HONG KONG
Man arrested for tribute
A man who paid tribute to Queen Elizabeth II near the British Consulate was on Monday arrested for alleged sedition. Police on Tuesday said the 43-year-old man was detained near the consulate, where dozens of people had gathered to remember the late monarch. Local media reports said the man had stood outside the consulate playing songs on a harmonica including Glory to Hong Kong, the anthem of democracy protests that rocked the territory in 2019. Video posted online showed the crowd singing along as he played. Police said the man was arrested for investigation on suspicion of “committing an act with seditious intent.”
ISRAEL
Murder suspect found dead
Police yesterday said they found the body of a Palestinian man suspected of killing an 84-year-old Israeli woman after an overnight search. Police said the body was found in Tel Aviv, hours after he was alleged to have struck and killed the woman in Holon. Police earlier said they were searching for Musa Sarsour, 28, from the West Bank city of Qalqilya. They were treating the death as an attack with nationalist motives, police said, and hundreds of officers fanned out to comb through the area. Yiftach District Police Chief Haim Bublil said Sarsour was found hung in central Tel Aviv, off a major shopping district, early yesterday. The woman was found unconscious on the side of a road on Tuesday afternoon and media reported that security camera footage showed the woman being struck from behind with a heavy object.
CARIBBEAN
Fiona upgraded to Category 4
The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) yesterday upgraded Hurricane Fiona to a Category 4 storm, as it continued its slow and devastating march northward after slamming the Turks and Caicos Islands on Tuesday and leaving a trail of destruction in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. The center said the storm had grown stronger, registering maximum wind speeds of 210kph as it barreled toward Bermuda. “Swells from Fiona are expected to reach Bermuda by early Thursday. The swells could cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions,” the NHC said in its latest advisory. At least five people have died as the storm churned across the region.
UNITED STATES
Pentagon reviews accounts
The Department of Defense has launched a review of its psychological warfare operations after the discovery of fake accounts on social media promoting pro-West disinformation, an official confirmed on Tuesday. Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder confirmed the review after a Washington Post report said Facebook and Twitter had shut down nearly 150 fake accounts suspecting they were created by the military. Ryder did not confirm or deny that the military was behind fake accounts, and said the information still needed to be reviewed. The Post cited a report last month by Graphika and the Stanford Internet Observatory on pro-Western covert influence operations, which said that Twitter and Facebook had removed accounts originating from the US and Britain in July and last month for engaging in “inauthentic behavior.” It said that Graphika and the observatory discovered an interconnected web of accounts on eight social media platforms that had been using “deceptive tactics” to promote pro-Western narratives in the Middle East and in Central Asia.
North Korea yesterday made a rare mention of dissenting votes in recent elections, although analysts dismissed it as an attempt to portray an image of a normal society rather than signaling any meaningful increase of rights in the authoritarian state. The reclusive country has one of the most highly controlled societies in the world, with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un accused of using a system of patronage and repression to retain absolute power. Reporting on the results of Sunday’s election for deputies to regional people’s assemblies, the North’s state media said that 0.09 percent and 0.13 percent voted against the selected candidates
‘SYMBOLIC ATTACK’: Ukraine said it downed 74 of the Iranian-made drones, but five people were wounded in Kyiv, as people marked Holodomor Remembrance Day Ukraine on Saturday said it had downed 74 out of 75 drones Russia launched at it overnight, in what it said was the biggest such attack since the start of the invasion in February last year. The Ukrainian army said Russia had launched a “record number” of Iranian-made Shahed drones, the majority of which targeted Kyiv, causing power cuts as temperatures dipped below freezing. The drone attack came as Ukraine marked Holodomor Remembrance Day, commemorating the 1930s starvation of millions in Ukraine under Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. “The enemy launched a record number of attack drones at Ukraine. The main direction
‘SCOURGE’: About 50,000 people demonstrated in Rome after the murder of a 22-year-old university student, while others highlighted the number of femicides in their nations Thousands of people took to the streets across the world on Saturday to condemn violence against women on the international day highlighting the crime. On the UN-designated International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, protesters marched in Europe and the Americas. “The scourge of gender-based violence continues to inflict pain and injustice on too many,” US President Joe Biden said in a statement. “An estimated one in three women globally will experience physical violence, rape, or stalking at some point in their lifetimes. It’s an outrage.” In Guatemala, protesters began commemorations on Friday evening, placing candles to write out 438 —
WEATHER PROBLEM: Seoul said the launch, which comes after the North said its new spy satellite is taking images of US military facilities, was rescheduled for Saturday South Korea has delayed the planned launch of its first military spy satellite set for tomorrow, officials said, days after rival North Korea said it had put its own spy satellite into orbit for the first time. Under a contract with SpaceX, South Korea is to launch five spy satellites by 2025, and its first launch using SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket had been scheduled to take place at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base in the US. The South Korean Ministry of National Defense yesterday said in a brief statement that the launch was delayed due to weather conditions. Ministry officials said the
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