NORTH KOREA
Floods leave 400 missing
Pyongyang said 400 people were missing and about 212,000 were left homeless following heavy rains and floods that lasted through last month. The floods killed 169 people and injured 144, while destroying more than 8,600 houses and submerging 43,770 residential buildings, the official Korean Central News Agency (KNCA) said on Saturday. At least 65,280 hectares of farmland was damaged, KCNA said. Premier Choe Yong-rim toured Anju, where almost all public buildings and industrial facilities were flooded or destroyed, with water and power supplies cut off, KNCA said. Choe was briefed on the damages in the city and held a meeting, the agency said.
CHINA
Fake medicines seized
Police have detained almost 2,000 people in a nationwide sweep on fake drugs, seizing more than US$180 million worth of counterfeit products and destroying about 1,100 production facilities, the public security ministry said yesterday. The operation, involving about 18,000 police officers, discovered fake or adulterated drugs purporting to deal with illnesses ranging from diabetes to high blood pressure and rabies, the ministry said. The suspects even advertised their drugs online, in newspapers and on TV and the drugs caused problems ranging from liver and kidney damage to heart failure, the ministry said.
VIETNAM
Gay pride parade held
Dozens of cyclists decorated with balloons and rainbow flags streamed through Hanoi yesterday for the first-ever gay pride parade in the country. The event, organized by the city’s small, but growing Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender community, went ahead peacefully with no attempt by police to stop the colorful convoy of about 100 activists. Activists said they had modified the parade route after coming under pressure from police to avoid sensitive areas where anti-China demonstrations were taking place.
JAPAN
Truman grandson visits
A grandson of former US president Harry Truman, who ordered the atomic bombings of Japan during World War II, is in Hiroshima to attend a memorial service for the victims. Clifton Truman Daniel visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park on Saturday and laid a wreath for the 140,000 people killed by the Aug. 6, 1945, bombing authorized by his grandfather. Daniel, 55, will attend ceremonies next week in Hiroshima and Nagasaki marking the 67th anniversary of the bombings. His visit, the first by a member of the Truman family, is sponsored by the peace group Sadako Legacy, named after Sadako Sasaki, an A-bomb victim who died of leukemia at age 12.
PAKISTAN
NATO supply route reopened
The government on Saturday allowed 14 NATO containers to cross into Afghanistan from the northwestern border checkpoint at Torkham, officials said. Islamabad had temporarily stopped NATO supplies on July 24 because of security concerns after gunmen attacked a convoy of NATO trucks, killing a driver, in the town of Jamrud. A local intelligence official also confirmed resumption of supplies and the departure of 14 NATO containers to Afghanistan. However, a senior local customs official, Ubaidullah Khan, put the figure of containers at seven, adding that they carried foodstuff and clothes.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
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