ISRAEL
Possible attack probed
Defense officials were on Saturday checking whether Iranian forces were behind a possible attack on a cargo ship under partial Israeli ownership on its way from Jeddah to the United Arab Emirates, the country’s N12 Television News reported. The crew were not hurt and the ship, possibly hit by a missile, was not badly damaged and continued on its journey after the incident, N12 said, citing unnamed sources within the defense establishment. Lebanese pro-Iranian TV channel Al Mayadeen had reported the incident earlier. N12 said the vessel, the Tyndall, was owned by Zodiac Maritime Ltd, a London-headquartered international ship management company, which later said it did not own or manage the CSAV Tyndall.
HAITI
Six killed in plane crash
All six people on board a private plane, including two American missionaries, were killed when the aircraft crashed southwest of the capital, Port-au-Prince, according to media reports and a missionary group. The plane went down on Friday evening en route from an airport in Port-au-Prince to the southern coastal city of Jacmel, typically a short flight, the Miami Herald reported, citing a statement by the National Civil Aviation Office. The cause of the crash was not immediately known. The US-based organization Gospel to Haiti on Facebook said that two of its group members, Trent Hostelter, 35, and John Miller, 43, were killed in the crash. The identities of the other four passengers were not immediately released by officials.
SWITZERLAND
UN official to visit Iran
The deputy director-general of the UN’s nuclear watchdog is to travel to Iran next week, sources said on Saturday, against a backdrop of tension over curbs on the agency’s inspections there. Iranian Ambassador to the UN in Vienna Kazem Gharibabadi announced the visit on Twitter, adding that “the purpose of the visit is in line with routine safeguards activities in the context of the CSA,” referring to one of the agreements under which the International Atomic Energy Agency’s conducts its inspections. “We are in continuous contact,” he added, but there were no pre-planned talks in Tehran. A European diplomatic source confirmed the visit and said it was principally going to be a visit to the Natanz enrichment facility “to check that inspectors have access to the cascades” of centrifuges used for uranium enrichment.
UNITED STATES
Man charged over fireworks
A 27-year-old man was on Saturday charged with illegally transporting tonnes of explosives he purchased in Nevada — including several that left a trail of destruction and injuries after they blew up in a Los Angeles neighborhood on Wednesday. Seventeen people were hurt — including nine Los Angeles police officers and a federal agent — in the blast. Arturo Ceja III “made several trips to Nevada in late June to purchase various types of explosives — including aerial displays and large homemade fireworks containing explosive materials — that he transported to his residence in rental vans,” the Los Angeles Attorney’s Office said in a statement. Fireworks in California can be sold for as much as four times the price in Nevada, a complaint said. “Ceja told investigators that he bought homemade explosives ... from an individual selling the devices out of the trunk of a Honda,” it said.
DIPLOMATIC THAW: The Canadian prime minister’s China visit and improved Beijing-Ottawa ties raised lawyer Zhang Dongshuo’s hopes for a positive outcome in the retrial China has overturned the death sentence of Canadian Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian official said on Friday, in a possible sign of a diplomatic thaw as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks to boost trade ties with Beijing. Schellenberg’s lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo (張東碩), yesterday confirmed China’s Supreme People’s Court struck down the sentence. Schellenberg was detained on drug charges in 2014 before China-Canada ties nosedived following the 2018 arrest in Vancouver of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟). That arrest infuriated Beijing, which detained two Canadians — Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig — on espionage charges that Ottawa condemned as retaliatory. In January
Two medieval fortresses face each other across the Narva River separating Estonia from Russia on Europe’s eastern edge. Once a symbol of cooperation, the “Friendship Bridge” connecting the two snow-covered banks has been reinforced with rows of razor wire and “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank obstacles on the Estonian side. “The name is kind of ironic,” regional border chief Eerik Purgel said. Some fear the border town of more than 50,0000 people — a mixture of Estonians, Russians and people left stateless after the fall of the Soviet Union — could be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s next target. On the Estonian side of the bridge,
Jeremiah Kithinji had never touched a computer before he finished high school. A decade later, he is teaching robotics, and even took a team of rural Kenyans to the World Robotics Olympiad in Singapore. In a classroom in Laikipia County — a sparsely populated grasslands region of northern Kenya known for its rhinos and cheetahs — pupils are busy snapping together wheels, motors and sensors to assemble a robot. Guiding them is Kithinji, 27, who runs a string of robotics clubs in the area that have taken some of his pupils far beyond the rural landscapes outside. In November, he took a team
SHOW OF SUPPORT: The move showed that aggression toward Greenland is a question for Europe and Canada, and the consequences are global, not just Danish, experts said Canada and France, which adamantly oppose US President Donald Trump’s wish to control Greenland, were to open consulates in the Danish autonomous territory’s capital yesterday, in a strong show of support for the local government. Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has repeatedly insisted that Washington needs to control the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island for security reasons. Trump last month backed off his threats to seize Greenland after saying he had struck a “framework” deal with NATO chief Mark Rutte to ensure greater US influence. A US-Denmark-Greenland working group has been established to discuss ways to meet Washington’s security concerns
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