AUSTRALIA
Oxygen pumped to dying fish
The state of New South Wales yesterday announced plans to mechanically pump oxygen into lakes and rivers after hundreds of thousands of fish have died in heatwave conditions. Up to a million dead fish were found floating last week in the Darling River. Minister for Regional Water Niall Blair said that 16 battery-powered aerators have been bought and would be placed in the waterways.
SOUTH KOREA
North not called ‘enemy’
South Korea has stopped calling North Korea an “enemy” in its biennial defense document in an apparent effort to continue reconciliation with Pyongyang. The development comes as US and North Korean leaders are looking to set up their second summit to defuse an international standoff over North Korea’s nuclear program. South Korea first called North Korea a “main enemy” in its 1995 document, a year after North Korea threatened to turn Seoul into “a sea of fire.”
RUSSIA
Telescope ‘incommunicado’
Roscosmos, the national space agency, on Monday said it had lost control of its only space radio telescope, but that officials were working to re-establish communication. A US observatory detected signals from the space agency’s gigantic Spektr-R, or RadioAstron, telescope, which stopped responding to commands from Earth on Thursday last week, it said. “I cannot bury a satellite that is alive for sure,” RadioAstron project head Yuri Kovalev said. “It’s like asking for a comment about a sick person when doctors are fighting for his life.”
UNITED STATES
Dismemberment gets 30
A man who admitted to killing and dismembering his mother during an argument in their Honolulu, Hawaii, apartment has been sentenced to 30 years in prison. Gong Yuwei (龔宇威) was charged with murder after he called police in 2017 to turn himself in after a suicide attempt. He admitted killing his mother, Gong Liuyun (龔柳雲), about six months earlier, according to court documents. When officers asked where his mother was, he said: “In the fridge.” Gong, 28, spent most of Monday’s sentencing looking down. He spoke quietly as he apologized to his family in China and Hawaii. “I am ashamed for what I did,” he said. “I’m sorry, Mom.”
UNITED STATES
Trump, Clemson ‘Lovin’ it’
The scent of burgers, fries and victory on Monday wafted through the White House as President Donald Trump saluted college football’s Clemson Tigers for winning the national championship. Trump said he even paid for the meal himself, because of the partial government shutdown. “We ordered American fast food, paid for by me,” Trump said. Silver trays held stacks of burgers from Wendy’s and McDonald’s, including Big Macs. Cups bearing the presidential seal held fries.
HONDURAS
New caravan heads to US
Hundreds of migrants on Monday began the long trek north, part of a new US-bound caravan that hopes to succeed even as a previous wave of Central Americans were unable to quickly enter the US. Television footage showed people in the city of San Pedro Sula waving Honduran flags as they began the journey. There are 600 to 800 people, according to an estimate provided by Miroslava Serpas, head of migrant affairs with the CIPRODEH human rights research center, which is accompanying the group.
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
US President Donald Trump handed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a one-year exemption from sanctions for buying Russian oil and gas after the close right-wing allies held a chummy White House meeting on Friday. Trump slapped sanctions on Moscow’s two largest oil companies last month after losing patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to end the nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. However, while Trump has pushed other European countries to stop buying oil that he says funds Moscow’s war machine, Orban used his first trip to the White House since Trump’s return to power to push for
LANDMARK: After first meeting Trump in Riyadh in May, al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House today would be the first by a Syrian leader since the country’s independence Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the US on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency SANA reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted long-time former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House today. It is the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May. US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack earlier
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