TURKEY
Police raid jihadist houses
Police yesterday detained about 30 Islamic State suspects in a dawn raid, a day after a deadly shootout with a group of the jihadists, local media reported. Simultaneous operations were launched against Islamic State group cell houses in the conservative central Anatolian city of Konya, the Dogan news agency reported. On Monday, two policemen and seven Islamic State suspects were killed in a gunbattle in the Kurdish majority city of Diyarbakir. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday vowed to press ahead with operations against all “terrorists,” including the Islamic State and members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
IRAN
‘Advisors’ sent to Syria
A top official yesterday said the Revolutionary Guard has sent more military advisers to Syria to help Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the fight against insurgents. General Hossein Salami, the Guard’s deputy leader, said on state television that the deployment has led to more advisors’ deaths in the conflict, although he did not give any specifics for the death toll or for the number of troops dispatched. He said Tehran’s forces are also trying to mobilize volunteers in Syria to help al-Assad push back rebels, though he did not say if those included Western-backed rebel groups fighting in Syria.
REPUBLIC OF CONGO
Referendum backs change
More than 92 percent of voters approved a change to the constitution that will allow President Denis Sassou Nguesso to run for a third consecutive term in next year’s elections, results of a referendum showed yesterday. Turnout in Sunday’s referendum was 72 percent, according to figures read by the electoral commission on radio. The opposition boycotted the poll and a senior opposition leader said it should be annulled due to low turnout.
RUSSIA
Caviar hidden in hearse
Police in the Khabarovsk region stopped a hearse speeding on a highway — only to find half a tonne of caviar stashed inside. The Ministry of the Interior’s department in the region yesterday said the hearse was caught speeding on the road connecting Khabarovsk to a city further north. When police officers asked the driver to open the car they saw plastic containers with caviar hidden under the wreaths lying next to a casket. More caviar was found inside the casket, which did not contain a body. The driver and his partner, who both work for a funeral director, told the police they had been hired by a man in a village outside Khabarovsk who asked them to take the casket with the body of a female relative to a city morgue. The men insisted that they had no idea what was inside the casket. The government strictly regulates caviar production and limited to about 50 sturgeon farms.
CHINA
Record fried rice bid fails
Guinness World Records has denied Yangzhou’s attempt at a new mark for the biggest serving of fried rice ever cooked, saying the city violated rules by wasting 150kg of the feast. Organizers said 4 tonnes of cooked fried rice was distributed to five different outlets, but one portion had been handled inappropriately, violating the organization’s rules requiring that the food be edible and not be wasted. Media reports said the record attempt on Thursday last week involved 300 cooks frying up the dish in individual woks before ladling it into one giant bowl for presentation.
BEYOND WASHINGTON: Although historically the US has been the partner of choice for military exercises, Jakarta has been trying to diversify its partners, an analyst said Indonesia’s first joint military drills with Russia this week signal that new Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto would seek a bigger role for Jakarta on the world stage as part of a significant foreign policy shift, analysts said. Indonesia has long maintained a neutral foreign policy and refuses to take sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict or US-China rivalry, but Prabowo has called for stronger ties with Moscow despite Western pressure on Jakarta. “It is part of a broader agenda to elevate ties with whomever it may be, regardless of their geopolitical bloc, as long as there is a benefit for Indonesia,” said Pieter
US ELECTION: Polls show that the result is likely to be historically tight. However, a recent Iowa poll showed Harris winning the state that Trump won in 2016 and 2020 US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris courted voters angered by the Gaza war while former US President and Republican candidate Donald Trump doubled down on violent rhetoric with a comment about journalists being shot as the tense US election campaign entered its final hours. The Democratic vice president and the Republican former president frantically blitzed several swing states as they tried to win over the last holdouts with less than 36 hours left until polls open on election day today. Trump predicted a “landslide,” while Harris told a raucous rally in must-win Michigan that “we have momentum — it’s
TIGHT CAMPAIGN: Although Harris got a boost from an Iowa poll, neither candidate had a margin greater than three points in any of the US’ seven battleground states US Vice President Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live (SNL) in the final days before the election, as she and former US president and Republican presidential nominees make a frantic last push to win over voters in a historically close campaign. The first lines Harris spoke as she sat across from Maya Rudolph, their outfits identical, was drowned out by cheers from the audience. “It is nice to see you Kamala,” Harris told Rudolph with a broad grin she kept throughout the sketch. “And I’m just here to remind you, you got this.” In sync, the two said supporters
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say