GREENLAND
US not getting island: PM
New Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen on Sunday pushed back against assertions by US President Donald Trump that Washington would take control of the territory. “President Trump says that the United States ‘will get Greenland.’ Let me be clear: The United States will not get it. We do not belong to anyone else. We decide our own future,” Nielsen wrote on Facebook. His post comes a day after Trump told NBC News that military force was not off the table with regard to acquiring Greenland. “I think there’s a good possibility that we could do it without military force,” Trump said, but added: “I don’t take anything off the table.” Greenland’s residents and politicians have reacted with anger to Trump’s repeated suggestions, with Danish leaders also pushing back.
UNITED STATES
Musk gives away millions
Billionaire Elon Musk on Sunday handed out million-dollar checks to two voters in Wisconsin and promised smaller payments to others who help elect a conservative candidate to the state’s top court in a closely watched election. The Tesla CEO, a top adviser to Trump, handed out oversized checks at a rally in Green Bay, as he sought to drum up enthusiasm for the state Supreme Court election. Musk said he would also pay supporters US$20 for every voter they recruit over the next two days. He said he was spending the money to raise awareness of a race in which liberal Susan Crawford seems to be running ahead of conservative Brad Schimel. Today’s contest would determine the ideological tilt of the state’s top court as it considers abortion rights, labor rights and possibly election rules. Wisconsin’s attorney general, Democrat Josh Kaul, sued to block the giveaway, but the state supreme court ruled it could go ahead, the Washington Post reported.
CHINA
Major oilfield discovered
China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) yesterday said it has discovered a major oilfield in the eastern South China Sea, with proven reserves exceeding 100 million tonnes. The Huizhou 19-6 oilfield lies about 170km from Shenzhen in Guangdong Province, Xinhua news agency said. Test drilling has yielded a daily production of 413 barrels of crude oil and 68,000 cubic meters of natural gas, CNOOC said. CEO Zhou Xinhuai (週心懷) hailed “successive breakthroughs in oil and gas exploration in the eastern waters of the South China Sea.” CNOOC “has discovered 100 million tonnes oilfields for two consecutive years, which creates a new growth pole for the continuous growth in offshore oil and gas production,” he added. The US Energy Information Administration says the South China Sea is mostly underexplored because of territorial disputes, but most discovered oil and gas are in uncontested areas.
JAPAN
Sukiya outlets shut down
Shares of Zensho Holdings Co yesterday fell as much as 6.5 percent after the operator of Japanese restaurant chains said it would temporarily close most of its Sukiya stores following multiple food contamination incidents. A pest was found in a product given to a customer on Friday, the company said on its Web site. The incident follows a case they had disclosed on March 22, in which a customer in January discovered a dead rodent in a bowl of miso soup. Sukiya, which operates about 2,000 branches across the nation, yesterday shuttered most of its outlets until Friday.
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
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