JAPAN
US trade deal approved
The parliament yesterday approved a trade deal that was agreed on earlier this year by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and US President Donald Trump. The deal cutting tariffs between the countries takes effect from the beginning of next month. Some critics have said that the deal is more advantageous to the US, because the US would continue to levy a 2.5 percent tariff on vehicles manufactured in the nation.
EL SALVADOR
Chinese investment sealed
China is to help build several major infrastructure projects, including a stadium and water treatment plant, the two nations said in a joint statement on Tuesday. President Nayib Bukele, who this week met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing, said that the investment represented a “gigantic, non-refundable cooperation,” without disclosing the planned investment amount. The projects offer the strongest signal yet of the nation’s embrace of close ties with Beijing. The nation “adheres to the principle of one China, categorically rejects any act that goes against this principle and any form of ‘independence of Taiwan,’” the joint statement said.
PHILIPPINES
Typhoon leaves 17 dead
The death toll from Typhoon Kammuri yesterday rose to 17 people, after the weather system destroyed houses and displaced hundreds of thousands on its path across the nation. As it neared its exit yesterday, signals for tropical cyclone winds were lifted for 10 out of about a hundred areas placed on alert this week, the national weather bureau said. Parts of 12 roads and three bridges remain closed, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council’s latest bulletin said.
AUSTRALIA
Body found in hiker search
Police yesterday said they believe they have found the remains of a woman missing in the country’s remote outback for two weeks. “Police located the body, which is believed to be that Claire Hockridge during search efforts,” Northern Territory police said in an e-mailed statement. Hockridge had been missing since she went hiking with two friends, both of whom had been found.
RUSSIA
‘Tank’ bear sparks concern
A video showing a polar bear painted with the name of a Soviet-era tank, T-34, has caused alarm. A senior researcher at the Institute of Biological Problems of the North, Anatoly Kochnev, told RIA Novosti news agency that “at first, until he cleans himself off, it will be hard for him to hunt.” The video was posted on Facebook on Monday by Sergei Kavry, who works for the World Wildlife Fund in the Chukotka region. He said he was concerned at the large letters daubed on the side of the bear, seen plodding through snow. “Why? Why? He won’t be able to hunt inconspicuously,” Kavry wrote. Severpress news agency on Tuesday reported that scientists had marked the bear because it was scavenging for food near an inhabited area in Novaya Zemlya, a remote Arctic archipelago, but that the paint would wash off in two weeks.
PAKISTAN
Islamists besiege newspaper
Dozens of angry Islamists on Tuesday night swarmed the building of independent newspaper Dawn in Islamabad, blocking its entrance for several hours, threatening the staff and demanding that its editor Zaffar Abbas be hanged. A simultaneous protest took place in Karachi, where the protesters gathered at the Press Club, demanding that Abbas and Dawn publisher Hameed Haroon be hanged. The demonstrators were angered that the English-language paper had reported that the assailant in the London Bridge attack on Friday last week was of “Pakistani origin.”
COLOMBIA
Frenchman ‘assassinated’
An engineer working for French aerospace and defense company Thales has been shot dead in Bogota in an apparent targeted assassination, officials said on Tuesday. The 45-year-old victim was shot late on Monday as he left a restaurant with a French colleague in the upscale northern district of Chapinero, the police and Thales said. “We reject the hypothesis of a robbery. According to the evidence we have, this is an assassination perpetrated by a hitman,” police Major Robert Mendez told reporters. The killer had approached from behind after the men left the restaurant and targeted only the victim before fleeing, a police source said. The French embassy said the victim, whose identity has not been made public, had been on a work assignment. The city is currently hosting the Expodefensa defense and security trade fair.
UNITED STATES
Kushner in talks with China
President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has added another role to his long list of White House duties — trade negotiator — as Washington and Beijing try to reach an initial agreement to avoid new US tariffs on Dec. 15. People familiar with the talks said that Kushner has increased his involvement in the negotiations with China over the past two weeks. A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed Kushner’s involvement, but declined to provide details on the influence he has had on the negotiations.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
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
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
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