WEST BANK
Palestinian woman killed
A knife-wielding Palestinian woman threatened an Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank and was shot dead yesterday, the Israeli army said, an account that was disputed by Palestinian officials. “An assailant armed with a knife advanced toward an IDF [Israel Defense Force] soldier who was conducting routine security activity” near al-Aroub village, the army said in a statement. “The soldiers responded with live fire.” A hospital in the nearby Palestinian city of Hebron confirmed the woman’s death. The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned the killing as a “field execution.” The Palestinian Prisoners Club, an organization that monitors the welfare of Palestinians jailed by Israel, said the 31-year-old woman had been briefly jailed by Israel earlier this year. It did not elaborate.
JAPAN
Foreign minister gets COVID
Minister of Foreign Affairs Yoshimasa Hayashi has tested positive for COVID-19 and is recuperating at home, the ministry said yesterday. No close contacts have been identified at the ministry, it said in a statement. Hayashi developed a mild fever earlier, but his current symptoms are limited to a sore throat, a ministry official said. Kyodo News had earlier reported that Hayashi had canceled his appearance in parliament for the day after developing a fever.
CHINA
Russian airlines restricted
Beijing has barred Russian airlines from flying foreign-owned jetliners into its airspace, Russian news outlet RBK reported, after Russian President Vladimir Putin threw the jets’ ownership into doubt by allowing them to be re-registered in Russia to avoid seizure under sanctions over Moscow’s attack on Ukraine. The Civil Aviation Administration last month asked all foreign carriers to update ownership information and other details, RBK said. It said Russian airlines that could not provide documents showing their aircraft were “de-registered abroad” were barred from Chinese airspace. The agency did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation and details of the decision.
CHINA
Ex-CCP head expelled
A former top official of Jiangsu Province has been expelled from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with a rare accusation of fabricating economic data. Zhang Jinghua (張敬華), a former deputy chief of Jiangsu, was found to have “faked economic figures for personal promotion and meddled in market activities in violation of relevant rules,” the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said in a statement on Tuesday. It did not provide specifics of the accusation. Last week, the National Bureau of Statistics said lower-level officials in Hebei, Henan and Guizhou provinces had been punished for fabricating data on fixed-asset investment, retail sales and other areas.
INDIA
Police probe star’s death
Police yesterday said they were investigating the death of star Bollywood singer Krishnakumar Kunnath, popularly known as KK, who died at age 53 after a concert. KK died shortly after performing at a college festival in Kolkata on Tuesday evening, prompting a wave of tributes. He was rushed to hospital from his hotel at about 10:30pm, where doctors pronounced him dead. Aroop Biswas, a government minister in West Bengal, said KK had died of a “suspected cardiac arrest, but police said they were probing whether he died an “unnatural death,” with media reports saying there were injuries to his face and head.
AUSTRALIA
Formula talks under way
Canberra is in talks with the US to supply baby food, an Australian government spokesperson said yesterday, after US health regulators relaxed import policies to address a nationwide shortage. Makers of baby food globally are exploring opportunities of supplying to the US after the easing of import norms. Two million cans of formula from the UK are headed to US shores, while Bubs Australia struck a deal with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last week to supply 1.25 million cans. Several dairy firms in Australia and New Zealand, including the world’s biggest dairy exporter, Fonterra, were also in similar discussions with the FDA, reports said on Monday. “The Australian government will continue to work with the [US President Joe] Biden administration to confirm regulatory arrangements and facilitate exports of infant formula,” a spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment said in an e-mailed statement. “Australian Government agencies have been actively engaging with the Australian infant formula industry to help secure supply of infant formula to the US.”
NICARAGUA
Government closes groups
The government of President Daniel Ortega on Tuesday ordered the closure of 83 more civic groups and non-governmental organizations. The move brought to 200 the number of such closures this year and a total of 320 since protests against the Ortega administration began in 2018. The institutions closed include the Nicaraguan Academy of Letters, which was founded in 1928 and had included opposition writers such as Gioconda Belli and Sergio Ramirez. The congress, dominated by Ortega’s Sandinista party, voted 75-0, with 16 abstentions, to close the groups.
UNITED STATES
Bill Cosby trial opens
Bill Cosby again faces sex abuse allegations with attorneys yesterday to give opening statements in a civil trial that is one of the last remaining legal claims against the comedian. Lawyers for 64-year-old Judy Huth were to outline the evidence they plan to present that Cosby forced her to perform a sex act at the Playboy Mansion in 1975 when she was 16 years old. The case hinges on the testimony of Huth, bolstered by photographs and other archival exhibits to place the incident in time. Cosby’s attorneys, who say no sexual abuse happened, are likely to emphasize that the burden of proving the nearly 50-year-old case lies entirely with the plaintiffs. They have acknowledged that Cosby took Huth to the Playboy Mansion, as a photo from the visit shows, but say they believe she was not a minor when it happened.
UNITED STATES
Bison gores woman
A bison on Monday gored a 25-year-old woman in Yellowstone National Park. The bison was walking near a boardwalk at Black Sand Basin, just north of Old Faithful, when the woman approached it, the park said in a statement. She got within 3m before the animal gored her and tossed her into the air. The woman from Grove City, Ohio, sustained a puncture wound and other injuries. Park emergency medical providers responded and transported her via ambulance to a hospital in Idaho. Park officials said that it was the first reported bison goring this year. The park statement said bison are unpredictable, have injured more people in Yellowstone than any other animal and can run three times faster than humans. Park regulations require visitors to remain more than 23m from bison.
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
US President Donald Trump handed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a one-year exemption from sanctions for buying Russian oil and gas after the close right-wing allies held a chummy White House meeting on Friday. Trump slapped sanctions on Moscow’s two largest oil companies last month after losing patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to end the nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. However, while Trump has pushed other European countries to stop buying oil that he says funds Moscow’s war machine, Orban used his first trip to the White House since Trump’s return to power to push for
LANDMARK: After first meeting Trump in Riyadh in May, al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House today would be the first by a Syrian leader since the country’s independence Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the US on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency SANA reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted long-time former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House today. It is the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May. US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack earlier
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