HONG KONG
Cardinal meets Pope Francis
A 90-year-old Hong Kong cardinal who has criticized the Vatican’s dealings with China received a private audience with Pope Francis on Friday, the Jesuit-run America Magazine said. Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen (陳日君), one of Asia’s highest-ranking Catholics, is being investigated under Hong Kong’s National Security Law after his arrest last year over a fund that helped pro-democracy protesters. Zen was at the Holy See to attend the funeral of pope Benedict XVI, a trip that required special court permission. Zen has accused the Vatican in recent years of “selling out” China’s underground Catholic community after Pope Francis sought to improve ties with Beijing. Zen thanked Francis for appointing Jesuit Stephen Chow (周守仁) in 2021 to lead Hong Kong’s Catholic diocese, giving the city “a good bishop,” the magazine reported.
JAPAN
Bomb threat aborts flight
A Jetstar flight made an emergency landing at Chubu Centrair International Airport in central Japan yesterday due to a bomb threat, but no device was found, officials said. The runway at the airport was closed after the flight from Narita International Airport near Tokyo, bound for Fukuoka in southern Japan, landed at 7:41am, but resumed operations at 12:15pm after safety was confirmed, a spokesman said. Five people sustained minor injuries while evacuating from the plane, a Chubu airport official said. No explosives or other suspicious objects were found in a search of the cabin and luggage, the official said. The airport in Narita received a call from Germany saying in English that a 100kg plastic bomb was in the cargo compartment of the aircraft, NHK reported.
SOUTH SUDAN
Journalists held over footage
A journalists’ union on Friday said that six staffers with the national broadcaster were detained in connection with footage allegedly showing the country’s president urinating in his pants during an event. The South Sudan Broadcasting Corp footage aired last month and was widely shared online. It showed 71-year-old President Salva Kiir standing during the national anthem and then looking down at what appeared to be a spreading stain before the camera turned away. The Union of Journalists of South Sudan in a statement called for a expedited conclusion to the investigation into the staffers who it said are in the custody of the National Security Service. The staffers are suspected of having knowledge of how “a certain footage” was released, the statement said.
ARGENTINA
Turtles returned to ocean
Marine biologists in Argentina have returned to the ocean two green turtles that were rescued after they became entangled in fishing nets, with one of the pair of endangered creatures excreting plastic ingested from the sea. The turtles spent a month in animal rehabilitation at Fundacion Mundo Marino, where scientists helped them recover from ingesting the plastics. They were returned to the sea on the beaches of San Clemente. “We fed them algae and one of them began to defecate plastic. Luckily, it wasn’t too much. About 96 percent of the turtles that enter the center defecate plastic,” said Vanesa Traverso, a biologist at the foundation. The green sea turtles, classified as endangered, underwent blood tests and X-rays to check their digestive tracts and lungs. Previous turtles treated at the center had excreted up to 22g of garbage.
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday. A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll. Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre,
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant