JAPAN
Missile alert extended
The government yesterday extended its alert on ballistic missile defenses, despite North Korea’s deadline for launching a satellite having passed. The military put its ballistic missile defenses on alert last month and vowed to shoot down any projectile it deemed to threaten its territory, after North Korea said it planned to launch a satellite between May 31 and midnight on Saturday night. “Japan will keep its order regarding the ballistic missile defenses for the time being,” the Ministry of Defense said in a brief statement, without providing a reason.
CHINA
Hail destroys 7,000 hectares
Severe hailstorms on Saturday lashed a city in the northeast, affecting about 7,000 hectares of farmland and causing an estimated loss of 200 million yuan (US$28 million), state broadcaster CCTV reported yesterday. Hailstones swept Wafangdian in northeastern Liaoning Province, CCTV reported. A village on its outskirts received 48.1mm of rainfall in one hour, the highest in the province, the Liaoning Meteorological Service Center said. Heavy rains have battered crops in Henan Province over the past few days, where about one-third of the country’s wheat is grown, which might lead to rising grain imports.
COLOMBIA
Missing kids, family reunite
Exhausted but happy, four indigenous children who had been missing for more than a month in the Amazon rainforest were reunited with their relatives on Saturday. The siblings, who had been wandering alone in the jungle after surviving a plane crash that left their mother and two other adults dead, were discovered after an intense rescue operation involving sniffer dogs, helicopters and aircraft. Minister of National Defense Ivan Velasquez, who visited them in the hospital with President Gustavo Petro, said they are recovering, but cannot yet eat solid food. The youngest two children, now five and one, spent their birthdays in the jungle, as Lesly, the oldest at just 13 years old, guided them through the ordeal. “It is thanks to her, her courage and her leadership, that the three others were able to survive, with her care, her knowledge of the jungle,” Velasquez said. “They are happy to see the family ... they have all their senses,” the children’s grandfather Fidencio Valencia told reporters. “They are children of the bush,” Valencia said, adding that they know how to survive in the jungle.
UNITED STATES
Trump lashes out at charges
Former president Donald Trump on Saturday blasted his historic federal indictment as “ridiculous” and “baseless” during his first public appearances since the charges were unsealed, painting the 37 felony counts as an attack on his supporters as he tried to turn dire legal peril to political advantage and project a sense of normalcy. Speaking at Republican state conventions in Georgia and North Carolina, Trump cast his indictment by the Department of Justice as an attempt to damage his chances of returning to the White House as he campaigns for a second term. “They’ve launched one witch hunt after another to try and stop our movement, to thwart the will of the American people,” Trump alleged in Georgia, later telling the crowd: “In the end, they’re not coming after me. They’re coming after you.” Trump also vowed to remain in the presidential race, even if he is convicted in the case. “I’ll never leave,” he told Politico in an interview aboard his plane after his speech in Georgia.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
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