NORTH KOREA
Missile test confirmed
The government yesterday confirmed that it test fired a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time, a possible breakthrough in its efforts to acquire a more powerful, harder-to-detect weapon targeting the continental US. The official Korean Central News Agency issued the report a day after the country’s neighbors detected a launch of a long-range missile near Pyongyang. The country has test fired more than 100 missiles into the sea since the beginning of last year. Thursday’s test did not appear to demonstrate the weapon’s full capacity, and it remains unclear how far the country has come in mastering technologies to ensure the warhead would withstand atmospheric re-entry and accurately strike targets.
UNITED KINGDOM
Fighter jet budget allocated
The government yesterday said it had allocated more than US$800 million for the next phase of its fighter jet program with Japan and Italy. The three states in December last year agreed to join forces on the program to develop a next-generation fighter jet, Japan’s first major industrial defense collaboration beyond the US since World War II. “The next tranche of funding for future combat air will help fuse the combined technologies and expertise we have with our international partners — both in Europe and the Pacific — to deliver this world-leading fighter jet by 2035,” Minister of Defence Ben Wallace said.
HUNGARY
Migrants saved from truck
Police on Thursday found 17 migrants crammed into a closed space with no proper ventilation when they stopped a truck with Turkish license plates near the southern border. The migrants — 16 from Egypt and one from Libya — needed immediate medical care, police said, adding that only quick action following a tip-off from Romanian authorities had saved their lives. Police said they stopped the truck near the village of Kistelek and detained one human trafficking suspect, a Turkish national.
UNITED STATES
Abortion curb appeal planned
The Department of Justice on Thursday said it would go to the Supreme Court to appeal restrictions imposed on a widely used abortion pill in the latest round of a fierce battle over reproductive rights. The decision by President Joe Biden’s administration came hours after an appeals court rejected moves to ban mifepristone outright, but imposed a series of measures restricting access to the pill. As the justice department prepared an emergency filing with the Supreme Court, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a bill banning most abortions in the state after six weeks. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the bill passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature was “extreme and dangerous,” and “flies in the face of fundamental freedoms.”
UNITED STATES
Large haul of dimes stolen
Thieves in Philadelphia might not have been counting on finding a mountain of change when they broke into a truck filled with US$750,000 in US$0.10 coins, but they still made off with a chunk of the cargo and left coins scattered around a parking lot, authorities said. They apparently fled with at least US$100,000, authorities said, adding that it is not known how they carted off the mounds of dimes. The theft was reported at about 6am on Thursday. The tractor-trailer driver had picked up the dimes from the Philadelphia Mint on Wednesday, authorities said, adding that he was planning to transport them to Florida on Thursday.
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
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