TURKEY
Iran, Arab League talk
Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi arrived in Istanbul yesterday for a meeting with Arab League diplomats to discuss Tehran’s escalating conflict with Israel, Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported. About 40 diplomats were slated to join the weekend gathering of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, as Israel and Iran continue to exchange missile strikes. “The Foreign Minister arrived in Istanbul this morning to participate in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation Foreign Ministers’ meeting,” Tasnim reported. It comes after Araghchi met with his counterparts from the UK, France and Germany in Geneva on Friday.
Photo: AFP
LEBANON
IDF says it struck Hezbollah
Israel’s military yesterday said its navy hit a Hezbollah “infrastructure site” near the southern Lebanese city of Naqoura, a day after Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Saar warned the Lebanese armed group against entering the Iran-Israel war. “Overnight, an Israeli Navy vessel struck a Hezbollah ‘Radwan Force’ terrorist infrastructure site in the area of Naqoura in southern Lebanon,” the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) said in a statement. The site was used by Hezbollah “to advance terror attacks against Israeli civilians,” it said. In a separate statement yesterday, the IDF said it had “struck and eliminated” a Hezbollah militant in south Lebanon the previous day, despite an ongoing ceasefire between both sides. The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health on Friday said that one person was killed in a “strike carried out by an Israeli enemy drone on a motorcycle” in the same south Lebanon village.
South korea
Suga completes service
K-pop group BTS member Suga was discharged from the South Korean military yesterday, the seventh and final member to complete the country’s mandatory national service. Suga finished his military tenure as a social service agent yesterday with little fanfare as fans looked forward to his reunion with the rest of the band, a K-pop sensation since it was founded in 2013. Unlike with his BTS bandmates, there was no public event planned to mark Suga’s release because of overcrowding concerns. The seven members of the group put their global music careers on hold in 2022 to begin their military service, starting with Jin in December that year. The group is expected to hold its largest-ever world tour next year, an NH Securities entertainment analyst said in a report.
india
Yoga day celebrated
Tens of thousands of people across India stretched in public parks and on sandy beaches yesterday to mark the 11th International Day of Yoga. The mass yoga sessions were held in many Indian states. Indian military personnel also performed yoga in the icy heights of Siachen Glacier in the Himalayas and on naval ships anchored in the Bay of Bengal. Similar sessions were planned in countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia. Yoga is one of India’s most successful cultural exports after Bollywood. It has also been enlisted for diplomacy by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has harnessed it for cultural soft power as the country takes on a larger role in world affairs. Modi persuaded the UN to designate the annual International Day of Yoga in 2014. The theme this year was “Yoga for One Earth, One Health.” Modi performed yoga among a seaside crowd in the southern city of Visakhapatnam. “Yoga leads us on a journey toward oneness with the world,” he said.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
RSS