SOLOMON ISLANDS
No China base planned: PM
Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare yesterday said he has assured Australia that his nation would not allow a Chinese military presence in its territory. The island nation has been at the center of a diplomatic tussle between the US, Australia and their allies on one side and an increasingly assertive China on the other. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese met Sogavare in Canberra on Thursday to smooth ties, after Sogavare in April signed a security pact with Beijing — a move that sparked fears of Chinese military presence in the region. “About China, this is a sensitive issue we discussed and I assured Australia when I met with Anthony Albanese yesterday that we will not allow such to happen,” Sogavare said.
HONG KONG
Russian superyacht anchors
A superyacht connected to Russian tycoon Alexey Mordashov has anchored in Hong Kong this week amid moves by Western governments to seize yachts connected to sanctioned Russian businesspeople. The megayacht Nord, worth more than US$500 million, arrived on Wednesday afternoon after traveling from Vladivostok, Russia, its last port of call. Mordashov is one of Russia’s richest billionaires, with an estimated wealth of more than US$18 billion. He was sanctioned by the US, the UK and the EU after Russia invaded Ukraine.
SOUTH KOREA
Rights groups rebuke Yoon
President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday said that eliminating the ministry set up to protect women would actually help them, drawing a rebuke from women’s groups, which said the plan would set back efforts to close one of the world’s worst gender gaps. “Abolishing the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family would be about bolstering the protection of women, children, families and the socially weak,” Yoon said. He implied that the ministry does not do enough to protect victims of sexual abuse. Yoon’s conservative government this week moved forward with plans to dissolve the ministry and fold many of its functions into the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
SYRIA
US raid kills senior insurgent
US forces on Thursday killed a “senior” member of the Islamic State (ISIS) group in a pre-dawn raid, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said. The operation is the latest US effort to clamp down on the group, which has been territorially defeated, but still orchestrates attacks in Syria and Iraq. US “forces conducted a raid in northeast Syria targeting a senior ISIS official,” CENTCOM spokesman Colonel Joe Buccino said. CENTCOM later said on Twitter that the raid had targeted “Rakkan Wahid al-Shammari, an ISIS official known to facilitate the smuggling of weapons and fighters.”
UNITED STATES
Marijuana convicts pardoned
President Joe Biden on Thursday pardoned thousands of Americans convicted of marijuana possession in a major new step toward destigmatizing the drug, and fulfilling a promise to his supporters a month before midterm elections. “I am announcing a pardon of all prior federal offenses of simple possession of marijuana,” Biden said. He did not call for fully decriminalizing cannabis, saying that “limitations on trafficking, marketing and underage sales should stay in place.” Instead, he homed in on individual possession of a substance that health authorities estimate was used by at least 18 percent of the population in 2019 — and that is already permitted by multiple states for recreational or medical purposes.
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
ICE DISPUTE: The Trump administration has sought to paint Good as a ‘domestic terrorist,’ insisting that the agent who fatally shot her was acting in self-defense Thousands of demonstrators chanting the name of the woman killed by a US federal agent in Minneapolis, Minnesota, took to the city’s streets on Saturday, amid widespread anger at use of force in the immigration crackdown of US President Donald Trump. Organizers said more than 1,000 events were planned across the US under the slogan “ICE, Out for Good” — referring to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is drawing growing opposition over its execution of Trump’s effort at mass deportations. The slogan is also a reference to Renee Good, the 37-year-old mother shot dead on Wednesday in her
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