NORWAY
US military aircraft missing
Authorities were on Friday searching for a US Marine Corps aircraft that went missing during a training exercise. The military said that the Marine Osprey was reported missing when it did not make a scheduled arrival in Bodo. The civilian Joint Rescue Coordination Centre Northern Norway launched a search and rescue operation. Later the military said that “discoveries were made from the air” south of Bodo, adding the “due to the weather conditions, it has not been possible to enter the site.” The Marine Corps confirmed the incident on Twitter, saying that its cause is under investigation. Norway said the aircraft was participating in NATO’s regular Cold Response exercise.
INDONESIA
86% have virus antibodies
Jakarta estimates that 86.6 percent of the country’s population has COVID-19 antibodies, even though only about half of them have been fully vaccinated against the virus. The government held a seroprevalence survey in November and December last year to assess whether it can open its borders ahead the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin said in a statement on Friday. About 99.1 percent of people who have had two vaccine doses had COVID-19 antibodies, compared with 73.9 percent for the unvaccinated.
EAST TIMOR
Presidential vote under way
Citizens were at the polls yesterday to elect a new president, hoping that the most competitive election in the history of Southeast Asia’s youngest country will end a protracted political impasse. Voters lined up outside polling stations at the crack of dawn to choose between a record 16 candidates led by what many in the country see as revolutionary heroes, President Francisco Guterres and former president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jose Ramos-Horta. “I hope the leader that I have voted for can pay more attention to the education, infrastructure and farming sectors. I am very happy that I’ve voted for a candidate based on my consciousness,” Filomena Tavares Maria, 35, said as she waited at a polling station.
MIDDLE EAST
States seek energy security
Government ministers from Germany and Japan are heading to the Middle East to safeguard their energy security after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine upended global supplies. German Minister of Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck and Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Yoshimasa Hayashi are set to hold separate meetings with officials in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates over the next several days. “The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine has put the issue of energy security at the center of international discussion,” Habeck said in a statement. Asian consumers are also grappling with tight energy markets. Hayashi is scheduled to visit the UAE today to meet with his counterpart as well as Emirati Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber. The small Persian Gulf nation provides about one-third of Japan’s oil imports.
COLOMBIA
Italian killed in shark attack
An Italian tourist died on Friday after being attacked by a shark off the coast of Colombia’s San Andres Island in the Caribbean Sea, local media reported. The 56-year-old man, identified by local media as Antonio Roseto Degli Abruzzi, was swimming near a cliff when he was bitten by the shark. The Teleislas channel said the unusual attack took place in an area with few swimmers, local media said.
PARLIAMENT CHAOS: Police forcibly removed Brazilian Deputy Glauber Braga after he called the legislation part of a ‘coup offensive’ and occupied the speaker’s chair Brazil’s lower house of Congress early yesterday approved a bill that could slash former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence for plotting a coup, after efforts by a lawmaker to disrupt the proceedings sparked chaos in parliament. Bolsonaro has been serving a 27-year term since last month after his conviction for a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 election. Lawmakers had been discussing a bill that would significantly reduce sentences for several crimes, including attempting a coup d’etat — opening up the prospect that Bolsonaro, 70, could have his sentence cut to
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
‘UNWAVERING ALLIANCE’: The US Department of State said that China’s actions during military drills with Russia were not conducive to regional peace and stability The US on Tuesday criticized China over alleged radar deployments against Japanese military aircraft during a training exercise last week, while Tokyo and Seoul yesterday scrambled jets after Chinese and Russian military aircraft conducted joint patrols near the two countries. The incidents came after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi triggered a dispute with Beijing last month with her remarks on how Tokyo might react to a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan. “China’s actions are not conducive to regional peace and stability,” a US Department of State spokesperson said late on Tuesday, referring to the radar incident. “The US-Japan alliance is stronger and more
FALLEN: The nine soldiers who were killed while carrying out combat and engineering tasks in Russia were given the title of Hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended a welcoming ceremony for an army engineering unit that had returned home after carrying out duties in Russia, North Korean state media KCNA reported on Saturday. In a speech carried by KCNA, Kim praised officers and soldiers of the 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) for “heroic” conduct and “mass heroism” in fulfilling orders issued by the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea during a 120-day overseas deployment. Video footage released by North Korea showed uniformed soldiers disembarking from an aircraft, Kim hugging a soldier seated in a wheelchair, and soldiers and officials
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