NETHERLANDS
Minister to quit politics
Minister of Finance Sigrid Kaag yesterday said she would leave politics after the upcoming elections to relieve her family of the burden of threats made to her. “My work has been a heavy burden for my husband and my children,” Kaag said in an interview with the Trouw newspaper. “I’m not quitting because my security is an issue for me. But it is for them. I would like it for them if things would quieten down.” On a recent local TV program Kaag’s two daughters talked about their concerns for their mother because of threats made to her, causing the minister visible emotion when she was confronted with the recording. Kaag’s decision to leave comes three days after Prime Minister Mark Rutte unexpectedly announced he would quit politics once a new government is formed.
INDIA
Delhi faces water shortage
The Delhi government said supplies of drinking water would fall by one-quarter yesterday and today, because three treatment plants have been flooded, as the Yamuna River overflowed after incessant rain. Delhi’s river is at its highest level in 45 years after unusually heavy downpours in neighboring states like Haryana. The city of 20 million people also saw heavy rain over the weekend with flooding in low-lying communities that forced hundreds of people to seek shelter in relief camps. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal wrote on Twitter that the water level in the river could peak later yesterday and that people were being evacuated from flooded areas. Delhi has recorded 112 percent above-average rainfall, the Meteorological Department said.
NORTH KOREA
Kim has foldable phone
When North Korean leader Kim Jong-um guided the launch of his country’s newest and most powerful ballistic missile on Wednesday, a shiny gadget lay on his table: a foldable smartphone. Photographs released by Rodong Sinmun yesterday showed what looked like a silver foldable handset in black leather casing, strikingly similar to Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip devices or China’s Huawei Pocket S phones. The picture from the launch of the solid-fuel Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile instantly unleashed speculation about where the phone came from. “If the object in the photo is a foldable phone, it is highly likely that it was secretly smuggled to North Korea via China,” South Korea’s Joongang Ilbo newspaper reported. The nation is banned under UN sanctions from importing or exporting electronic devices.
SWEDEN
Extradition to Turkey blocked
The Supreme Court yesterday said it was blocking the extradition of two people wanted by Turkey for involvement in the so-called Gulen movement, a key demand by Ankara to ratify Stockholm’s NATO membership. The ruling comes days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced he was ready to allow Sweden to join the alliance. However, on Wednesday, Erdogan said Turkey would not be able to ratify Sweden’s NATO candidacy until at least October, when the Turkish parliament reopens after its summer break. The two cases concerned individuals wanted for being members of the Gulen movement, which Erdogan blamed for masterminding a bloody coup bid in July 2016. The court said the evidence provided by Turkey was that they had downloaded an app for encrypted communication used by members of a “terrorist” group. The court said downloading the app would not by itself be enough to convict someone of participating in a terrorist organization under Swedish law.
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
STICKING TO DEFENSE: Despite the screening of videos in which they appeared, one of the defendants said they had no memory of the event A court trying a Frenchman charged with drugging his wife and enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her screened videos of the abuse to the public on Friday, to challenge several codefendants who denied knowing she was unconscious during their actions. The judge in the southern city of Avignon had nine videos and several photographs of the abuse of Gisele Pelicot shown in the courtroom and an adjoining public chamber, involving seven of the 50 men accused alongside her husband. Present in the courtroom herself, Gisele Pelicot looked at her telephone during the hour and a half of screenings, while her ex-husband
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
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