SOUTH KOREA
Five trapped in collapse
Five people yesterday remain trapped after the collapse of a large structure at a power station in Ulsan, a fire official said, although four others were pulled from the rubble. Footage from the scene showed a massive steel structure mangled and toppled over in the southeastern city surrounded by similar structures. A fire official, Kim Jung-shik, told reporters that workers were in the process of taking down parts of the structure, a decommissioned heating facility, to prepare it for demolition in about 10 days when the accident occurred. Two people were quickly rescued and then two others were pulled from the rubble, Kim said. A rescue operation was ongoing, he added.
Photo: AFP / ULSAN FIRE DEPARTMENT via Yonhap
SOUTH AFRICA
Fighters in Ukraine seek help
The government has received pleas from 17 citizens, aged 20 to 39, who had joined mercenary forces fighting in Ukraine’s war-ravaged Donbas region to help bring them home, the presidency said in a statement yesterday. It did not make clear for which side the men were fighting. The men were “lured to join mercenary forces involved in the Ukraine-Russia war under the pretext of lucrative employment contracts,” it said. President Cyril Ramaphosa has ordered an investigation into the recruitment of South African men as mercenaries, the presidency said. It is illegal for South Africans to join foreign armies unless authorized by the government.
UNITED STATES
Trump talks Jimmy Lai with Xi
President Donald Trump appealed directly to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to free jailed Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai (黎智英) when the two leaders met in South Korea last week, according to three people briefed on the talks and a US administration official. Trump did not discuss a specific deal to free Lai, but spoke more broadly about concerns surrounding the 77-year-old publishing mogul’s health and well-being after his lengthy trial on national security charges, one of the people said. Trump spent less than five minutes discussing the issue, the person added. “It was raised by Trump and noted by Xi,” one of the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity. That person said Trump suggested that Lai’s release would be good for US-China relations and beneficial for China’s image. Trump’s direct intervention comes as Lai awaits a verdict after a trial widely seen as a symbol of China’s crackdown on rights and freedoms in the territory. Lai, who founded the now-shuttered pro-democracy Apple Daily, has pleaded not guilty to two charges of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces, and a charge of conspiracy to publish seditious material.
FRANCE
Man finds gold in yard
A man earlier this year discovered US$800,000 of gold treasure while digging a swimming pool in his yard, local officials have said. The man informed the local authorities after he made the discovery in May, and they allowed him to keep the gold as it did not come from an archeological site, the council in the eastern town of Neuville-sur-Saone said on Wednesday. He found “five gold bars and many coins” buried in plastic bags, local daily Le Progres reported. Police found the gold had been acquired legally and had been melted down some “15 or 20 years ago” at a nearby refinery, it said. The previous owner of the garden has died, the town hall said, and how the gold ended up there remains a mystery.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A retired US colonel behind a privately financed rocket launch site in the Dominican Republic sees the project as a response to China’s dominance of the space race in Latin America. Florida-based Launch on Demand is slated to begin building a US$600 million facility in a remote region near the border with Haiti late this year. The project is designed to meet surging demand for the heavy-lift rockets needed to put clusters of satellites into orbit. It is also an answer to China’s growing presence in the region, said CEO Burton Catledge, a former commander of the US Air Force’s 45th Operations
Germany is considering Australia’s Ghost Bat robot fighter as it looks to select a combat drone to modernize its air force, German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said yesterday. Germany has said it wants to field hundreds of uncrewed fighter jets by 2029, and would make a decision soon as it considers a range of German, European and US projects developing so-called “collaborative combat aircraft.” Australia has said it will integrate the Ghost Bat, jointly developed by Boeing Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force, into its military after a successful weapons test last year. After inspecting the Ghost Bat in Queensland yesterday,
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RSS