JAPAN
Typhoon kills one person
Typhoon Nanmadol yesterday brought ferocious winds and record rainfall to parts of the nation, killing at least one person, disrupting transport and forcing some manufacturers to suspend operations. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida delayed his departure to New York, where he is due to deliver a speech at the UN General Assembly, to tomorrow to monitor the impact of the storm, media reported. State broadcaster NHK said one man was killed when his car was submerged by a flooded river and firefighters were trying to determine if a man in his 40s was inside a hut that was buried by a landslide. At least 69 people were injured, it added. About 340,000 households, most of them in Kyushu, were without electricity early yesterday, the trade ministry said.
RUSSIA
Cosmonaut Polyakov dies
Valery Polyakov, the Soviet cosmonaut who set the record for the longest single stay in space, has died at age 80, space agency Roscosmos announced yesterday. Polyakov’s record of 437 days in space began on Jan. 8, 1994, when he and two others blasted off on a two-day flight to the Soviet space station Mir. While aboard Mir, he orbited the Earth more than 7,000 times, before returning on March 22, 1995. Upon landing, he declined to be carried out of the Soyuz capsule, as is common practice to allow readjustment to the pull of gravity. He was helped to climb out himself and he walked to a nearby transport vehicle. Polyakov had trained as a physician and wanted to demonstrate that the human body could endure extended periods in space.
SWITZERLAND
IS attacker gets nine years
A Swiss woman was yesterday given a nine-year jail term for slashing two people in the name of the Islamic State (IS) group, but her sentence was suspended so she can undergo psychiatric treatment. The criminal court judges found the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, guilty of two counts of attempted murder. She was also found guilty of terrorism-linked charges. The 29-year-old woman’s mental state has been at the heart of the trial at the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona, in the Italian-speaking Ticino region where the attack occurred. The attack, in which no one died, took place on Nov. 24, 2020, in the plush Manor department store in Lugano. The woman had suddenly lunged at two random women shopping at the store, attempting to slit their throats. One of the two victims suffered a serious neck injury, while the second sustained wounds on one hand and managed, with others, to control the assailant until the police arrived.
SOUTH KOREA
Stalker’s name revealed
Police yesterday unveiled the identity of a man accused of murdering a colleague ahead of a court ruling on whether he had stalked her, a case that sparked a public demand for tougher measures to stamp out such crimes. Jeon Joo-hwan, 31, was arrested on charges of murder over the stabbing death on Wednesday last week of a 28-year-old woman in a subway restroom while she was on duty, officials said. Both were employees of Seoul Metro, the operator of subway lines in the capital, though Jeon was relieved of his duties in October last year after police began investigating the stalking accusation. A court on Thursday last week had been set to decide on Jeon’s indictment for the stalking accusation, a police officer said, but that hearing has since been postponed to Thursday next week.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
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