AUSTRIA
Minister tests for COVID-19
Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg has tested positive for COVID-19 and might have caught it at a meeting with his EU counterparts on Monday, a spokeswoman for the ministry said yesterday. Schallenberg’s infection raises the prospect that the EU Foreign Affairs Council was a so-called super-spreader event. His Belgian counterpart Sophie Wilmes on Friday said she was going into self-isolation with suspected symptoms. Schallenberg also attended a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, but cabinet members wore masks, the spokeswoman said.
NEW ZEALAND
Whales stranded on beach
Rangers and volunteers were yesterday attempting to rescue 25 whales stranded on a beach on the North Island, the Department of Conservation said. A pod of about 40 whales was sighted swimming close to the shore in shallow muddy water early yesterday before some of them were stranded, the department said in a statement on its Facebook account. The rest remained offshore, but in shallow waters. “We appreciate the public’s concern but at this stage NO FURTHER HELP IS NEEDED,” it said. The next high tide was expected yesterday evening. The whales were stranded on a beach in the Coromandel Peninsula. Late last month, several hundred whales died in shallow waters off the Australian coast in one of the world’s biggest mass whale strandings.
AUSTRALIA
Man faces life for cocaine
A Sydney man faces life in prison after police intercepted cocaine worth A$248 million (US$175.61 million) concealed in frozen fruit products from Brazil. Federal Police and Border Force officers on Friday seized 552kg of the drug hidden in pallets of banana pulp and branded with koala pictures in Sydney. Police said that Mark De Hesselle collected 139 boxes of the pulp and removed the drugs. He has been charged with attempting to import a commercial quantity of border-controlled drugs and possessing a commercial quantity of unlawfully imported border-controlled drugs. Both offenses carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
INDIA
Mass vaccinations planned
India is identifying 300 million people who will receive the initial dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, the Times of India reported yesterday. Priority would be given to workers in high-risk sectors such as police, healthcare, sanitation, elderly people and those with co-morbidities, the report said, citing officials it did not identify. The shots, which would include a booster dose, are planned for the initial phase once a vaccine is approved for use, according to the report. The beneficiaries of the vaccine in the first phase would receive an estimated 600 million doses and the implementation plan aims to cover more than 23 percent of the population, the report said. India added 62,212 new cases, taking the total infections in the country to 7.43 million as of yesterday, government data shows.
NIGERIA
Forces clash in Borno
Soldiers fighting an insurgency in the restive north have clashed with the Islamic State group’s affiliate in the region, a security source said on Friday. The Islamic State West Africa Province said it had killed 30 soldiers on Thursday, in a statement that could not be independently verified. A security source said that there had been clashes near the village of Doksa, in the Borno State, where the army has launched fresh military operations.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion