GERMANY
Merkel’s coalition battered
Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday salvaged her fragile ruling coalition with the resignation of two officials, including one junior minister, who had aligned themselves with the far-right in a regional election. The surprise election of Thomas Kemmerich as premier in Thuringia on Wednesday with the help of lawmakers from the far-right Alternative for German on Wednesday shattered a political taboo, as mainstream parties have vowed never to work with the anti-Islam, anti-immigrant party. Merkel dismissed junior minister Christian Hirte after he congratulated Kemmerich on his success, but Kemmerich also stood down under pressure. Media reports said the center-left Social Democrats had demanded Kemerich’s resignation as a condition for remaining in Merkel’s governing coalition.
TURKEY
Syrian outposts fortified
The military is deploying additional military supplies to fortify its outposts in Syria’s Idlib Province, Minister of Defense Hulusi Akar told the Hurriyet newspaper, as its forces prepare for a bigger confrontation with Russian-backed Syrian fighters in the area. The province has become a flashpoint between Ankara and Moscow since Syrian troops killed seven Turkish soldiers and a civilian there last week, but Akar said Ankara was keeping Russia in the loop about its operations in Idlib.
IRAN
Satellite countdown begins
The nation’s space agency yesterday started counting down to the launch of a new scientific observation satellite. “Beginning countdown to launch #Zafar_Satellite in the next few hours... In the Name of God,” Minister of Information and Communications Technology Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi wrote on Twitter. The agency has said Zafar’s “primary mission” would be collecting imagery needed to study earthquakes, deal with natural disasters and help develop the nation’s agriculture.
UNITED STATES
NYC cops in van ambushed
Two New York City police officers narrowly escaped with their lives when a gunman fired into their patrol van on Saturday night, wounding one of them in an attack that officials called an attempted assassination. The ambush, which New York City Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said “should outrage all New Yorkers,” happened just before 8:30pm in the South Bronx. The officer at the wheel of the van was grazed in the chin and neck, but he avoided serious injury, and was expected to released from the hospital yesterday. The uniformed officers were sitting in their van with emergency lights activated when a man approached them and engaged them in conversation, Shea said. The man asked the officers for directions, then pulled out a gun and fired multiple shots, striking the officer behind the wheel, Shea said. The officer’s partner drove him to a nearby hospital.
UNITED STATES
‘Wild, Wild West’ star dies
Robert Conrad, the rugged, contentious actor who starred in the hugely popular 1960s television series Hawaiian Eye and The Wild, Wild West, died on Saturday. He was 84. He died of heart failure in Malibu, California, family spokesperson Jeff Ballard said. Conrad became a star after Hawaiian Eye debuted in 1959. He interspersed his long TV career with numerous roles in films, while finding plenty of time for arguments. Conrad had a reputation as a tough customer and was sued more than a half-dozen times as a result of fist fights.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was