THAILAND
Floods kill six
Floods in the south have killed at least six people and affected tens of thousands of households, authorities said yesterday. The floods, which began on Friday last week, have hit more than 70,000 homes across the provinces of Satun, Songkhla, Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, regional officials said. Six people including an 89-year-old woman and a toddler were killed in Narathiwat, province Deputy Governor Preecha Nualnoi said. Another person was still missing following days of intense rain, which sparked floodwaters that reached about 3m in height in some places, he said. Local media footage showed streets submerged by the muddy deluge and residents taking refuge on rooftops.
AUSTRALIA
Cocaine found on beaches
Police yesterday said that they were scouring beaches after mysterious packages believed to contain more than 120kg of cocaine washed up over the Christmas period. A first batch of 39 barnacle-encrusted, 1kg bricks of suspected cocaine was discovered on Friday last week near Magenta Beach, north of Sydney, police said. Since then, another 85 packages of the same size had been spotted along about 80km of the New South Wales coastline, state police said. Police urged people to report any suspicious packages, New South Wales Detective Chief Superintendent Jason Weinstein said in a statement. “Detectives and specialist police are currently combing beaches and coastlines for any outstanding packages and working behind the scenes to make sure we find and hold accountable those responsible,” said Weinstein, who is director of the state’s crime command.
CHINA
US labor reporter sanctioned
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday said it had sanctioned Kharon, a US firm founded by former US Department of the Treasury officials that provides data to companies on alleged forced labor in the Xinjiang region to help them comply with US laws. The foreign ministry said it would take “countermeasures” against Kharon and its director of investigations for providing “so-called evidence for America’s illegal sanctions related to Xinjiang.” The Los Angeles-based Kharon said it had no presence in China, so the action was “largely symbolic” and would not impact its operations or ability to service its clients. Kharon said companies depend on its forced labor data to comply with the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.
JAPAN
Fukushima ruling slashed
The Tokyo High Court on Tuesday ruled that only the operator of the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant had to pay damages to dozens of evacuees, relieving the government of responsibility. Plaintiffs criticized the ruling as belittling their suffering and the severity of the disaster. The court also slashed the amount to half of a lower court’s decision, ordering Tokyo Electric Power Co Holdings (TEPCO) to pay ¥23.5 million (US$164,882) to 44 of the 47 plaintiffs. The ruling backpedaled from an earlier decision in March 2018, when the Tokyo District Court held both the government and TEPCO accountable for the disaster, which the ruling said could have been prevented if they both took better precautionary measures, ordering both to pay ¥59 million in damages. Motomitsu Nakagawa, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said he was infuriated by the high court ruling, which he called a “copy and paste” of an earlier Supreme Court decision relieving the government of responsibility.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion