GERMANY
Scholz issues pledge
Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday pledged not to ignore “controversies” during a high-stakes trip to China this week, which has sparked a storm of criticism. “We seek cooperation, when it is in the interest of both sides. We will not ignore controversies,” he wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper, ahead of his visit today together with a business delegation. Scholz listed “difficult topics” that he would raise, including respect for civil liberties, the rights of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang and free and fair world trade. He would be the first EU leader to visit China since late 2019.
BRAZIL
Bolsonaro urges calm
Outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday asked his supporters to “unblock the roads” and demonstrate elsewhere as they push for military intervention to keep him in power. The far-right leaders’ supporters are rallying in front of military installations in major cities and have blocked highways in more than half the country’s states. The demonstrators, unwilling to accept the results of Bolsonaro’s Sunday election defeat to leftist ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, have clogged roads and caused nationwide disruptions for three straight days.
BELGIUM
Meloni to meet EU leaders
Italy’s new far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was to meet EU chiefs in Brussels yesterday for the first time since her election, with the energy crisis expected to dominate the agenda. Meloni has vowed to put Italy’s interests first and the trip would be closely watched amid fears of turbulent relations ahead between the populist government in Rome and the bloc’s powerhouses. “Brussels should not do what Rome can do best,” Meloni was quoted as saying in a book to be published today, slamming “a Europe that is invasive in small things and absent in big matters.”
BAHRAIN
Francis aims to foster ties
Pope Francis, leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics, was yesterday to travel to the Persian Gulf state to foster ties with Islam in a voyage overshadowed by criticism of human rights abuses. The second voyage by a pope to the Arabian Peninsula after Francis’ 2019 trip to the United Arab Emirates is similarly aimed at encouraging interfaith dialogue between Muslims and Christians, and would include the pontiff leading a prayer for peace at a vast cathedral opened last year. Francis, 85, who would likely use a wheelchair due to recurring knee pain was to conduct a “courtesy visit” to King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa following a welcoming ceremony.
BELIZE
Storm causes flooding
Tropical Storm Lisa yesterday slowed after making landfall in the country, causing flooding and plunging parts of the nation into darkness as it churned westward. The US National Hurricane Center has downgraded Lisa from a hurricane to a tropical storm, saying that as of midnight the eye hovered about 135km outside of Belize City and was moving toward Guatemala and southeastern Mexico at 19kph. For the next day or so, the storm system is expected to pack a gusty punch and deliver heavy rain, swells and flash flooding to Central America’s northern coast and the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula, further weakening as it moves inland.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
RSS