JAPAN
Kobayashi raids continue
Health officials yesterday inspected a factory producing health supplements linked to at least five deaths and the hospitalization of more than 100 people, one day after the authorities investigated another plant that manufactured the product. A team of 17 health officials from the central and prefectural governments raided a plant operated by the Kobayashi Pharmaceutical Co’s subsidiary in Kinokawa, in western Wakayama Prefecture. The Wakayama plant took over the production of the supplements after Kobayashi Pharmaceutical closed another plant in nearby Osaka, which authorities searched on Saturday, NHK public television reported.
SYRIA
Car bomb kills eight
A bomb early yesterday exploded in a market in a northern city held by pro-Turkish forces. At least “eight people were killed and 23 others wounded” when “a car bomb exploded in the middle of a popular market” in Azaz, in Aleppo province, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, adding that the toll was provisional. The Britain-based Observatory, which has a network of sources inside the country, said the blast caused “significant damage” and sparked a fire.
EUROPEAN UNION
Schengen area expanded
Bulgaria and Romania yesterday joined Europe’s vast Schengen area of free movement, opening up travel by air and sea without border checks after a 13-year wait. However, a veto by Austria means the new status would not apply to land routes, after Vienna expressed concerns over a potential influx of asylum seekers. Despite the partial membership, the lifting of controls at the two countries’ air and sea borders is of significant symbolic value. Admission to Schengen is an “important milestone” for Bulgaria and Romania, symbolizing a “question of dignity, of belonging to the European Union,” foreign policy analyst Stefan Popescu said. “Any Romanian who had to walk down a lane separate from other European citizens felt being treated differently.”
PERU
President Boluarte raided
President Dina Boluarte on Saturday slammed raids on her home and office as “arbitrary, disproportionate and abusive” after authorities carried out overnight searches in a corruption probe centered on Rolex watches she has been wearing publicly. TV footage showed agents with a metal bar breaking down the door of Boluarte’s home. A lawyer for Boluarte said police found watches in her office at the government palace. “They did not take them away. They were noted and photographed. There were around 10, and among them were some nice ones but I cannot say if they were Rolex,” attorney Mateo Castaneda told radio station RPP.
UNITED STATES
Chance Perdomo dies at 27
Actor Chance Perdomo, who rose to fame as a star of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and Gen V, has died at the age of 27. “On behalf of the family and his representatives, it is with heavy hearts that we share the news of Chance Perdomo’s untimely passing as a result of a motorcycle accident,” a publicist said in a statement issued on Saturday evening. The statement said no one else was involved in the crash, and no details were immediately released. “We can’t quite wrap our heads around this. For those of us who knew him and worked with him, Chance was always charming and smiling, an enthusiastic force of nature,” the producers of Gen V 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