CHINA
Anti-drone laser passes test
Engineers have successfully tested a laser weapon that can shoot down low-flying, slow-moving drones, state media reported yesterday. The Low Altitude Sentinel system can detect a small aircraft within a 2km radius and shoot it down within five seconds, the English-language China Daily said, citing a statement from the China Academy of Engineering Physics. The system is designed to destroy small drones flying below 500m altitude at a speed less than 180kph, the China Daily said. The system could be installed in vehicles and guard against flying objects during major events in urban areas, Xinhua news agency said.
LEBANON
Hezbollah chief rallies Shiites
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah made a rare public appearance on Monday in Beirut, addressing thousands of supporters ahead of the Shiite Ashura commemorations. As he appeared on stage, the crowd seen in a live broadcast on Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV station began cheering wildly, as they apparently had not expected to see him. The head of the Shiite militant group usually addresses supporters via video link for fear of assassination by arch-foe Israel and had not been seen in public since July. He called for a large turnout yesterday for the peak of the Shiite festival. “Tomorrow [yesterday] we will prove that we are above any threat, any danger, any challenge,” he said. Nasrallah said his movement would back its main Christian ally, Michel Aoun, in the long-delayed presidential vote. Parliament is tasked by the constitution with selecting a president, a decision that has been put off 14 times as the war in Syria continues to rival blocs.
TURKEY
Erdogan yells at smoker
An Istanbul cafe was fined 6,000 lira (US$2,680) on Monday after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan scolded one of its clients for smoking and demanded that the establishment be punished. The sight of Erdogan wagging his finger at the smoker as crowds of onlookers took photographs triggered a backlash on social media, with his opponents seeing it as evidence of an increasingly authoritarian nature. Smoking indoors is banned in public places. “There is a penalty for this,” Erdogan shouted, pointing toward the second floor of the cafe. “That rude man, look at him. The president is telling him [not to smoke], but he is still continuing,” Erdogan told his aides as he continued a stroll through the neighborhood of Esenler after a ceremony for government buildings on Sunday. Responding to the episode, one twitter user wrote “smoking is healthier than fascism,” using a hashtag directed at the president: “#cigarettes are not as harmful as you.”
SOUTH KOREA
Nation’s kids least happy
The country’s children came last in a study on happiness in developed countries, the government said yesterday, citing the stress of the nation’s educational pressure cooker. South Korea ranked at the bottom out of 30 countries in terms of children’s satisfaction with their lives, the Ministry of Health said, followed by Romania and Poland. “The most relevant factor to the children’s life satisfaction is academic stress, followed by school violence, Internet addiction, negligence and cyberviolence,” the ministry said of its survey of more than 4,000 households with children younger than 18. More than half of children aged between 15 and 19 who are suicidal give “academic performance and college entrance” as a reason, National Statistics Korea said.
BULGARIA
Self-immolations continue
A woman set herself on fire outside the presidency on Monday, in an echo of a series of self-immolations in the country last year, authorities said. Television footage showed the woman in flames in central Sofia before her burned body was carried on a stretcher and loaded into an ambulance by firefighters. The victim was confirmed by the Ministry of the Interior as a 38-year-old woman from the capital who has an 11-year-old son. She was taken to hospital and put on a respirator ,but sustained 90-percent burns. Numerous witnesses told local media she had set herself ablaze. Her motives were unclear. “We are continuing to fight for her, but burns like these are incompatible with life,” doctor Ognyan Hadzhiyski said. At least six people died after setting themselves alight between February and May last year during protests against rock-bottom living standards and corruption. Seven years after joining the EU, one-quarter of the population lives below the poverty line and a recent poll had 69 percent of Bulgarians considering their country’s situation “unbearable.”
NICARAGUA
Boa startles bus passengers
There have been snakes on a plane, and now there are snakes — or at least one very big one — on a bus. Passengers had a nasty surprise on a bus on Monday when they discovered they were traveling with a boa constrictor that was 2m long, local television reported. The bus made a sudden stop when the reptile was discovered and passengers hailed “the boa hero” — a member of the public — who saw the commotion and tamed the snake by holding its head firmly in his hands for several hours. An animal expert with the government arrived on the scene four hours later, got the snake into a container and took it to a local zoo.
UNITED STATES
Gabbard aids volcano work
She might be a congresswoman, but Representative Tulsi Gabbard is also a reservist in the National Guard, which placed her on active duty to help with a volcanic eruption in her native Hawaii. Gabbard, a military police captain in the Hawaii Army National Guard, has been called up “to support their assistance to Hawai’i County’s response to the ongoing Kilauea lava flow,” her spokeswoman Heather Fluit said on Monday in a statement. “Her activation starts tomorrow [yesterday]” and lasts for an undetermined period of time, Fluit said. Gabbard will join about 80 National Guard soldiers and airmen already on the ground. While on duty, Gabbard will be unable to comment on her official congressional activities, presumably including yesterday’s midterm election for all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, and for which she is running to keep her seat. Red-hot lava from a slow-erupting volcano has reached a home on Hawaii’s Big Island and is threatening the entire town of Pahoa, on the eastern tip of the island, emergency officials said.
ARGENTINA
President in hospital
President Cristina Fernandez will remain in hospital with an intestinal infection which forced her to call off a meeting with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, Fernandez’s office said on Monday. The 61-year-old, who was feverish when admitted on Sunday to the Otamendi Clinic in Buenos Aires, was found to be suffering from sigmoiditis, her doctors said. Kirchner is “stable, remains in hospital under treatment with IV antibiotics, and is under observation,” they added.
MONEY GRAB: People were rushing to collect bills scattered on the ground after the plane transporting money crashed, which an official said hindered rescue efforts A cargo plane carrying money on Friday crashed near Bolivia’s capital, damaging about a dozen vehicles on highway, scattering bills on the ground and leaving at least 15 people dead and others injured, an official said. Bolivian Minister of Defense Marcelo Salinas said the Hercules C-130 plane was transporting newly printed Bolivian currency when it “landed and veered off the runway” at an airport in El Alto, a city adjacent to La Paz, before ending up in a nearby field. Firefighters managed to put out the flames that engulfed the aircraft. Fire chief Pavel Tovar said at least 15 people died, but
LIKE FATHER, LIKE DAUGHTER: By showing Ju-ae’s ability to handle a weapon, the photos ‘suggest she is indeed receiving training as a successor,’ an academic said North Korea on Saturday released a rare image of leader Kim Jong-un’s teenage daughter firing a rifle at a shooting range, adding to speculation that she is being groomed as his successor. Kim’s daughter, Ju-ae, has long been seen as the next in line to rule the secretive, nuclear-armed state, and took part in a string of recent high-profile outings, including last week’s military parade marking the closing stages of North Korea’s key party congress. Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) released a photo of Ju-ae shooting a rifle at an outdoor shooting range, peering through a rifle scope
South Korea would soon no longer be one of the few countries where Google Maps does not work properly, after its security-conscious government reversed a two-decade stance to approve the export of high-precision map data to overseas servers. The approval was made “on the condition that strict security requirements are met,” the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. Those conditions include blurring military and other sensitive security-related facilities, as well as restricting longitude and latitude coordinates for South Korean territory on products such as Google Maps and Google Earth, it said. The decision is expected to hurt Naver and Kakao
India and Canada yesterday reached a string of agreements, including on critical mineral cooperation and a “landmark” uranium supply deal for nuclear power, the countries’ leaders said in New Delhi. The pacts, which also covered technology and promoting the use of renewable energy, were announced after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney hailed a fresh start in the relationship between their nations. “Our ties have seen a new energy, mutual trust and positivity,” Modi said. Carney’s visit is a key step forward in ties that effectively collapsed in 2023 after Ottawa accused New Delhi
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