RUSSIA
Moscow helping China
President Vladimir Putin said Moscow is helping China to develop an anti-missile early warning system, as he criticized the US for abandoning a key nuclear treaty. “We are now helping our Chinese partners to create a missile-warning system, a missile-attack warning system,” Putin said at the Valdai Club conference of foreign-policy experts in Russia’s Sochi on Thursday. “This is a very serious thing that will dramatically increase China’s defense capability, because only the US and Russia have such a system now.” Putin said US President Donald Trump’s decision earlier this year to quit the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty had weakened international strategic stability. The US has accused Russia of breaching the treaty, a charge Moscow denies, while also saying that new or renewed nuclear accords should include China’s expanding arsenal. China has rejected that suggestion.
IRAQ
Protest death toll hits 44
The death toll from three days of anti-government protests in Iraq climbed to 44, police and medical sources said yesterday. The largest number of casualties occurred in the southern city of Nassiriya, where 18 people were killed, followed by the capital Baghdad where the death toll stood at 16, they said. Tensions have been exacerbated by a near-total Internet blackout as the authorities seek to prevent protesters communicating with each other or posting footage of the chaotic demonstrations. Prime Minister Adel Abdel-Mahdi has imposed curfews in Baghdad and other cities to try to stop the protests gathering steam.
UNITED NATIONS
Council to discuss N Korea
The UN Security Council is on Tuesday to hold closed consultations on North Korea’s recent ballistic missile launches, diplomats said on Thursday. Britain, France and Germany called for a council meeting following the recent series of missile launches, which are in contravention of UN sanctions. The council session is to take place after today’s meeting of US and North Korean officials in Stockholm. Some council members wanted the Security Council meeting to take place yesterday — ahead of the US talks, diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions have been private. South African Ambassador Jerry Matjila, this month’s council president, and others told reporters there were scheduling issues. In its latest test, North Korea on Thursday said that it carried out its first underwater-launched ballistic missile test in three years. The firing on Wednesday was an apparent effort to increase pressure on the US ahead of the weekend resumption of their nuclear diplomacy.
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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