NEW ZEALAND
Space squadron announced
The air force would establish a small space squadron to signal its growing commitment to space-based defense and international security, a senior military official said yesterday. Air Vice Marshal Darryn Webb said that the air force had a team already focused on space, but creating a squadron symbolized its growing significance.
Photo: Reuters
NORTH KOREA
Kim observes test firings
Leader Kim Jong-un observed the first test firings of missiles from a recently launched destroyer — the nation’s first such warship — and called for accelerating efforts to boost the navy’s nuclear attack capabilities, the Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. Kim watched the tests of the destroyer’s supersonic and strategic cruise missiles, anti-aircraft missiles, automatic guns and electronic jamming guns earlier this week, it said.
Photo: Reuters
SOUTH KOREA
Yoon’s home raided
Prosecutors yesterday raided the home of former president Yoon Suk-yeol as part of a probe into a shaman accused of receiving lavish gifts for the former first lady, Yonhap reported. Yoon’s house was raided “as part of [an] investigation into various suspicions over relations between his family and a controversial shaman,” it reported. The shaman, Jeon Seong-bae, is accused of receiving a diamond necklace, a luxury bag and ginseng from a high-ranking official from the Unification Church and handing them to Yoon’s wife, Kim Keon-hee. Prosecutors were trying to “verify the authenticity of the alleged delivery of gifts” and find out whether the then-first lady ever received them, Yonhap added.
Photo: AFP
INDIA
Kolkata fire kills 14
A fire tore through a hotel in Kolkata, killing at least 14 people, police said yesterday. Senior police officer Manoj Kumar Verma told reporters that the fire broke out on Tuesday evening at the Rituraj Hotel in central Kolkata. The cause of the fire was not immediately clear. Photographs and videos carried in media showed people trying to escape through the windows and narrow ledges of the building. Kolkata’s the Telegraph newspaper reported that at least one person died when he jumped off a terrace trying to escape. Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote on X that he was “anguished” by the loss of lives in the fire.
Photo: Reuters
VATICAN CITY
‘No pope’ stamps released
Post offices and selected collectors’ shops this week started selling special stamps marking the period between Pope Francis’ death and the election of his successor. The so-called sede vacante stamps include an image used by the Vatican in official documents in periods between popes: two crossed keys, but no papal headgear. They went on sale on Monday and remain valid until a new Holy Father appears at the window of St Peter’s Basilica. Until then, they can be used to send letters, postcards and packages.
MEXICO
Mayoral candidate killed
Armed men killed Anuar Valencia, a mayoral candidate from the governing Morena party, on Tuesday, the first day of campaigning for municipal elections in Veracruz State. Valencia had just finished an event launching his campaign and was preparing to hit the streets when more than two dozen gunmen opened fire at his campaign headquarters in northern Veracruz. The Veracruz state prosecutors’ office wrote on X that five others were injured, including two minors.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
Filipino farmers like Romeo Wagayan have been left with little choice but to let their vegetables rot in the field rather than sell them at a loss, as rising oil prices linked to the Iran war drive up the cost of harvesting, labor and transport. “There’s nothing we can do,” said Wagayan, a 57-year old vegetable farmer in the northern Philippine province of Benguet. “If we harvest it, our losses only increase because of labor, transportation and packing costs. We don’t earn anything from it. That’s why we decided not to harvest at all,” he said. Soaring costs caused by the Middle East
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
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