AUSTRALIA
Wong presses US on Assange
Minister of Foreign Affairs Penny Wong (黃英賢) yesterday said that the long-running case of imprisoned WikiLeaks frontman Julian Assange had gone on too long and needs to be completed. The Australian citizen being held in the UK is battling extradition to the US, where he is wanted on 18 charges over the release of confidential US military records and diplomatic cables in 2010. At a news conference in Brisbane after an Australia-US meeting, Wong said that Canberra had made it clear that “Mr Assange’s case has dragged for too long, and our desire that it be brought to a conclusion.” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he understood the views of Australians on the sensitive issue, but added that the leak had risked “very serious harm to our national security.”
IRAN
Editor banned over protests
Authorities have banned the editor-in-chief of reformist daily Etemad “from any press activity for a year” over coverage of last year’s nationwide protests, the newspaper reported yesterday. Behrooz Behzadi was “accused of publishing false content,” Etemad said, citing a decision by the prosecutor’s office following a complaint by a Tehran branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. The paper said the complaint was in relation to reports it had published which detailed the “kidnapping” land year of a scientist and “bans and arrests” of artists who backed the protest movement triggered by Mahsa Amini’s death.
SWEDEN
Refugee’s status probed
The Swedish Migration Agency late on Friday said it is re-examining the residency permit of an Iraqi refugee who is behind several Koran desecrations in Stockholm in the past few weeks, which have upset Muslims across the world. The man burnt a copy of the Koran last month outside of Stockholm’s central mosque and also held a demonstration in front of the Iraqi embassy this month where he said he would burn the holy book, but did not. The agency said it received information from authorities that have given it reason to examine whether his status should be revoked.
UNITED STATES
City complains over ‘X’ sign
The city of San Francisco has opened a complaint and launched an investigation into a giant “X” sign that was installed on Friday on top of the downtown building formerly known as Twitter headquarters as owner Elon Musk continues his rebrand of the social media platform. City officials say replacing letters or symbols on buildings, or erecting a sign on top of one, requires a permit for design and safety reasons. The X appeared after police stopped workers on Monday from removing the brand’s iconic bird and logo from the side of the building, saying they had not taped off the sidewalk to keep pedestrians safe if anything fell.
UNITED STATES
Man posts stabbing online
A man allegedly stabbed a woman to death in the San Francisco Bay Area on Wednesday and then posted a video of the slaying to Facebook, authorities said. The footage helped police track down the suspect, who was later identified as 39-year old Mark Mechikoff. He was arrested about 48km south of where the victim was found dead in a San Mateo apartment complex. “While the motive for stabbing the victim is still under investigation, we do know Mechikoff mercilessly filmed the last moments of the victim’s life and posted the video to Facebook, then fled the area,” San Mateo police said in a statement.
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday. A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll. Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre,
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant