HONG KONG
Police stabbing yields arrests
Police yesterday said that they have arrested seven people for “assisting” a suspect in the stabbing of a police officer during a protest against new national security legislation on Wednesday last week. Authorities arrested five males and two females aged 24 to 71 on suspicion of offenses, including helping to arrange the suspect purchase an air ticket and transportation to the airport, police said at a news briefing. Police on Thursday last week arrested a 24-year-old man at the airport on suspicion of stabbing and wounding an officer during the demonstration, just hours after the new legislation was imposed.
KAZAKHSTAN
Super pneumonia ‘fake news’
The government yesterday dismissed as incorrect a warning by China’s embassy for its citizens to guard against an outbreak of pneumonia in the nation that it described as being more lethal than COVID-19. In a statement late on Thursday on WeChat, the Chinese embassy flagged a “significant increase” in cases in the Kazakh cities of Atyrau, Aktobe and Shymkent since mid-June. However, the Ministry of Healthcare branded Chinese media reports based on the embassy statement as “fake news.”
THAILAND
US’ ‘strategic vision’ inked
US Army Chief of Staff General James McConville yesterday met with Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha and Royal Thai Army Commander in Chief General Apirat Kongsompong, and signed a Strategic Vision Statement, a US embassy statement said, as Washington looks to reassure allies about its commitment to the region. The US has sought to counter China’s influence in Southeast Asia after having scaled back some military exchanges with Thailand after its 2014 military coup, when Bangkok began to forge closer ties with China.
INDIA
Australia welcomed to drills
The government plans to invite Australia to join the trilateral India-Japan-US Malabar naval exercises. The decision to include Australia in the drills — the first time that all members of the regional grouping known as the Quad would be engaged at a military level — comes as Beijing and New Delhi are caught up in their worst border tensions in four decades. The exercise would bring together the countries’ navies in the Bay of Bengal at the end of the year, said senior officials, on condition of anonymity. “The Quad has always been a security platform, but didn’t have a military context to it,” Observer Research Foundation distinguished fellow Rajeswari Pillai Rajagoplan said. “The Malabar exercises might give it just that thanks to China upping its ante and threatening the region’s security.”
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
LANDMARK: After first meeting Trump in Riyadh in May, al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House today would be the first by a Syrian leader since the country’s independence Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the US on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency SANA reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted long-time former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House today. It is the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May. US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack earlier
US President Donald Trump handed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a one-year exemption from sanctions for buying Russian oil and gas after the close right-wing allies held a chummy White House meeting on Friday. Trump slapped sanctions on Moscow’s two largest oil companies last month after losing patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to end the nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. However, while Trump has pushed other European countries to stop buying oil that he says funds Moscow’s war machine, Orban used his first trip to the White House since Trump’s return to power to push for
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