INDONESIA
Foreigners escape prison
Police said four foreign inmates have escaped from a prison on Bali. Kuta Utara police station officer Putu Ika Prabawa said prison officers became aware of the escape yesterday while conducting a morning check of inmates at the Kerobokan penitentiary in Denpasar. Prabawa said it is believed the four men escaped through a 50cm-by-70cm hole in a wall that connects to a 15m-long water tunnel that heads toward a main street. He identified the four as 33-year-old Australian Shaun Edward Davidson, 43-year-old Bulgarian Dimitar Nikolov Iliev, 31-year-old Indian Sayed Mohammed Said and 50-year-old Malaysian Tee Koko King bin Tee Kim Sai.
CHINA
Synthetic opioids banned
China has announced it is banning a deadly synthetic opioid called U-47700 and three other synthetic drugs. U-47700 has until now been a legal alternative to fentanyl and potent derivatives like carfentanil. Its usage has been growing among US opioid addicts. Last year, the US Drug Enforcement Administration listed U-47700 in the category of the most dangerous drugs it regulates, saying it was associated with dozens of fatalities. Some of the pills taken from Prince’s estate after the musician’s overdose death last year contained U-47700. National Narcotics Control Commission deputy director Deng Ming said the drugs would be added to China’s list of controlled substances as of Saturday next week.
SOUTH KOREA
Octopus inspires patch
The clinging power of octopus tentacles has inspired a breakthrough new adhesive patch that works on wet and oily surfaces with potentially huge medical and industrial uses, researchers said. Octopuses are among the most intelligent and behaviorally diverse of all invertebrates, but it was their extreme strength that attracted the interest of the research team from Sungkyunkwan University. The team found the octopus’ suction power was due to small balls inside the suction cups that line each of their tentacles. The new “wet-tolerant” adhesive patch has been hailed as a breakthrough by the Ministry of Science and Technology.
QATAR
Neighbors’ blockade rapped
Qatar yesterday hit out at four Arab nations for cutting diplomatic ties and transport links over Doha’s alleged support for terrorism, accusing them of a “publicity stunt” aimed solely at attacking its image and reputation. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt cut ties with Qatar on June 5 in the worst diplomatic crisis in the region in years. “The blockade has been ongoing for two weeks and the blockading nations have offered no formula for resolving the crisis,” Government Communications Office Director Sheikh Saif bin Ahmed Al Thani said in a statement.”
SAUDI ARABIA
Boat seized near oilfield
The navy seized a boat carrying weapons as it approached the kingdom’s offshore Marjan oilfield in the Gulf on Friday evening, the official Saudi Press Agency reported yesterday. Two other boats that also approached Marjan managed to escape after the navy fired warning shots, the agency said. The captured boat was carrying weapons “for subversive purposes,” the report said. The report had no word on the registration of the vessels or the nationality of the crew, but added without elaborating that vessels were bearing white and red flags.
PORTUGAL
Wildfires still blazing
More than 1,500 firefighters in the nation were still battling to control major wildfires in a central region where one blaze killed 62 people. Reinforcements were due to arrive yesterday, including more water-dropping aircraft from Spain, France and Italy as part of a EU cooperation program. Portugal is observing three days of national mourning after 62 people were killed in a wildfire on Saturday night around the town of Pedrogao Grande, which is by far the deadliest on record.
GREENLAND
Quake leaves four missing
Four people have been reported missing in the nation after an earthquake off the Arctic island’s west coast triggered a tsunami that flooded a village, authorities said. The Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland on Sunday said that a magnitude 4 earthquake struck the northwest near the village of Nuugaatsiaq. It said surging water is reported to have destroyed 11 buildings there. Greenland public broadcaster KNR said police have evacuated 40 people from Nuugaatsiaq. In addition to those missing, it said nine people were injured, two seriously. Experts said the quake likely triggered a landslide into the sea, resulting in the tsunami and flooding.
UNITED STATES
Trump eyes Israel peace
President Donald Trump is sending two top aides to Jerusalem and Ramallah this week to discuss potential next steps in his bid to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, a White House official said on Sunday. Going on the trip will be White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, who is Trump’s son-in-law and husband of his daughter Ivanka Trump, and Trump’s adviser on Israel, Jason Greenblatt. Greenblatt was to arrive in the region today and Kushner tomorrow. Kushner and Greenblatt are to have meetings in Jerusalem and Ramallah to hear directly from the Israeli and Palestinian leadership “about their priorities and potential next steps,” the official said.
UNITED STATES
Syrian jet shot down
The military on Sunday shot down a Syrian Air Force fighter jet that bombed local forces aligned with Washington in the fight against Islamic State militants, an action that appeared to mark a new escalation of the conflict. The nation had not shot down a Syrian regime aircraft before Sunday’s confrontation, Pentagon spokesman Navy Captain Jeff Davis said.
NORTH KOREA
US accused of mugging
North Korea has accused US officials of assaulting a delegation at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport by forcibly seizing a diplomatic package they were carrying. The group was returning from a UN conference on Friday when the incident occurred, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Sunday, citing a foreign ministry spokesman. More than 20 police officers and others “made a violent assault like gangsters to take away the diplomatic package from the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] diplomats who were in possession of a valid diplomatic courier certificate,” KCNA said. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the DPRK regards this mugging by the US as an intolerable act of infringement upon the sovereignty of the DPRK and a malicious provocation, and strongly condemns it,” KCNA said in the report. It did not mention what was in the package.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
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