JAPAN
US trade deal approved
The parliament yesterday approved a trade deal that was agreed on earlier this year by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and US President Donald Trump. The deal cutting tariffs between the countries takes effect from the beginning of next month. Some critics have said that the deal is more advantageous to the US, because the US would continue to levy a 2.5 percent tariff on vehicles manufactured in the nation.
EL SALVADOR
Chinese investment sealed
China is to help build several major infrastructure projects, including a stadium and water treatment plant, the two nations said in a joint statement on Tuesday. President Nayib Bukele, who this week met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing, said that the investment represented a “gigantic, non-refundable cooperation,” without disclosing the planned investment amount. The projects offer the strongest signal yet of the nation’s embrace of close ties with Beijing. The nation “adheres to the principle of one China, categorically rejects any act that goes against this principle and any form of ‘independence of Taiwan,’” the joint statement said.
PHILIPPINES
Typhoon leaves 17 dead
The death toll from Typhoon Kammuri yesterday rose to 17 people, after the weather system destroyed houses and displaced hundreds of thousands on its path across the nation. As it neared its exit yesterday, signals for tropical cyclone winds were lifted for 10 out of about a hundred areas placed on alert this week, the national weather bureau said. Parts of 12 roads and three bridges remain closed, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council’s latest bulletin said.
AUSTRALIA
Body found in hiker search
Police yesterday said they believe they have found the remains of a woman missing in the country’s remote outback for two weeks. “Police located the body, which is believed to be that Claire Hockridge during search efforts,” Northern Territory police said in an e-mailed statement. Hockridge had been missing since she went hiking with two friends, both of whom had been found.
RUSSIA
‘Tank’ bear sparks concern
A video showing a polar bear painted with the name of a Soviet-era tank, T-34, has caused alarm. A senior researcher at the Institute of Biological Problems of the North, Anatoly Kochnev, told RIA Novosti news agency that “at first, until he cleans himself off, it will be hard for him to hunt.” The video was posted on Facebook on Monday by Sergei Kavry, who works for the World Wildlife Fund in the Chukotka region. He said he was concerned at the large letters daubed on the side of the bear, seen plodding through snow. “Why? Why? He won’t be able to hunt inconspicuously,” Kavry wrote. Severpress news agency on Tuesday reported that scientists had marked the bear because it was scavenging for food near an inhabited area in Novaya Zemlya, a remote Arctic archipelago, but that the paint would wash off in two weeks.
PAKISTAN
Islamists besiege newspaper
Dozens of angry Islamists on Tuesday night swarmed the building of independent newspaper Dawn in Islamabad, blocking its entrance for several hours, threatening the staff and demanding that its editor Zaffar Abbas be hanged. A simultaneous protest took place in Karachi, where the protesters gathered at the Press Club, demanding that Abbas and Dawn publisher Hameed Haroon be hanged. The demonstrators were angered that the English-language paper had reported that the assailant in the London Bridge attack on Friday last week was of “Pakistani origin.”
COLOMBIA
Frenchman ‘assassinated’
An engineer working for French aerospace and defense company Thales has been shot dead in Bogota in an apparent targeted assassination, officials said on Tuesday. The 45-year-old victim was shot late on Monday as he left a restaurant with a French colleague in the upscale northern district of Chapinero, the police and Thales said. “We reject the hypothesis of a robbery. According to the evidence we have, this is an assassination perpetrated by a hitman,” police Major Robert Mendez told reporters. The killer had approached from behind after the men left the restaurant and targeted only the victim before fleeing, a police source said. The French embassy said the victim, whose identity has not been made public, had been on a work assignment. The city is currently hosting the Expodefensa defense and security trade fair.
UNITED STATES
Kushner in talks with China
President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has added another role to his long list of White House duties — trade negotiator — as Washington and Beijing try to reach an initial agreement to avoid new US tariffs on Dec. 15. People familiar with the talks said that Kushner has increased his involvement in the negotiations with China over the past two weeks. A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed Kushner’s involvement, but declined to provide details on the influence he has had on the negotiations.
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
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
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
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