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.
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
ICE DISPUTE: The Trump administration has sought to paint Good as a ‘domestic terrorist,’ insisting that the agent who fatally shot her was acting in self-defense Thousands of demonstrators chanting the name of the woman killed by a US federal agent in Minneapolis, Minnesota, took to the city’s streets on Saturday, amid widespread anger at use of force in the immigration crackdown of US President Donald Trump. Organizers said more than 1,000 events were planned across the US under the slogan “ICE, Out for Good” — referring to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is drawing growing opposition over its execution of Trump’s effort at mass deportations. The slogan is also a reference to Renee Good, the 37-year-old mother shot dead on Wednesday in her
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