SOUTH KOREA
Helicopter crash kills five
A firefighting helicopter crashed yesterday near an apartment complex and school in Gwangju, killing five people, officials said. The helicopter was returning to headquarters in the eastern provincial firefighting agency after participating in search operations for 11 people still missing after a ferry sinking that killed more than 290 in April, fire officials in Gwangju said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of office rules. The crash killed all five fire officers aboard the helicopter, while a female high-school student on the ground received a minor injury, the officials said.
JAPAN
Missile research with UK
Tokyo and London are to jointly develop missile technology for fighter jets, while Tokyo may also start exporting parts for US surface-to-air missiles, a report said yesterday. The plan — which comes months after the government lifted a self-imposed ban on weapons exports — was likely to be approved by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Cabinet at a meeting of the National Security Council yesterday, the Mainichi Shimbun reported, without citing sources. The joint research with Britain is linked to a European missile project called Meteor, while the parts exports will be destined for Washington’s Patriot Advanced Capability-2 (PAC-2) missile defense system, the report said. If approved, the US exports would be the first since Japan in April approved a new policy that replaces its 1967 blanket ban on shipping arms overseas, it said.
AUSTRALIA
‘Man up’ angers Assange
WikiLeaks frontman Julian Assange yesterday reacted angrily after Australian Attorney General George Brandis said he should be “man enough” to face Swedish sexual assault allegations. The Australian, who has been holed up in Ecuador’s embassy in London for more than two years, lost a court bid on Wednesday to get a Swedish arrest warrant against him scrapped. Brandis told ABC radio the 43-year-old should deal with the claims against him. “I think Mr Assange should be man enough to face the allegations against him of being a sexual predator,” he said. Assange, who denies the charges, fears that if he goes to Sweden he will be sent to the US to face charges for publishing classified material. He accused Brandis of stealing comments US Secretary of State John Kerry made about intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden. “AG Brandis should stop plagiarising sexist claptrap and start doing his job: defending the legal rights of all Australians,” he said in a statement to Australian Associated Press.
AUSTRALIA
Shark chokes on sea lion
A great white shark that washed up on a beach this week had a sea lion stuck in its throat that likely caused its death, fisheries officials said yesterday. The 4m white pointer was filmed thrashing around just off Coronation Beach, 430km north of Perth, and was later found on the sand. The Western Australia Department of Fisheries said it had no visible signs of injury or disease, but had a large sea lion lodged in its throat. “This could explain why the shark was exhibiting such unusual behaviour in shallow waters off Coronation Beach,” research scientist Rory McAuley said in a statement. “It is possible that the shark was trying to dislodge the blockage. Such a large object may have damaged the shark’s internal organs or impeded water flow into his gills, contributing to his death,” he added. “Alternatively, the shark may have accidentally become stranded in his attempts to get rid of the obstruction.”
TUNISIA
Alpine raid kills 14 troops
Assailants killed 14 soldiers in an attack on two posts near the border with Algeria, where the army has been waging a crackdown on extremists, the government said yesterday. “The toll is 14 dead soldiers and 20 wounded, and it is expected to rise,” the Ministry of the National Defense said, updating an earlier count of four killed during the attack in the Mount Chaambi area. “This is the heaviest recorded [death toll] to have been registered by the army since independence” in 1956, the ministry’s press office said. The attacks came almost a year after soldiers were ambushed in the same region.
UNITED STATES
Pilot makes whale of a save
A video of a seaplane just missing a surfacing humpback whale while coming in to land has become a hit online, while the man who shot it says it was simply luck. San Diego businessman Thomas Hamm was in the village of Angoon, Alaska, about 35km southwest of Juneau, last week when he recorded the footage with his cellphone. In the video, the aircraft descends on a shallow run and is about to land in a bay, before abruptly pulling up as the surfacing whale blows a geyser of spray up over the plane’s windshield. (Video: http://youtu.be/lu2WEWRkoXk)
LIBYA
Strike halts flight traffic
Air traffic controllers have gone on strike to protest the shelling of Tripoli’s main airport, halting flights in much of the nation, a government official said yesterday. The strike puts pressure on rival militias to end four days of heavy fighting over control of the nation’s biggest airport, during which at least 20 aircraft have been damaged in the worst violence in the capital for six months. The controllers refused to go to work at the control tower in Tripoli, which regulates traffic for all of western Libya, transport ministry spokesman Tarek Arwa said.
PUERTO RICO
Water mite named after J.Lo
Pop singer Jennifer Lopez may be thinking life is funny after some scientists gave her name to a water mite species they discovered near Puerto Rico. Biologist Vladimir Pesic of the University of Montenegro said in an e-mail on Wednesday that the group was entertained during its research by the music of the Bronx, New York-born artist — who has Puerto Rican roots. Pesic calls it a small token of gratitude for the singer of hits such as All I Have and Ain’t It Funny. Pesic is the corresponding author of the study published on Tuesday in the peer-reviewed online journal ZooKeys. He and other scientists collected the Litarachna lopezae water mite from a coral reef in Mona Passage between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
UN chief speaks in capital
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged legislators to find a humanitarian solution to a court decision that could render thousands of people of Haitian descent stateless during a visit to Santo Domingo on Wednesday. “It won’t be easy,” he said. “This requires compromise and tough consultations. It requires your compassion as human beings and as leaders of this country.” Critics say a new law that would create a path to citizenship for the descendants of tens of thousands of migrants who came from neighboring Haiti is likely to exclude the majority of people born in the Dominican Republic to migrants. Ban asked that legislators prevent what he called “the privatization of nationality.”
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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