and give clues to police about the place she was being held. She yelled “he’s coming, he’s coming” before the line was cut, police said.
UNITED STATES
Body of two-year-old found
The body of a missing Oregon boy whose parents died in an apparent murder-suicide is believed to have been found in a remote area of Montana, police said. Police in Medford, Oregon, said Montana authorities reported finding the body on Sunday thought to be that of two-year-old Aiden Salcido, the son of Daniel Salcido and Hannah Janiak, who had formerly lived in Medford. Aiden was the subject of an intense search after his parents were found dead on Wednesday in Montana. Witnesses called in tips after seeing the story on the news and were instrumental in helping to locate a remote camp believed to have been occupied by the family, Medford police said.
AUSTRALIA
East Timor pact approved
Parliament yesterday voted to implement a maritime border treaty with East Timor that is expected to provide a major boost that nation by establishing new arrangements for sharing revenue from the Greater Sunrise gas fields in the Timor Sea. The vote came just days after East Timor’s parliament voted in favor of ratifying the treaty, which the two countries signed at the UN in March last year. It was the first-ever reached under a special conciliation mechanism of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
VIETNAM
Web-gambling group nabbed
Police have detained more than 380 Chinese for allegedly operating an illegal online gambling operation considered the largest of its kind in the country. They were arrested while allegedly running around-the-clock Web sites with transactions estimated at 3 billion yuan (US$435 million) in Haiphong, a statement on the Ministry of Public Security’s Web site said. “This is a criminal organization with new and sophisticated ways of operating in cyberspace under the cover of foreign investment enterprises in Vietnam,” the ministry said. Police seized about 2,000 smartphones, 533 computers, bank cards, cash and documents, it said.
JORDAN
UNRWA under scrutiny
An internal ethics report has alleged mismanagement and abuses of authority at the highest levels of an Amman-based agency for Palestinian refugees, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), including Commissioner-General Pierre Krahenbuhl. The report by the agency’s ethics department is being reviewed by UN investigators. The allegations include senior management engaging in “sexual misconduct, nepotism, retaliation, discrimination and other abuses of authority, for personal gain, to suppress legitimate dissent, and to otherwise achieve their personal objectives.” UNRWA said it is cooperating fully with the investigation.
SOUTH KOREA
Hormuz mission mulled
Seoul plans to join a US-led maritime force in the Middle East by sending a naval unit, which includes a destroyer, to help guard oil tankers sailing through the Strait of Hormuz, the Maekyung newspaper reported yesterday. Citing an unidentified senior official, the paper said the government had decided to send the anti-piracy Cheonghae unit that has operating in the Gulf of Aden since 2009, possibly along with helicopters.
SOUTH KOREA
Northern fishers head home
The Unification Ministry said three North Koreans whose wooden fishing boat crossed the sea border between the two rivals on Saturday would be allowed to return home. The trio were to head back in their boat later yesterday, in accordance with their wishes, it said. A Ministry of National Defense official said the boat was intercepted on Saturday because a white towel was tied to its mast in a potential sign that those on board might want to defect. The trio said they used the towel to prevent any clash with other ships and had gone off course by mistake and wanted to go home.
NIGERIA
Sixty slain in attack
Suspected Boko Haram extremists killed more than 60 people in an attack on people leaving a funeral in northeastern village, a local official said on Sunday. Eleven others were wounded during the attack, the official said.
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