AUSTRALIA
New minister is ‘half hawk’
Newly appointed Minister for Defence Peter Dutton said that China’s Global Times is “half right” in describing him as a “hawk,” saying that he intends to work closely with the US and other allies in maintaining peace in the region. “We don’t support militarization of ports, we don’t support any foreign country trying to exert influence here via cyber or other means,” Dutton told Sky News in a televised interview yesterday, after being appointed defense minister in Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s Cabinet reshuffle last week. “Obviously China has held long-term ambitions in relation to Taiwan, and we want to make sure that there is peace in our region,” he said.
AUSTRALIA
Two stranded on car roof
Two Darwin residents were forced to spend nine hours on the roof of their car surrounded by crocodile-infested waters after their vehicle became stranded in floodwaters. Rescuers spent all of Saturday night attempting to rescue the pair after their Landcruiser became trapped when it tried to cross the Dingo Station river crossing west of Darwin at about 9pm. The water rose to the windows and caused the internal electrics to fail, leading the pair to seek safety on top of their car as they waited for rescue. A boat was finally able to reach the pair at about 6am yesterday.
INDONESIA
Seventeen fishers missing
Rescuers were searching for 17 missing fishers after two boats collided in waters off the coast of West Java, officials said yesterday. A fishing vessel on Saturday evening hit a larger cargo ship, flipping the wooden boat’s 32 crew members into the water, Bandung rescue agency spokeswoman Seni Wulandari said. “About 15 survivors have been evacuated to the cargo vessel, but the team is still searching for 17 other crew members who went missing,” Wulandari added. Those rescued sustained minor injuries from the accident and were taken to a nearby hospital, she added. The Habco Pioneer cargo vessel was sailing through the Port of Merak from Borneo when it was hit by the local fishing boat, Wulandari said.
HONG KONG
Record cocaine haul seized
Police announced a record 700kg cocaine seizure yesterday, saying that the shipment was likely smuggled on speedboats. The bust is the largest in nearly a decade and netted about HK$930 million (US$119.6 million) worth of cocaine. Authorities said that the collapse of global travel has forced smugglers to make riskier bulk shipments. Police said that a man with a trolley and 150 bricks of cocaine in cardboard boxes was intercepted on Friday, while another 492 bricks were found in an industrial building and an apartment, leading to the arrest of two men aged 19 and 25.
CHINA
Collision kills at least 11
At least 11 people were killed after a truck collided with a passenger bus in Jiangsu Province over a busy holiday weekend, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday. The truck drove through a barrier on a highway north of Shanghai and crashed into the bus at about 1am yesterday, Xinhua reported. As traffic piled up at the site of the crash, two other trucks were involved in a rear-end collision. Nineteen people were injured and hospitalized, Xinhua said. Media footage showed the passenger bus overturned amid debris from the barrier. Other early morning videos showed rescue vehicles and two cranes in action.
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