CHINA
Rocket launch fails
The first attempt by a private company to send a rocket into space has failed. Beijing-based Landscape late on Saturday said that the first and second stage of its ZQ-1 rocket worked normally, but something went wrong with the final stage. It was the first three-stage rocket built by a private company in the nation. Video posted by a news site showed the 19m-tall red-and-white rocket lifting off against clear blue skies. Landscape said that “cowling separation was normal, but something abnormal happened after the second stage.”
PAKISTAN
Indian TV ban renewed
The nation’s top court has reinstated a ban on the broadcast of Indian TV content following a petition from local producers. Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar announced the verdict on Saturday, overturning a lower court’s ruling last year that had lifted the 2016 ban on airing Indian content on TV or FM radio. The regulatory body for electronic media said that Saturday’s order was implemented immediately. Earlier this year, India banned performances by Pakistani artists, while some Indian stations have stopped airing Pakistani content. Indian producers have called for a comprehensive ban on Pakistani content.
CAMEROON
Election protesters arrested
Minister of Territorial Administration Paul Atanga Nji said that anti-riot police have arrested at least two dozen people who on Saturday staged peaceful protests against the re-election of President Paul Biya. Nji said that among those arrested was a lawyer who represented opposition candidate Maurice Kamto, who said he won the Oct. 7 election. Nji said the government would not tolerate acts to undermine national security as it prepares to inaugurate 85-year-old Biya for his seventh term in the next week or so.
AUSTRALIA
Police rescue kangaroo
A kangaroo that hopped into the sea for a dip at a Melbourne beach was rescued by police, officers said yesterday. Officers said they were called to Safety Beach in Melbourne on Saturday afternoon amid reports that the animal was struggling in the water. When they arrived, the kangaroo had already made its way back onto dry land and was on the sand covered with a blanket by a beachgoer. However, as they approached, it suddenly turned around and bounded back into the waves. “It began to swim, but got into difficulty in the swell and breaking waves and went under water a couple of times,” Victoria Police said in a statement. Two officers jumped into the water and brought the marsupial, by now unconscious, back to a grassy area and resuscitate it using compressions, they said.
ROMANIA
Earthquake shakes capital
An magnitude 5.8 earthquake rattled central and eastern Romania early yesterday and was also felt in Ukraine, Moldova and Bulgaria. No significant damage was reported. The temblor, which lasted several seconds, occurred at 3:38am in the eastern region of Vrancea at a depth of 150km, the National Earth Physics Institute said. The quake woke residents in the capital, Bucharest, and elsewhere. Bucharest Ambulance Service spokeswoman Alice Grasu said a dozen or so residents telephoned immediately after the quake reporting panic attacks. Electricity was temporarily downed in an area near the epicenter northeast of Bucharest. There were reports of pictures and plaster falling off walls in the capital.
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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