NORTH KOREA
Test a ‘solemn warning’
The government yesterday said that two missiles fired on Thursday were newly designed tactical weapons that sent a “solemn warning” to South Korea over plans to hold military drills with the US. The Korean Central News Agency provided no technical specifications, but said that the tests were of a “new-type tactical guided weapon” that sent a “solemn warning to the South Korean warmongers” over their insistence on holding the drills. Leader Kim Jong-un said that the missiles were capable of low-altitude flight and cautioned Seoul against “ignoring the warning” implicit in their development, the agency reported.
MONGOLIA
Leader to visit White House
President Khaltmaa Battulga is to meet with US President Donald Trump on Wednesday next week at the White House, which said that the visit would center on deepening cooperation between the two nations. The leaders are to discuss a range of issues, including defense and security, trade and investment, sovereignty and the rule of law. The plan follows a visit to Mongolia late last month by White House National Security Adviser John Bolton. The last time Mongolia’s leader visited the White House was in June 2011.
BALKANS
Cocaine ring stymied
Police from several European nations on Thursday announced that they have dismantled a cocaine smuggling ring. After months of investigations on three continents and 1 tonne of cocaine seized, 16 people were arrested, 11 in Europe — Croatia, Czech Republic, Serbia and Switzerland — and five in Hong Kong, Europol said in a statement. The agency welcomed the disabling of the “Balkan organized criminal network suspected of large-scale cocaine trafficking from South America to Europe using private planes.”
SYRIA
Strikes kill 103 civilians
Airstrikes by the government and its allies on schools, hospitals, markets and bakeries have killed at least 103 civilians in the past 10 days, including 26 children, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said in a statement yesterday. “These are civilian objects, and it seems highly unlikely, given the persistent pattern of such attacks, that they are all being hit by accident,” Bachelet said, adding that the rising toll had been met with “apparent international indifference.” The government in April began its offensive against a rebel enclave in the northwest, the last area of insurgent opposition to President Bashar al-Assad. The offensive has driven hundreds of thousands of people from their homes or temporary shelters to seek refuge near the border with Turkey and has killed hundreds of civilians, according to war monitoring groups.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
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