TURKEY
Talks on murder probe held
Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor held talks overnight with intelligence officials in Istanbul on the investigation into the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Arabian consulate, Demiroren news agency said yesterday. Saud al-Mojeb left his hotel shortly after midnight and went to the regional offices of the National Intelligence Agency, it said. Mojeb last week contradicted previous statements by Riyadh, saying Khashoggi’s killing was premeditated.
AUSTRIA
Vienna pulls out of UN pact
The nation is to follow the US and Hungary in backing out of a UN pact on migration over concerns that it will blur the line between legal and illegal migration, the government said yesterday. The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration was approved in July by all 193 UN member nations except the US, which backed out last year. The government would not send an envoy to next month’s signing ceremony in Morocco and will abstain from a UN vote on the pact next year, ORF and news agency APA said, citing Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. Hungary has said it would not sign the final document and Poland is considering doing the same.
PHILIPPINES
Hunt on for landslide victims
Rescuers yesterday used hand tools in a desperate search for about 23 people buried after a landslide unleashed by Typhoon Yutu engulfed a building, as the death toll from the storm that hit Luzon on Tuesday rose to 11. Six people have been rescued so far and two bodies pulled out from the building that collapsed in northern Mountain province. About 360 police, soldiers, firefighters and others were taking part in the rescue.
DENMARK
Envoy to Iran recalled
The government on Tuesday recalled its ambassador to Iran after accusing Tehran of plotting a foiled “attack” against three Iranians living in the country. “Denmark can in no way accept that people with ties to Iran’s intelligence service plot attacks against people in Denmark,” Minister of Foreign Affairs Anders Samuelsen told reporters. “It is the Iranian government, it is the Iranian state that is behind” the plot. He said he was consulting with “partners and allies” about possible sanctions. Iran has denied the allegations.
UNITED STATES
FBI to probe Mueller claims
Special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s office has referred to the FBI allegations that women were “offered money to make false claims” about him, Mueller’s spokesman Peter Carr said. He said that once the office learned of the allegations, it immediately referred the matter to the FBI for investigation. The attempt to spread what Mueller’s office says are false claims about him appears to be an effort to discredit the former FBI director as his team enters a critical stage of its investigation into whether then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign coordinated with Russia and whether Trump attempted to obstruct justice.
NEW ZEALAND
Woman survives avalanche
Well-known adventurer Jo Morgan dug herself out of an avalanche on Mount Hicks yesterday morning, while two guides with her died. The three were roped together as they tried to reach the summit. “I’m absolutely broken,” Morgan told Television New Zealand. “They were buried and I was buried, but had my face out so I could breathe.” Police said the bodies have been recovered.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
Cook Islands officials yesterday said they had discussed seabed minerals research with China as the small Pacific island mulls deep-sea mining of its waters. The self-governing country of 17,000 people — a former colony of close partner New Zealand — has licensed three companies to explore the seabed for nodules rich in metals such as nickel and cobalt, which are used in electric vehicle (EV) batteries. Despite issuing the five-year exploration licenses in 2022, the Cook Islands government said it would not decide whether to harvest the potato-sized nodules until it has assessed environmental and other impacts. Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown
STEADFAST DART: The six-week exercise, which involves about 10,000 troops from nine nations, focuses on rapid deployment scenarios and multidomain operations NATO is testing its ability to rapidly deploy across eastern Europe — without direct US assistance — as Washington shifts its approach toward European defense and the war in Ukraine. The six-week Steadfast Dart 2025 exercises across Bulgaria, Romania and Greece are taking place as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches the three-year mark. They involve about 10,000 troops from nine nations and represent the largest NATO operation planned this year. The US absence from the exercises comes as European nations scramble to build greater military self-sufficiency over their concerns about the commitment of US President Donald Trump’s administration to common defense and
FIREWALLS: ‘Democracy doesn’t mean that the loud minority is automatically right,’ the German defense minister said following the US vice president’s remarks US Vice President JD Vance met the leader of a German far-right party during a visit to Munich, Germany, on Friday, nine days before a German election. During his visit he lectured European leaders about the state of democracy and said there is no place for “firewalls.” Vance met with Alice Weidel, the coleader and candidate for chancellor of the far-right and anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, his office said. Mainstream German parties say they would not work with the party. That stance is often referred to as a “firewall.” Polls put AfD in second place going into the