NORTH KOREA
US, SK accused of spying
Pyongyang yesterday accused the US and South Korea of conducting more aerial espionage around the Korean Peninsula, saying it would take “immediate action” if its sovereignty was breached. The US has deployed dozens of military planes “in air espionage against the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] from May 13 to 24,” Vice Minister of Defense Kim Kang-il said in a statement, referring to his country by its official name. The espionage activities observed over the 12-day time frame were “at a level beyond the wartime situation,” he said in the statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. He also lashed out at the South Korean navy for what he called “enemy intrusion across our maritime border.”
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Landslide death toll spikes
The UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) yesterday increased its estimate of the death toll from a massive landslide to more than 670. Serhan Aktoprak, chief of the IOM Mission in Papua New Guinea, said the revised death toll was based on calculations by Yambali village and Enga provincial officials that more than 150 homes had been buried by Friday’s landslide. “They are estimating that more than 670 people [are] under the soil at the moment,” Aktoprak said.
BANGLADESH
Thousands flee cyclone
Tens of thousands of people yesterday left their coastal villages for concrete storm shelters further inland as the low-lying nation prepared for the expected landfall of an intense cyclone, officials said. Cyclone Remal is set to hit the country and parts of neighboring India between 6pm and midnight, with the Meteorological Department predicting crashing waves and howling gales with gusts of up to 130kph. “Our plan is to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people from unsafe and vulnerable homes to the cyclone shelters,” Secretary of the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief Kamrul Hasan said.
THE NETHERLANDS
Nicki Minaj detained
A concert by US rapper Nicki Minaj in England was called off at the last minute on Saturday night, after the superstar was detained at Amsterdam’s main airport on suspicion of possessing “soft drugs.” The artist was due to perform in Manchester on Saturday, but wrote on X that authorities “said they found weed” in her luggage before briefly taking her into custody. Minaj said the “pre-rolls” belonged to her security guard and that her bags had been searched “without consent.” Police said that they had detained a 41-year-old American woman on suspicion of trying to export soft drugs. Military police spokesman Robert Kapel later said that the suspect had been released after the payment of a “reasonable” fine. Transporting drugs from the Netherlands to another country is illegal.
UNITED STATES
Richard Sherman dies
Richard Sherman, 95, a man behind famed Disney songs that delighted generations, such as It’s a Small World (After all) and Mary Poppins’ songs Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, Chim Chim Cher-ee and Spoon full of Sugar died on Saturday, the Walt Disney Co announced on its Web site. He passed at a Beverly Hills California, hospital. The cause was only listed as an “age-related illness,” a Disney obituary said. Sherman was one half of the famed songwriting team “the Sherman Brothers” along with his late brother Robert Sherman, and was regarded as part of Walt Disney’s inner creative circle.
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
Former Chinese ministers of national defense Wei Fenghe(魏鳳和) and Li Shangfu (李尚福) were both sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve over graft charges, state news agency Xinhua reported on Thursday, underscoring the severity of the purge in the military. The armed forces have been one of the main targets of a broad corruption crackdown ordered by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) after coming to power in 2012. The purges reached the elite Rocket Force, which oversees nuclear weapons as well as conventional missiles, in 2023. Earlier this year they escalated further, resulting in the removal of the top general in
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
IN PROTECTION: Video released by the Senate showed Ronald dela Rosa being chased through the halls of the upper chamber, pursued by National Bureau of Investigation officers Philippine authorities on Monday said that they would not arrest for now a lawmaker wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his alleged role in former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war, capping a lengthy Senate standoff. Philippine Senator Ronald dela Rosa, who served as police chief and Duterte’s top enforcer during the bloody drug crackdown, would be treated as if in the custody of the Senate, National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Director Melvin Matibag told reporters after the politician had taken refuge in the legislative building. “We respect that they are a co-equal branch,” Matibag said after the Senate refused
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